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KEF Q100 Speaker Review

Frank Dernie

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Or what audio rags you read. As a teen I religiously traveled to Hotalings in Manhattan to purchase all the British hifi publications and Wireless World.
Were the speakers From Falcon or Wimslow Audio? :)
https://observer.com/2014/02/the-ic...er-hotalings-news-agency-survives-but-barely/
I read HiFi News and wireless world.
I got drive units from Wilmslow later but the KEF stuff from a dealer in London where I was living at the time.
I got so busy that DIY became unthinkable but income became such that I could buy ready made.
I had always fancied building one of the Wilmslow complete kits.
 

QMuse

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I think Linkwitz said that dipole speaker's imaging is "realistic", whether it is perfect or not is not known. The sound comes from the room and walls not from two point sources like box speakers, that is what he means "realistic". I never heard of dipoles, so does not have any comment on perfect imaging.

"Realistic" is much better term. I never use the word "perfect" as nothing in this world is really perfect - perfect exists only as a mathematical concept.

Personnally I prefer that form of sound - speakers that fire sound in a narrow beam to my ears is not what I like.
 

Frank Dernie

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I think Linkwitz said that dipole speaker's imaging is "realistic", whether it is perfect or not is not known. The sound comes from the room and walls not from two point sources like box speakers, that is what he means "realistic". I never heard of dipoles, so does not have any comment on perfect imaging.
I had dipoles for many years and the imaging is certainly impressive compared to box speakers but realistic?
There is far more listening room influence on the sound you are listening to from dipoles, obviously, and whilst I very much enjoyed them I found on my own recordings the acoustics of the venue were to an extent "over-written" by the acoustics of my room, so I would definitely say less realistic (but lovely).
Mind you I would still be using them if I hadn't built a new listening room which they did not suit :(
 

QMuse

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"Realistic" is much better term. I never use the word "perfect" as nothing in this world is really perfect - perfect exists only as a mathematical concept.

Personnally I prefer that form of sound - speakers that fire sound in a narrow beam to my ears is not what I like.

@Juhazi I remember you recently posted in-room response of your Kef (LS50?). Can you plz post a link to that graph?
 

thewas

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https://www.hifitest.de/test/aktivlautsprecher/kef-x300a_7951

But they liked it in Hifitest.de! (another website/mag to not follow!)

Fazit
Als Plug&play-System empfiehlt sich die KEF X300A als sehr hochwertiges Stereosystem für den unkomplizierten Musikgenuss. Darüber hinaus ist sie dank 96-kHz-USB auch eine perfekte Wahl für audiophiles Digital-HiFi bis hin zum Hauptlautsprecher für die schlanke Wohnzimmeranlage. Dafür sind 800 Euro ein reelles Angebot.
I follow all sources with give reasonable measurements and just ignore all the text. ;):D
 

Wombat

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What makes a loudspeaker 'forgiving' of poor recordings? Some inherent positive manipulation, perhaps? View attachment 53936

I would tend to think that better loudspeakers are more forgiving of better recordings.

@maty I was hoping that you would elaborate on your statement.
 

thewas

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@Juhazi I remember you recently posted in-room response of your Kef (LS50?). Can you plz post a link to that graph?
I am not Juhazi, but here is the in-room response of my LS50 in my old house when I used them in a classic Hifi configuration and not as a nearfield desktop system like now:

KEF LS50 Hifi setup listening position FR.png
 

thewas

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BTW: KEF LS50 (rear bass-reflex)... at least 900 mm to rear wall. Something that many do not. Probably because they have not bothered to investigate it, as is so common: people detest any intellectual effort (to read the manual).
Bass-wise placing a full range setup in a distance of 1-2 meters from the front wall is the worst thing you can do:

1584006324144.png


The source of image is Genelec.
 

twofires

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Having previously owned the Q300s, and as a current owner of the Q700's, these results don't surprise me too much, nor does the mention of a strange distortion (somewhere in the upper mids?). They're not a bad speaker, but they're not fantastic.

