KEF R3 Speaker Review

[dshreter]

I had the R3 and tried the KH 120 and really liked them, so much that pretty much immediately decided to box up the R3 and not look back. The problem was after listening to the KH 120 for longer periods in a living room setup they started really fatiguing me worse than any speaker I've ever had, my ears were actually feeling numb. The weird thing is they still sounded great even while fatiguing me. I tried quite a few different things including EQ and couldn't stop the fatigue so I had to send them back. I'm fairly convinced the vertical response is responsible for doing funky things in a living room setup because the direct sound and sidewall reflections are pristine, which is why I think they sounded so great yet were making my ears go numb. So not the best answer but it might be a good idea to buy both and compare them in your room, the R3 are good speakers but do benefit from a bit of EQ as I showed some filters a few posts back. It would be nice to get a 2nd opinion on using the KH 120 in a living room.

Wow, that’s interesting feedback I hadn’t heard before. Do you think with their neutrality you listened to them at higher SPL than you realized perhaps?

 

[abdo123]

Wow, that’s interesting feedback I hadn’t heard before. Do you think with their neutrality you listened to them at higher SPL than you realized perhaps?

Or he just listened longer because he enjoyed them, possibilities are endless really.

 

[KMO]

Holding them up instead of using stands?

 

[aarons915]

Wow, that’s interesting feedback I hadn’t heard before. Do you think with their neutrality you listened to them at higher SPL than you realized perhaps?

Or he just listened longer because he enjoyed them, possibilities are endless really.

I rock out on weekends for 8+ hours regularly so I didn't listen longer than normal, in fact one day I was listening at low volume and they were still making my ears numb. My in-room response matched the early reflections of the KH120 very closely, they have a peak in room around 3500Hz because of the vertical response which is about the most sensitive frequency for humans, I think it's as simple as that. In a nearfield setting that they are designed for, the vertical response won't matter so it's not really a problem for their intended use but some might have a problem at mid field distances.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

I think the R series voices at 10-20° tend to be more natural-relaxed? in my r7 i never get fatigued or i think the tower is sounding brighter than normal
I had the R series from 2011 and i think that series is a tad bright

 

[Streamc]

I had the R3 and tried the KH 120 and really liked them, so much that pretty much immediately decided to box up the R3 and not look back. The problem was after listening to the KH 120 for longer periods in a living room setup they started really fatiguing me worse than any speaker I've ever had, my ears were actually feeling numb. The weird thing is they still sounded great even while fatiguing me. I tried quite a few different things including EQ and couldn't stop the fatigue so I had to send them back. I'm fairly convinced the vertical response is responsible for doing funky things in a living room setup because the direct sound and sidewall reflections are pristine, which is why I think they sounded so great yet were making my ears go numb. So not the best answer but it might be a good idea to buy both and compare them in your room, the R3 are good speakers but do benefit from a bit of EQ as I showed some filters a few posts back. It would be nice to get a 2nd opinion on using the KH 120 in a living room.

What speaker do you use now?

 

[aarons915]

What speaker do you use now?

So one thing I forgot to mention is the KH 120 sounded more like a point source than the R3, I attribute that to the fact that the R3's woofer to midwoofer crossover is at 400Hz, splitting many fundamental frequencies between the 2. The KH120 isn't a coaxial but since the fundamentals all play from the woofer and the tweeter is well integrated with a waveguide, it did sound more like the sound was coming from 1 place. So even though I sent the KH120 back I also sold the R3/R2c and went back to the original LS50 for my LCR because I realized how much I like that point source sound.

 

[Streamc]

So one thing I forgot to mention is the KH 120 sounded more like a point source than the R3, I attribute that to the fact that the R3's woofer to midwoofer crossover is at 400Hz, splitting many fundamental frequencies between the 2. The KH120 isn't a coaxial but since the fundamentals all play from the woofer and the tweeter is well integrated with a waveguide, it did sound more like the sound was coming from 1 place. So even though I sent the KH120 back I also sold the R3/R2c and went back to the original LS50 for my LCR because I realized how much I like that point source sound.

Thanks! I ordered R3 cause I heard them. But always interesting in comparisons.
Why not Meta?

 

[aarons915]

Thanks! I ordered R3 cause I heard them. But always interesting in comparisons.
Why not Meta?

Partly because I'm cheap and partly because I really like the Black edition. I also use the Spins to EQ the original LS50 to be very neutral so they should sound pretty close to the meta anyway but I do plan on buying a pair at some point to compare.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Interesting.
One of the first speaker that i listened is the LS50.
No bass, no tactile bass/no punch/ the sounds coming from bass-mids sounds very unnatural because the speaker just can handle bass and mids at the same time, in rock or metal music the speaker have very hard time handle these fast notes in the mids-bass, the driver from ls50 is a mid range with surround, its a mid range for a good reason.. then i listened the r/reference series, much fuller and better coherent in the full spectrum. LS50 sound like a satelite and bad with music, i just never back to them, feel like the ls50 have many weakness because of use their mid range as bass/mids, having i found the uniq in the r series much better in many ways like top end extension. Ls50 use 11th gen and R3 12th gen uniq, no debut for me the r3 was a much better speaker
Now, the crossover point are at 400hz, which is better than a crossover in a 2-way speaker. The lower the crossover the better because the waveleight is larger, blades and references use that point~ because is the best result. Imho i aggre. The best coaxial is the mids-highs, that the point where you want the point source thing in the music

