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KEF Ci200RR-THX In-ceiling/In-Wall Speaker Review

Rate this speaker:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 29 18.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 79 50.6%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 46 29.5%

  • Total voters
    156

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling/in-wall speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $999.99.
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker atmos review.jpg

Speaker has a luxurious feeling rubberized paint outside of the driver. Alas, as you see, it is a dust magnet. Fortunately you would cover the whole thing with a grill anyway. The design is coaxial with tweeter in the middle as you would expect from KEF. Unlike many in-ceiling speakers we have tested the drivers are not angled and hence the reason company says you could even use them for side and surround channels in home theater environment.

There is good bit of weight to the unit although not the heaviest I have tested. Here are the specs:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker atmos specs.png


Here is the back side:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker atmos back side driver review.jpg


And a peak at the crossover:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker atmos crossover review.jpg


Speaker was measured using a special mode of Klippel Near-field Scanner where you mount the speaker to a baffle and through clever signal processing, the sound from backside and edges of the baffle are filtered out. Result is anechoic response of the speaker. The reference point was naturally center of the tweeter.

KEF Ci200RR-THX Speaker Measurement
Since this is a "normal" speaker design, we can start with our standard frequency response measurements:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker frequency response measurement.png


As much as this looks a ton better than any in-ceiling speaker we have tested at 0 degrees, I was still dismayed a bit with the three or so humps. Fortunately if you use this for Front and Back Atmos height channel, you would be experiencing at an angle that actually measures better:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker off axis frequency response measurement.png

Assuming you mount this speaker on a wall, here is our standard early reflections and predicted in-room responses:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker Early Window frequency response measurement.png


KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker Predicted in-room frequency response measurement.png


The coaxial driver delivers as far as excellent directivity:

KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker horizontal beam width response measurement.png

KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker horizontal directivity measurement.png

KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker vertical directivity measurement.png


As noted, don't go past 50 degrees as then you will have a shortfall above 7 kHz (blue region).

Bass impedance is decently above 4 ohm which is good:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker impedance and phase response measurement.png


There is a minimum around 7 kHz which should not be an issue as there is not a ton of spectrum out there but even if there is, amps should be able to handle that.

I was very happy to see the low distortion measurements:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker THD response measurement.png

KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker relative THD response measurement.png


Finally, here are the waterfall and step responses:
KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker CSD waterfall response measurement.png


KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling coaxial speaker Step response measurement.png


Conclusions
Most of the market of in-ceiling speakers has dual driver with the tweeter blocking the woofer. This causes reflections and comb filtering. Angling the driver as is often done, focuses the highs toward the listener (hopefully) but then severely compromises off-axis response. The KEF Ci200RR-THX solves both of these problems by putting the tweeter at the center of the woofer and thereby giving us excellent directivity to position the speaker as we see fit. Response could have been flatter but all of these home theater systems have EQ enabled so that should be a solvable problem. The only negative is the high cost at $1000.

I am going to add the KEF Ci200RR-THX to my recommended list. It is the only proper way to build a ceiling speaker in my opinion especially for height channels.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
 

GXAlan

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Beershaun

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While this is pricey, it would give you audiophile quality with wide directivity in a very discreet package allowing you to enjoy the music no matter where you and your guests are standing in the room. Putting these in ceiling or surround would make for an excellent whole home system if you have the means.
 

Remlab

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Damn, that's a big tweeter! At first I thought it was a typical Kef 5 1/4 with a one inch tweeter.
 

robwpdx

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Thank you for a review considering the new ATMOS world.

With speakers of this type, how does the standardized measurement translate to the wall/ceiling as the cabinet? Semi-sealed box? Ceiling to attic as the box? There must be technical papers and industry studies.

(It does not apply to my 100 year old lath and plaster walls because I'm not doing in-wall or in-ceiling speakers)
 

Mad_Economist

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Been eagerly anticipating this one - I've been telling folks to go with a truly coaxial design for ceiling/wall speakers for a while now. It ain't that a frontal tweeter can't work - e.g. Geithain - but it's surely easier to get a better result with something like KEF's coaxials.
 

AndreaT

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Nice wide directivity thanks to diffraction lens and flared horn, I guess. It is also relatively flat and without deep dips in the spoken language fr interval, so possibly a better speaker than others for movies.
Thank you Amir for a very nice review.
 

jhaider

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The coaxial driver delivers as far as excellent directivity:

View attachment 282670
View attachment 282671
View attachment 282672

To me, the most impressive thing about this coax (which may differ in details, but in geometry is substantially similar to the coax from their old Q900, and appears to be built on the same cast frame - I mention that because I ran nearfield speakers using (Q900 drivers for a while, and thought they were very good. I only swapped them out because the size of them wore on me) is how broad the HF dispersion is despite the tweeter being a massive thing.

