KEF R3 Meta - My Experience

[Matt_Holland]

I just re-read my post also and should shed a little more light on the audio quality issue I'm referring to. Using an example might be best. If I pull up Megadeth's Remastered countdown to extinction album - or original CD quality, it is almost unlistenable at even moderate volumes. Its sound like one big ball of shouty distorted sound that makes you cringe. Hard to explain. I play this same album on my JBL Boombox 2 and I can crank it and enjoy the music.. I know kind of a strange comparison but hoping this explains it a little better.

Apologies if this comment is a bit unfair, but looking at your favoured music choices, I would guess that this is as much of a problem as the midrange dominant room response you measured. A lot of the music you listen to often sounds terrible on hifi where the compressed dynamics and limited frequency range are fully exposed for what they are.

Which One remedy could be to push the speaker back much closer to the wall. I believe the KEFs are designed with a bass shelf to work well close to walls. Then would make some subjective judgements using known well recorded music from a range of genres.

It would also be interesting to know if you have heard a system/room combo that you were really impressed with when listening to your preferred music?

 

[Chr1]

Have to say that I agree here. There is a hell of a lot of badly produced music out there. I only realised this once I was using a very good system.
Plus if you want to go loud you will need to add subs...

 

[ZolaIII]

Balance L -1 then remeasure L+R and PEQ first four humps (bottom up) as best as you can with WiiM, put tone controls bass +4 and treble +2 then do withe noise to SPL loudness adjustment on Yamaha and try to even highs by positioning and that's about it what you can do right now.
Part I don't really understand are peaks in highs both not present in L or R individually on current measurement.

 

[K-dub]

Apologies if this comment is a bit unfair, but looking at your favoured music choices, I would guess that this is as much of a problem as the midrange dominant room response you measured. A lot of the music you listen to often sounds terrible on hifi where the compressed dynamics and limited frequency range are fully exposed for what they are.

Which One remedy could be to push the speaker back much closer to the wall. I believe the KEFs are designed with a bass shelf to work well close to walls. Then would make some subjective judgements using known well recorded music from a range of genres.

It would also be interesting to know if you have heard a system/room combo that you were really impressed with when listening to your preferred music?

Not unfair at all. I'm starting to realize this as I go down the rabbit hole. One of the reasons I opted for the R3's was a lot of reviews stating "sound great will all genres" which I have come to realize means all genres that are great recordings.

I will try the close to wall suggestion with the port plugs - this is the one this I have not tried yet.

And to be honest this is my first hifi system and have not listened to really any other hifi systems. I have however always had a set up in my homes which usually consisted of decent in-ceiling speakers with a sub which I have always liked but knew there was something missing which is why I went down the road I have.

 

[goat76]

As a first step before you buy anything, try to put the speakers closer to the wall and see if that helps fill up some of that lost energy in the area from 600Hz and down. You could make a few measurements with the speakers at different distances to the wall and see where that leaves you.

After that, I think you need a well-integrated subwoofer (or two) to fill up that frequency area even further. Then maybe do something about the room's acoustic if the room sounds too lively, and as the last step fine-tune the system with EQ.

 

[Chagall]

One thing to consider with Kef's concentric design is that the tweeter is in the middle of the mid-range speaker and it loses surface area. This results in lower SPL than non-concentric speakers (sensitivity is 86dB). Additionally, the excursion of the mid-range isn't preferable, because the mid-range speaker is a waveguide for the tweeter.

KEF R3 recommended amp is 180W max - so I wouldn't drive them above 93 dB SPL at a 4-meter listening position. That should be around 200W with 5dB headroom.
Not sure what you would need for 105dB - 3200W? Needless to say, if you want that 105dBSPL get bigger speakers with a bigger amp and subs.

 

[K-dub]

Balance L -1 then remeasure L+R and PEQ first four humps (bottom up) as best as you can with WiiM, put tone controls bass +4 and treble +2 then do withe noise to SPL loudness adjustment on Yamaha and try to even highs by positioning and that's about it what you can do right now.
Part I don't really understand are peaks in highs both not present in L or R individually on current measurement.

I really get the sense you know your stuff - trouble is I don't . I'm going to dig into what your saying here and learn what I can and apply this.

