KEF R11 Meta Tower Speaker Review

[Hipster Doofus]

Thank you.

nice to see a reasonably priced speaker with a nice review. Maybe I don’t need to save my milk money for the Genelec.

 

[Maiky76]

Here is my take on the EQ.
Please report your findings, positive or negative!


The following EQs are “anechoic” EQs to get the speaker right before room integration. If you able to implement these EQs you must add EQ at LF for room integration, that is usually not optional… see hints there.

For the score rational your journey starts here
Explanation for the sub score


The raw data with corrected ER and PIR:

Score no EQ: 6.1
With Sub: 7.5

Spinorama with no EQ:

• Great, looks like a great compromise.
• In this case the EQ might be superfluous!
• A port that works
• Tune for in-room performance (PIR and LF shape)
• Remnant of coaxial response unevenness at HF on axis but very well controlled
• Slight dip in the 1-2kHz region

Directivity:

Better stay at tweeter height +/-10deg
Horizontally, better toe-in the speakers by 10/15deg and have the axis crossing in front of the listening location, might help dosing the upper range.

EQ design:

I have generated two EQs. The APO config files are attached.

• The first one, labelled, LW is targeted at making the LW flat
• The second, labelled Score, starts with the first one and adds the score as an optimization variable.
• The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment although the LW might be better suited for this purpose.

Score EQ LW: 6.5
with sub: 8.0

Score EQ Score: 6.9
with sub: 8.3

KEF R11 Meta APO EQ LW 96000Hz
March262024-111526

Preamp: -4 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 38.66,    0.00,    1.49
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 166.94,    2.34,    3.34
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 186.01,    -1.36,    1.51
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 562.29,    -1.38,    2.77
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1150.57,    3.68,    2.72
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2600.20,    1.96,    1.54
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 15530.04,    3.10,    0.37

KEF R11 Meta APO EQ Score 96000Hz
March262024-111527

Preamp: -4 dB

Filter 1: ON HPQ Fc 36.33,    0.00,    1.51
Filter 2: ON PK Fc 173.94,    2.09,    2.52
Filter 3: ON PK Fc 199.86,    -1.70,    1.51
Filter 4: ON PK Fc 587.09,    -1.70,    2.11
Filter 5: ON PK Fc 1163.64,    3.02,    2.40
Filter 6: ON PK Fc 2856.81,    0.98,    1.55
Filter 7: ON PK Fc 21397.58,    2.03,    0.55

Spinorama EQ LW

Spinorama EQ Score

Zoom PIR-LW-ON

Regression - Tonal

Radar no EQ vs EQ score
No improvements?

The rest of the plots is attached.

 

[CleanSound]

As expected from KEF. Not terribly expensive comparatively speaking. And, I'm sure you can get some kind of a discount on them from a dealer.

AND, I'll take this over the PS Audio FR10, thank you very much.

 

[Mikig]

well, I'd say that Kef has been designing very well lately, and the performances are coming!!

There are now many models that produce desirable ones, and it seems to me also with prices that are overall average for the category.

anyway Amirm in thanking you as always for your commitment and for your tests,
I confess that in the photo the first thing I noticed were the M20s...the old glories never go unnoticed

 

[Steve Dallas]

@amirm , I wonder if the 1.2K dip is the shadow flare issue? My R3s showed a similar dip centered there, and after I pushed in the shadow flare rings all the way, the dip disappeared completely.

 

[MacClintock]

Measures nicely, looks marvelous, sounds good and is even not overly expensive, a great speaker.

 

[HeadDoc12]

The vertical response is remarkably good for a passive array of this size. That little coax is doing a ton of heavy lifting, to keep distortion low on that little unit operating from 200hz up is very nice work by KEF.

$6500 for two of these strikes me as a pretty good deal - isn't this their biggest/best speaker before the ls60/blade things?

KEF has the Reference series that is above the R series and below the Blades. The Reference 5 meta is a (somewhat) better speaker than the R11 meta, and costs a LOT more.

 

[amirm]

@amirm , I wonder if the 1.2K dip is the shadow flare issue? My R3s showed a similar dip centered there, and after I pushed in the shadow flare rings all the way, the dip disappeared completely.

I will check but company confirmed it is there.

 

[Bruce Morgen]

Thank you.

nice to see a reasonably priced speaker with a nice review. Maybe I don’t need to save my milk money for the Genelec.

Especially if you already own a suitable amp.

 

[Doodski]

Conclusions
We expect excellence, objectively optimized response from KEF speakers and we have that in R11 Meta. My experience with budget coaxial designs is that they give up power handling which to me is a poor trade off. Not here. The R11 Meta has excellent bass handling with very low distortion allowing me to EQ it with no degradation as far as distortion of playback ability. There is a bit of room left here in there for enthusiasts who want the optimal performance to get there with EQ. Result was that even in our living room with many hard surfaces and large space to boot, a single R11 Meta roared to action, delivering optimal and super enjoyable response on every reference track I threw at it. Science and excellent engineering works!