However, I wish KEF had used a proper ceiling baffle for these. Andrew Jones got the approach to an 8" 2-way ceiling coax right with his old (ca. 2008) Pioneer Elite model:
Pioneer Elite 8 In-Ceiling CST

Maybe for an Atmos layout, where the height speakers are basically on top of you, firing straight down is fine. For a hybrid Atmos/Auro layout, where the ceiling speakers are pushed towards the front and rear walls such that they maintain compatibility with the elevation angles for both immersive layouts, downwards firing just does not work very well. So even if angled-baffle ceiling speakers look like poor designs when evaluated using conventional speaker measurement techniques, IMO they work better in real world use.
 

JDS

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the KEF Ci200RR-THX in-ceiling/in-wall speaker. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $999.99.
View attachment 282661
Speaker has a luxurious feeling rubberized paint outside of the driver. Alas, as you see, it is a dust magnet. Fortunately you would cover the whole thing with a grill anyway. The design is coaxial with tweeter in the middle as you would expect from KEF. Unlike many in-ceiling speakers we have tested the drivers are not angled and hence the reason company says you could even use them for side and surround channels in home theater environment.

There is good bit of weight to the unit although not the heaviest I have tested. Here are the specs:
View attachment 282662

Here is the back side:
View attachment 282663

And a peak at the crossover:
View attachment 282664

Speaker was measured using a special mode of Klippel Near-field Scanner where you mount the speaker to a baffle and through clever signal processing, the sound from backside and edges of the baffle are filtered out. Result is anechoic response of the speaker. The reference point was naturally center of the tweeter.

KEF Ci200RR-THX Speaker Measurement
Since this is a "normal" speaker design, we can start with our standard frequency response measurements:
View attachment 282665

As much as this looks a ton better than any in-ceiling speaker we have tested at 0 degrees, I was still dismayed a bit with the three or so humps. Fortunately if you use this for Front and Back Atmos height channel, you would be experiencing at an angle that actually measures better:
View attachment 282667
Assuming you mount this speaker on a wall, here is our standard early reflections and predicted in-room responses:
View attachment 282668

View attachment 282669

The coaxial driver delivers as far as excellent directivity:

View attachment 282670
View attachment 282671
View attachment 282672

As noted, don't go past 50 degrees as then you will have a shortfall above 7 kHz (blue region).

Bass impedance is decently above 4 ohm which is good:
View attachment 282673

There is a minimum around 7 kHz which should not be an issue as there is not a ton of spectrum out there but even if there is, amps should be able to handle that.

I was very happy to see the low distortion measurements:
View attachment 282674
View attachment 282675

Finally, here are the waterfall and step responses:
View attachment 282676

View attachment 282677

Conclusions
Most of the market of in-ceiling speakers has dual driver with the tweeter blocking the woofer. This causes reflections and comb filtering. Angling the driver as is often done, focuses the highs toward the listener (hopefully) but then severely compromises off-axis response. The KEF Ci200RR-THX solves both of these problems by putting the tweeter at the center of the woofer and thereby giving us excellent directivity to position the speaker as we see fit. Response could have been flatter but all of these home theater systems have EQ enabled so that should be a solvable problem. The only negative is the high cost at $1000.

I am going to add the KEF Ci200RR-THX to my recommended list. It is the only proper way to build a ceiling speaker in my opinion especially for height channels.

------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Very happy to see this, as I am using the square-frame version of these as my left and right speakers in my HT setup. I figured the coax design made a lot of sense, and liked every version of KEF's implementation that I heard at shows and in demo rooms.

No obvious downside other than cost. And I'm only planning on doing builtins once, so I went for it.

Thanks, Amir. I screwed up buying my NAD T758v3 (before finding ASR), but I got the really important part right.
 

tktran303

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I have a few HNW friends and their builders recommend Sonos for discrete in-walls.

Now when you’re building your dream home theatre, go straight pass the plaster/fibro board/gyprock (whatever your local builder throws in) consider a high end ceiling, then grab a handful of these!
 

Waxx

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The best i've seen here, but very expensive. But it's the first one i see here that is relative flat on and off axis and low distortion. Do they work on a 100V system or only on a standard hifi system?

I've used visaton DL 18/2 T speakers for a project (the doctor's office waiting room of my sister in law who's a doctor) and altough i did not measure them, they sound like they are also relative flat for a fraction of the price (60€) and came out best of a lot (some more in the pricerange of the kef) i listened before. It would be nice if you could test those also. I don't know if they are availeble in the US altough.
 
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