 

[ZolaIII]

I really get the sense you know your stuff - trouble is I don't . I'm going to dig into what your saying here and learn what I can and apply this.

Polish first 4 bumps in the bass starting with 115 Hz one which is a room mode.
As you are equipment limited we will use good old integrated as best as we can. So dig into your Yamaha and put balance L -1, tone controls bass +4 and treble +2 and re measure L+R and post it hire. And post mdat hire I will get it and calculate you those PEQ's and you will then apply them and measure again and eventually adjust them more depending how it translates.

 

[olieb]

Part I don't really understand are peaks in highs both not present in L or R individually on current measurement.

Yes, that looks strange and in bass there is surprisingly little gain form having both speakers compared to the individual channels.
@K-dub:
Sure you did not mix up the connections?

 

[K-dub]

Polish first 4 bumps in the bass starting with 115 Hz one which is a room mode.
As you are equipment limited we will use good old integrated as best as we can. So dig into your Yamaha and put balance L -1, tone controls bass +4 and treble +2 and re measure L+R and post it hire. And post mdat hire I will get it and calculate you those PEQ's and you will then apply them and measure again and eventually adjust them more depending how it translates.

Appreciate it!!!

 

[ZolaIII]

One thing to consider with Kef's concentric design is that the tweeter is in the middle of the mid-range speaker and it loses surface area. This results in lower SPL than non-concentric speakers (sensitivity is 86dB). Additionally, the excursion of the mid-range isn't preferable, because the mid-range speaker is a waveguide for the tweeter.

KEF R3 recommended amp is 180W max - so I wouldn't drive them above 93 dB SPL at a 4-meter listening position. That should be around 200W with 5dB headroom.
Not sure what you would need for 105dB - 3200W? Needless to say, if you want that 105dBSPL get bigger speakers with a bigger amp and subs.

That's about 83/86 mono/stereo at given distance (4 m) top and 4~5 less dB with bass boost so he could get close to reference point or better say to about 80 dB with what he have already and to what they can alone.

 

[K-dub]

Yes, that looks strange and in bass there is surprisingly little gain form having both speakers compared to the single ones.
@K-dub:
Sure you did not mix up the connections?

OMG I sure hope not!! I better double check.

 

[ZolaIII]

Yes, that looks strange and in bass there is surprisingly little gain form having both speakers compared to the single ones.
@K-dub:
Sure you did not mix up the connections?

In bass gain is there but mostly from L one and as level isn't matched that explains how it leads and why overall gain is lower.

 

[Steve Dallas]

I have not yet seen this mentioned. Listening at 95 to 105dB is very unusual (I assume this is something like C weighted average SPL). You are well into hearing damage territory doing that. My strongest advice is to realign your goals for output. Most people listen at ~75 to 80 average SPL with peaks into the mid 90s.

To pull 95-105 dB average SPL off, you need very large speakers with a ton of power or PA speakers. I do not see a listening distance mentioned, but it looks like 10 to 12' based on the pictures. At 11', you need this much power and a speaker that can handle it.

The advice you received in this thread to get a pair of subs and cross the R3s over at 90 to 100Hz is good advice, but you still will not reach your SPL goal. Even if you upgrade to R11s at 90dB sensitivity, you need this much power, which far exceeds what the R11s can handle--even if you add subs to those:

You are well outside the norm here.

 

[K-dub]

I have not yet seen this mentioned. Listening at 95 to 105dB is very unusual (I assume this is something like C weighted average SPL). You are well into hearing damage territory doing that. My strongest advice is to realign your goals for output. Most people listen at ~75 to 80 average SPL with peaks into the mid 90s.

To pull 95-105 dB average SPL off, you need very large speakers with a ton of power or PA speakers. I do not see a listening distance mentioned, but it looks like 10 to 12' based on the pictures. At 11', you need this much power and a speaker that can handle it.


View attachment 341018

View attachment 341017

The advice you received in this thread to get a pair of subs and cross the R3s over at 90 to 100Hz is good advice, but you still will not reach your SPL goal. Even if you upgrade to R11s at 90dB sensitivity, you need this much power, which far exceeds what the R11s can handle--even if you add subs to those:

View attachment 341020

View attachment 341021

You are well outside the norm here.

