KEF Blade Two Meta Review

[Nuyes]

KEF’s high-end flagship — the Blade Two Meta.
Due to its price, significant weight, and unusually shaped cabinet, I was unable to measure deviation between 2 samples and vertical directivity. I appreciate your understanding.





Impedance

Frequency Response

Across the full audible range, the response is exceptionally flat.
The -6 dB low-end extension reaches down to about 33.6 Hz.
Although the low-frequency roll-off is fairly steep, the usable bandwidth is still more than sufficient.



Nearfield Measurements

Multiple components work in harmony to create something truly cohesive here.
The port shows no signs of pipe resonance, and the woofers exhibit an incredibly clean response.
This is engineering refinement at its finest.





Directivity

Impressive.
As always, KEF’s mastery of directivity control shines through.
It’s simply beautiful.





Beamwidth

The beamwidth begins a smooth, graceful narrowing from around 800 Hz upward, showing excellent control across the range.





Polar Plot

Due to the speaker’s design and limitations of the time-window measurement method, a measurement artifact appears around 200 Hz on-axis (black line).

Once that’s excluded, the radiation pattern from 1 kHz up into the treble converges beautifully into near-perfect circles. It’s stunning.




THD

Even down to the 50 Hz region, total harmonic distortion remains around the 0.5% range.
Yes—50 Hz. That’s remarkable.

Even at 96 dB SPL@1m output, the performance in the sub-bass remains impressively clean.
Truly outstanding.




Multitone Test

This is what true scale and engineering prowess look like.
The speaker asserts its dominance with ease.

The distortion was already so low to begin with that even at higher output levels, the increase in distortion is negligible.
Stellar performance.



Compression Test

Within the test bandwidth, the compression results are practically flat — almost error-level behavior.
Utterly powerful.




Final Thoughts
Blade Two Meta doesn’t compromise between stunning design and top-tier performance.
In any reasonably sized listening room, I believe it will deliver exceptional results — no matter where you place it.

 

[Blockader]

Thanks a lot, would you mind sharing the spinorama too?

 

[Nuyes]

Thanks a lot, would you mind sharing the spinorama too?

Apologies, as noted in the review, I wasn’t able to measure vertical directivity due to some limitations.
Because of that, I can’t provide a complete CEA-2034 (Spinorama) plot this time.

 

[staticV3]

Thank you @Nuyes! Always good to have compounding data from multiple sources.

Full spin data is available here: https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/loudspeakers/kef_blade2_meta/

 

[Multicore]

What an interesting combination in this pair of new reviews from @Nuyes A) KEF Blade Two Meta, and B) AIYIMA S600. Thank you.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi

A few things come to mind:
OMG
Holy Sh&%t

and

This is the kind of superlative engineering we (should) yearn for at ASR keep in mind, the MSRP in the US is around $28K
A truly marvelous design
WOW...

Wouldn't mind a pair of used Non Meta Blade 2, right this minute in my system... Of course with multiple subwoofers...

end game.

... deep breath...

Taking a cheap shot (warranted however )
...
OTOH one dear fellow ASR member, keeps harping about BS products such the Bor-TK-1, that costs TWICE for performance that likely, can be surpassed by a Kef Q 150 ...

Take you time dear friend, Save and get yourself some Kef, while waiting for the right time to go for an aluminum Genelec... or a used Blade 2 non-Meta.

Best.

 

[Ciobi69]

best speaker i ever had, they can get loud , the directivity is marvelous, i can move in the listening position and the sound is very cohesive, and they are stunning!

 

[Grotti]

Even if I would seriously consider buying a pair I would have no possibility to place such a big speaker..But it is good to know who offers the benchmark right now.

Thank you very much for your efforts: highly appreciated!

 

[RobL]

Reviewing your test of the 8361A, it compares pretty favourably with the Blade 2 Meta. Do you have any subjective impressions between the two?

 

[Multicore]

In this graph (and the one for 85 dB SPL), what explains the wiggles in the fundamental signal output?

For example at 95 Hz the fundamental is at 86 dB and goes up to 101 dB at around 110 Hz, a 15 dB increase. Assuming the test gear regulates the total output to constant 95 dB SPL I guess the energy not in the fundamental at 95 Hz is in other frequencies, mostly harmonics I'd guess. But the THD products output at 95 Hz is about 5 dB more than at 110 Hz. Where did the rest go?

I get that the takeaway here is that distortion is low, a good thing. It's just that the wiggles caught my eye and I'm not sure I understand them.

 

[Multicore]

Room acoustics I'm pretty sure

Does that mean my assumption about the test regulating the SPL to 95 dB in the given test space is wrong?

 

[Curvature]

Quality work as usual. This speaker is much larger than the others you have measured. Did you have to adjust your technique or method?

 

[wgb113]

I’ve got a line on a demo pair, looking forward to how they compare to my non-Meta Reference 3. I’ll be running them with dual subs and helping tame the bass with Anthem’s ARC.

 

[Chagall]

I’ve got a line on a demo pair, looking forward to how they compare to my non-Meta Reference 3. I’ll be running them with dual subs and helping tame the bass with Anthem’s ARC.

You lucky, lucky... person!

 

[Nuyes]

In this graph (and the one for 85 dB SPL), what explains the wiggles in the fundamental signal output?

For example at 95 Hz the fundamental is at 86 dB and goes up to 101 dB at around 110 Hz, a 15 dB increase. Assuming the test gear regulates the total output to constant 95 dB SPL I guess the energy not in the fundamental at 95 Hz is in other frequencies, mostly harmonics I'd guess. But the THD products output at 95 Hz is about 5 dB more than at 110 Hz. Where did the rest go?

I get that the takeaway here is that distortion is low, a good thing. It's just that the wiggles caught my eye and I'm not sure I understand them.

Hi there, I thought it might be helpful to add a bit of context regarding my measurement setup.
I don’t have access to an anechoic chamber or a system like Klippel NFS, so my low-frequency measurements are inevitably affected by room modes and various reflections.

To address this, I provide two types of supplementary THD plots in my reviews:

CHD – This is calculated as the percentage of THD based on the average SPL between 200 Hz and 10 kHz.

EHID – This method normalizes the transfer function of the speaker, microphone, and room to calculate THD%. It can produce quite accurate results as long as the speaker doesn’t begin rolling off within the measured band. If there is roll-off, however, the data can be inflated. That’s why I provide different frequency ranges depending on the speaker’s response.

This approach is based on one of the measurement methods outlined in IEC 60268.

 

[Nuyes]

Quality work as usual. This speaker is much larger than the others you have measured. Did you have to adjust your technique or method?

I didn’t adjust the measurement method for this review — everything was done exactly the same as usual, except I skipped vertical directivity.
(To measure that properly, I’d have to lay this speaker on its side... which just isn’t happening with this one. )

 

[Nuyes]

Reviewing your test of the 8361A, it compares pretty favourably with the Blade 2 Meta. Do you have any subjective impressions between the two?

Unfortunately, it’s been quite a while since I last heard the Genelec 8361, so it’s hard for me to make a fair comparison with this speaker.
All I really remember is that it was also seriously heavy…

 

[kemmler3D]

Awesome review, thanks for sharing!! Definitely on the list to consider when I finally win the lottery...

 

[DMill]

How can you not want these? Price is about the only thing holding me back.

 

[Matias]

Nice review!

Full spinorama at Erin's.

KEF Blade 2 Meta Speaker Review

KEF Blade 2 Meta Speaker

www.erinsaudiocorner.com