Whoa! This is very good. I read of your 25 foot ceilings, large room and I thought this is going to require muchO power and energy from the speaker. They delivered.
KEF for me as a audio industry employee for ~24 years both in sales and electronics service as a authorized KEF service depot in the 90s was excellent as I mentioned before here @ ASR. KEF has from all my observations over the past ~38 years has offered the leading edge designs and backs that up with proper service and support. The KEF representatives I grew to enjoy and love where the best of the best and the company was very good with providing sales stock, service parts and even rare items. Go KEF!

 

[Hart]

I was considering the R5, the smaller version of this speaker, I am hoping it is just as good albeit with less bass. This speaker in white is really nice looking, especially with the white drivers.

 

[Music1969]

Doesn't exist. @jackocleebrown sorted that out too.

Nice , @jackocleebrown can you share wider bandwidth plot please

Great job with this speaker, as expected

 

[JaMaSt]

The vertical response is remarkably good for a passive array of this size.

Not wanting to derail the post (heck, I'm not even remotely in the market for speakers), but what is meant by "passive array"?

 

[MacClintock]

KEF has the Reference series that is above the R series and below the Blades. The Reference 5 meta is a (somewhat) better speaker than the R11 meta, and costs a LOT more.

First there is the Reference 3, which costs roughly twice as much and the Reference 5 three times. But can we be sure that these two are considerably better, or just ever so slightly?

 

[pierre]

Hello,

I also tried to build an automatic anechoic eq. As expected the EQ makes curves flatter and boost the score.

score    | no eq  w/eq
---------+-------+-------
no sub   |   6.1 |  6.9
w/sub    |   7.5 |  8.3
---------+-------+-------

Interestingly this one makes both the LW and the PIR flatter which is only possible because the DI is very linear.
Excellent speaker!

EQ for KEF R11 Meta computed from ASR data
Preference Score 6.12 with EQ 6.90
Generated from http://github.com/pierreaubert/spinorama/generate_peqs.py v0.26
Dated: 2024-03-26-07:13:54

Preamp: -2.6 dB

Filter  1: ON PK Fc    67 Hz Gain +1.94 dB Q 2.97
Filter  2: ON PK Fc   235 Hz Gain -1.14 dB Q 2.93
Filter  3: ON PK Fc   579 Hz Gain -2.13 dB Q 1.49
Filter  4: ON PK Fc  1161 Hz Gain +2.84 dB Q 2.90
Filter  5: ON PK Fc  5536 Hz Gain -1.35 dB Q 2.54
Filter  6: ON PK Fc  9319 Hz Gain -0.62 dB Q 2.80
Filter  7: ON PK Fc 11085 Hz Gain +1.07 dB Q 0.25

Note that the measurement from KEF differs from the ASR one: the dip at 1k is not that visible in the KEF measurements. The differences in the bass region are for everybody to guess.

 

[dogmamann]

The vertical response is remarkably good for a passive array of this size. That little coax is doing a ton of heavy lifting, to keep distortion low on that little unit operating from 200hz up is very nice work by KEF.

$6500 for two of these strikes me as a pretty good deal - isn't this their biggest/best speaker before the ls60/blade things?

This should be their best as the references and blades are no value for money speakers. They are more of a designer item.

 

[Mnyb]

The blades have better cabinet shape and even larger bass drivers also 4 of them , so they fit an even larger room.

You have two sizes of the blades .

The reference also has more powerful drivers for each size . But they are expensive due to being handmade in Britain ouch I like the rough 1:1 correspondence between R and Reference models.

I would also pick R11 over the small reference 1 for example. So they are luxuries not value for money ( but if had that money .... )

If you want the blade driver configuration in a smaller scale there is LS60

 

[thewas]

This should be their best as the references and blades are no value for money speakers. They are more of a designer item.

Despite I also find the R Meta the current sweet spot in the value for money I don't agree with above as each of those step up in series brings engineering improvements which show up in the measurements, I would rather agree with your statement for the Muon. Someone might say that measurements of the R meta are already so good that the improvement of the other series are not large enough for them but name them just designer items doesn't give justice the engineering behind them, especially of the Blades.

 

[sweetchaos]

Someone might say that measurements of the R meta are already so good that the improvement of the other series are not large enough for them but name them just designer items doesn't give justice the engineering behind them, especially of the Blades.

100%. Diminishing returns hits for Kef speakers beyond the R meta series.

Reference and Blades are an engineering piece of marvel, when one doesn’t care about the price.

 

[thewas]

Having heard both of them I would say the smoother and deeper directivity and better imaging of the Blades would make them my first choice if I could afford them and I guess @Kal Rubinson had a very similar impression which is why he opted for them, the perceived difference is bigger than most who haven't heard them would think (it was the same for me before I did). It also the reason that with subs I tend to slightly prefer the LS50 Meta to the R3 Meta.