As others have mentioned, I found the distortion phenomenon lessened significantly with a move to a powerful amp (in my case a Rotel RA-1592). I have no firm explanation as to why this is. At a guess, it seems that the Uni-Q driver wants a firm hand, amp wise, and to not exceed a certain SPL limit. With most people, I think it's a case of insufficient power when within that limit. With Amir's listening session, I think it's a case of the teeny driver being pushed too far.

Maybe it's a case of the distortion being due to the woofer flapping around uncontrolled and presenting a lousy waveguide to the tweeter? I don't know if that's a thing - I'm hardly an expert.

Anyway, the sealed Q700 towers driven by 200w into 8ohms (and something near double that into 4) to reference levels from a distance of around 3m seems to go okay. Well enough not to bother tweaking endlessly, at any rate.
 

QMuse

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Having previously owned the Q300s, and as a current owner of the Q700's, these results don't surprise me too much, nor does the mention of a strange distortion (somewhere in the upper mids?). They're not a bad speaker, but they're not fantastic.

As others have mentioned, I found the distortion phenomenon lessened significantly with a move to a powerful amp (in my case a Rotel RA-1592). I have no firm explanation as to why this is.

I really doubt your previous amp was clipping at upper mids, especially not at normal listening levels.

I'm also 100% sure that distortion Amir says he's hearing is not related to his amp. :D
 

maty

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The good KEF Uni-Q coaxial is only the small, 5.25".

The bigger sounds as traditional 2-ways. Good with multimedia (TV, films, games, bad recordings...). Without the "magic" of a good coaxial, with very good recordings and high / very high DR.
 

QMuse

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The good KEF Uni-Q coaxial is only the small, 5.25".

The bigger sounds as traditional 2-ways. Good with multimedia (TV, films, games, bad recordings...).

And the new one, 125mm (5"), they're using in Reference series? Is that one any good in? :D
 

maty

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Presumably. About the big one I have been warning about it for years but no case. People only value that the box is bigger and, in any case, that it has greater sensitivity.
 

twofires

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I really doubt your previous amp was clipping at upper mids, especially not at normal listening levels.

The previous amp was just a receiver, and not really rated to handle 3.2ohms min. I realise that minimum isn't in the upper mids, but what I'm wondering is if issues in that lower frequency range caused the woofer to behave in a way that affected the presentation of the upper frequencies, as they are all coming from the one mechanism. The driver is doing a lot of things at once, so maybe one issue throws the whole thing out of whack.

Like I say, I don't know. All I know is that perceived distortion lessened. I'm open to the possibility that it's all psychosomatic, or the dissonance of dropping big money on an amp expecting an improvement where there may have been none, but I thought I'd mention it as it's the first time I've seen other people talk about this distortion (which I also had considered was just in my head).
 

QMuse

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Presumably. About the big one I have been warning about it for years but no case. People only value that the box is bigger and, in any case, that it has greater sensitivity.

In this test of Reference 5 performed by Stereophile it seems to perform fine. Althoug, for that kind of money I would expect it to also make me a coffee in the morning and not just to play music. ;)

1017KEF5fig04.jpg
 

twofires

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I'm also 100% sure that distortion Amir says he's hearing is not related to his amp. :D

As I said, I think that in Amir's case it is the driver being driven beyond its limit, not an amplification issue. We are agreeing there.
 

QMuse

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As I said, I think that in Amir's case it is the driver being driven beyond its limit, not an amplification issue. We are agreeing there.

No, we are not. I am not willing to accept anyones sighted test observations related to distortion which don't correlate with distortion measurements. The fact that he is a trained listener also doesn't help here as trained listener aren't immune to sighted bias.

So, as long as his observations don't correlate with distortion measurement one of those 2 is wrong. ;)
 

georgeT

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The good KEF Uni-Q coaxial is only the small, 5.25".

The bigger sounds as traditional 2-ways. Good with multimedia (TV, films, games, bad recordings...). Without the "magic" of a good coaxial, with very good recordings and high / very high DR.

I don't know man, Q350 sound great to me. Stereophile measurements looked OK too.
 
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