Appreciate this as I may be wrong in the 95-105dB. I should clarify the dB levels I have been taking are simply off an app from my phone so they may be out to lunch. I did notice when I was using the DSP UMIK-1 mic and setting up REW pink noise to 77db (i believe) I was shocked how loud 77db was compared to listening to music and what my phone was telling me. I should of opened up my app at the same time. That being said regardless if this is an error in dB I cant get to the volume I like. Again appreciate this comment. This is my first post and fairly new to the HIFI world and shocked how helpful everyone has been.

 

[mj30250]

I have not yet seen this mentioned. Listening at 95 to 105dB is very unusual (I assume this is something like C weighted average SPL). You are well into hearing damage territory doing that. My strongest advice is to realign your goals for output. Most people listen at ~75 to 80 average SPL with peaks into the mid 90s.

I was going to say the same and I'm surprised it took so long to be mentioned. Even keeping to the low end of the scale, 95dB continuous is extremely loud. 105dB should be reserved for quick transient peaks only (and even then, should largely be kept to bass frequencies). If you're truly looking to stress out your ear drums at anything approaching those levels, at a bare minimum, subs would be required to offload the bass from the small bookshelves. Have you taken SPL measurements from the MLP to see what your true volume desires are?

 

[Matt_Holland]

Not unfair at all. I'm starting to realize this as I go down the rabbit hole. One of the reasons I opted for the R3's was a lot of reviews stating "sound great will all genres" which I have come to realize means all genres that are great recordings.

I will try the close to wall suggestion with the port plugs - this is the one this I have not tried yet.

And to be honest this is my first hifi system and have not listened to really any other hifi systems. I have however always had a set up in my homes which usually consisted of decent in-ceiling speakers with a sub which I have always liked but knew there was something missing which is why I went down the road I have.

Sounds like a plan, although I wouldn’t assume you need to use the port plugs. Try with and without.

I don’t think the speakers are the reason the poorly recorded music sounds bad. I think you have a severely mid-dominant room response that is exacerbating the situation.

I just admit the room response is confusing me. Knowing that speaker has an excellent set of “anechoic” responses I am surprised it has such a drop off in the lower mid and bass, and also the HF seems to have a 4KHz depression.

Try moving the speakers close to the wall first. And play with toe angles to see if the HF smooths out.

 

[Frank2]

If I look at the measurements on the R3 meta here:

KEF R3 meta Measurements

Hi, I measured the KEF R3 meta loudspeakers this time. These speakers have just been released, but I was able to get a pre-order sample (a pair) from an audiophile in Korea. Impedance Frequency response I measure HF responses using a 5ms window gating. Therefore, the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

two things stand out and removing the grills may solve one of them:

The roll off in the bass seems to be normal:

and the strange response in the treble seems to be caused by the grilles:

 

[K-dub]

I was going to say the same and I'm surprised it took so long to be mentioned. Even keeping to the low end of the scale, 95dB continuous is extremely loud. 105dB should be reserved for quick transient peaks only (and even then, should largely be kept to bass frequencies). If you're truly looking to stress out your ear drums at anything approaching those levels, at a bare minimum, subs would be required to offload the bass from the small bookshelves. Have you taken SPL measurements from the MLP to see what your true volume desires are?

Below was my reply to Steve.

"Appreciate this as I may be wrong in the 95-105dB. I should clarify the dB levels I have been taking are simply off an app from my phone so they may be out to lunch. I did notice when I was using the DSP UMIK-1 mic and setting up REW pink noise to 77db (i believe) I was shocked how loud 77db was compared to listening to music and what my phone was telling me. I should of opened up my app at the same time. That being said regardless if this is an error in dB I cant get to the volume I like. Again appreciate this comment. This is my first post and fairly new to the HIFI world and shocked how helpful everyone has been."

 

[K-dub]

If I look at the measurements on the R3 meta here:

KEF R3 meta Measurements

Hi, I measured the KEF R3 meta loudspeakers this time. These speakers have just been released, but I was able to get a pre-order sample (a pair) from an audiophile in Korea. Impedance Frequency response I measure HF responses using a 5ms window gating. Therefore, the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

two things stand out and removing the grills may solve one of them:

The roll off in the bass seems to be normal:





View attachment 341023
and the strange response in the treble seems to be caused by the grilles:

View attachment 341024

Thanks Frank. The tests were done Grills off, and I take them off when listening.