KEF Direct Blemished Speaker Cabinets

[seanhyatt]

Received my replacement for the the blemished R11. They look and sound fine.

 

[seanhyatt]

Just read Amir’s R6 meta review. He had the same issues.

Posted from review:

“However, I have returned and exchanged them three times: twice for the R3 meta and once for the R6 meta.

This was due to poor cosmetics.

It was a combination of bad paint and dented units.”

 

[diddley]

So all things end good, KEF is taking their responsebility and the customer is satisfied.
My KEF's arrived with broken speaker terminals, called the seller, he immedial stepped in his car with a new crossover and terminals. 2 hours later all was running up and well.
Brick and mortar store BENDER HIFI Netherlands.
Great service and a customer for life.

 

[seanhyatt]

Good to hear stereo stores still are going. I know of two in Western NY that were around when I was a kid and are still around. They always treated me well as a kid lurking around the store and when I graduated college I bought a good pair of Phase Technology towers from them.

Unfortunately the nearest KEF dealer where I live now is 1.5 hours away and last time I bought 3 pairs of KEF Q150s from them the attitude was they were dong me a favor. When they found out I was buying the Q150s for atmos the situation became hostile. The shops stance is Surround sound is the enemy of audio.

 

[Klonatans]

Manufactured in China. Not a condemnation of Chinese manufacturing…KEFs are generally considered to have excellent build quality.

I wouldn't say so. Back in 2011 I bought a pair of brand new KEF R500 speakers and their decorative rings around woofers were loose and just fell off. I decided to glue them instead of bothering to return the speakers.

 

[RayDunzl]

Nobody opens gear from the bottom or even looks at it.

I used to do that for heavy/awkward stuff at work.

Open the bottom and open/remove whatever packing.

Tip it upright and slip the box off.

Whatever it was was ready to move some more.

But I'm nobody, so, yeah.

 

[Dmitri]

Received my replacement for the the blemished R11. They look and sound fine.

Yay Sean!

Glad to hear it all worked out for you in the end. Though I know you have qualms in terms of the value of the new R11’s over your current speakers, I‘m really pleased with mine. What’s passed has passed, and I hope your experience proves to be positive from here on out.

Observations…

I did have to push in the rings around the coaxial driver so they were below the plane of the front baffle as per spec. Not a huge thing, but a surprisingly big impact on performance. KEF needs to fix this issue if they haven’t with the Meta series.

Not impressed with the packaging. The foam endcaps were beefy enough, but the box… for such a heavy speaker, not so much in my opinion. Though my speakers were fine, the box was punctured and even torn through to the bag that wrapped the speaker…not exactly confidence inspiring. At 6k a pair, double boxing doesn’t seem to be an unreasonable expectation. Though they came strapped standing up on a pallet, the pallet itself was built from very poor quality 1/2” plywood and some kind of incredibly cheesy wood composite blocks that were falling apart. The speakers were leaning heavily to one side, the center bottom pallet support completely missing. Shipping issues, but ones that could have been mitigated by a bit more care on KEF’s part.

Were your original speakers repackaged? I won’t weigh in on that, but I’m pretty sure that KEF likely has had lots of damaged product out there.

 

[seanhyatt]

Thanks for the tip. I just checked the rings and they were not flush. Just pushed them in.

The first shipment the boxes arrived in perfect condition via a freight company on a standard pallet.

The second shipment arrived via fedex freight on an impressively solid pallet with what looked like half inch plywood flooring on the top side of the pallet that the speakers sit on. The boxes were a bit more worn (probably because they were open d and checked at my request) but in good condition with no holes.

In my opinion quality control and lack of bulletproof shipping boxes is a gigantic mistake for KEF and will cost them more in the end.

SQ wise blind at lower levels casually testing I can’t tell the difference. At louder volumes I can and for certain recording that focus on the difference.

 

[restorer-john]

In my opinion quality control and lack of bulletproof shipping boxes is a gigantic mistake for KEF and will cost them more in the end.

I'll bet they are under a whole lot of pressure to use 'eco friendly', 'low environmental impact', 'sustainable' packaging. Sadly that means the opposite when the speakers get trashed in transit due to patently inadequate packaging.