 

[BYRTT]

.....Now, the crossover point are at 400hz, which is better than a crossover in a 2-way speaker. The lower the crossover the better because the waveleight is larger, blades and references use that point~ because is the best result. Imho i aggre. The best coaxial is the mids-highs, that the point where you want the point source thing in the music

A normal minimumphase crossover type will add its phase turn (all-pass effect) that is kind of a distortion in relation to the raw recorded fundamentals of instruments or singers, not shure that wavelenght is larger is a good argue here but you have to look at the phase curves for 400Hz verse say 2500Hz to see what @aarons915 say when he talks fundamental frequencyes, below is 4th order examples (400Hz upper one) (2500Hz lower one), now say most fundamental tones of instruments or singers happen in 100-2000Hz area then it looks for 400Hz 4th order filter that phase turn is about 290º, but for 2500Hz 4th order filter it looks be a phase turn about 115º.

 

[ernestcarl]

I had the R3 and tried the KH 120 and really liked them, so much that pretty much immediately decided to box up the R3 and not look back. The problem was after listening to the KH 120 for longer periods in a living room setup they started really fatiguing me worse than any speaker I've ever had, my ears were actually feeling numb. The weird thing is they still sounded great even while fatiguing me. I tried quite a few different things including EQ and couldn't stop the fatigue so I had to send them back. I'm fairly convinced the vertical response is responsible for doing funky things in a living room setup because the direct sound and sidewall reflections are pristine, which is why I think they sounded so great yet were making my ears go numb. So not the best answer but it might be a good idea to buy both and compare them in your room, the R3 are good speakers but do benefit from a bit of EQ as I showed some filters a few posts back. It would be nice to get a 2nd opinion on using the KH 120 in a living room.

While I do still own a pair of KH120s -- I can't sell mine as I've inadvertently (or stupidly), and very much permanently bonded one of the speakers to its L-bracket mount -- they do fatigue my ears at times. "Numb" is too strong a word for me to use, though. A little tailored shelving EQ to the highs does very much help (gives an obvious change/improvement), as well as post-linearization of the the phase (extremely subtle change/improvement).

I find this true even in the very nearfield. For anything more than maybe 2 meters I still prefer my much "brighter" Sceptre S8 coaxes (though I've neutralized this now with EQ).

 

[abdo123]

So one thing I forgot to mention is the KH 120 sounded more like a point source than the R3, I attribute that to the fact that the R3's woofer to midwoofer crossover is at 400Hz, splitting many fundamental frequencies between the 2. The KH120 isn't a coaxial but since the fundamentals all play from the woofer and the tweeter is well integrated with a waveguide, it did sound more like the sound was coming from 1 place. So even though I sent the KH120 back I also sold the R3/R2c and went back to the original LS50 for my LCR because I realized how much I like that point source sound.

This is probably the most controversial opinion on this forum. For me every coaxial speaker sounds like headphones, TOO much controlled directivity.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

This is probably the most controversial opinion on this forum. For me every coaxial speaker sounds like headphones, TOO much controlled directivity.

I choose kef r series and references because of their coaxial, i came from headphone and i find annoying the fact of having multiples drivers in different places because you can hear the sound coming from different points, kef nail it.. to me..

I listened the A77X and i clearly heared the sound coming for different places, so i don't think you can correct that kind of stuff via dsp or is a phase problem

 

[aarons915]

A normal minimum-phase crossover type will add its phase turn (all-pass effect) that is kind of a distortion in relation to the raw recorded fundamentals of instruments or singers, not shure that wavelenght is larger is a good argue here but you have to look at the phase curves for 400Hz verse say 2500Hz to see what @aarons915 say when he talks fundamental frequencyes, below is 4th order examples (400Hz upper one) (2500Hz lower one), now say most fundamental tones of instruments or singers happen in 100-2000Hz area then it looks for 400Hz 4th order filter that phase turn is about 290º, but for 2500Hz 4th order filter it looks be a phase turn about 115º.

Yeah I know we all have a tendency to look at things in a strict scientific way sometimes around here. We all know crossing over a midrange at 400Hz is going to basically eliminate IMD distortion but as far as a pure point source I do notice the difference between the R series and the 2-way coaxials. The reference are crossed over at 270hz so are probably better in that regard.

While I do still own a pair of KH120s -- I can't sell mine as I've inadvertently (or stupidly), and very much permanently bonded one of the speakers to its L-bracket mount -- they do fatigue my ears at times. "Numb" is too strong a word for me to use, though. A little tailored shelving EQ to the highs does very much help (gives an obvious change/improvement), as well as post-linearization of the the phase (extremely subtle change/improvement).

I find this true even in the very nearfield. For anything more than maybe 2 meters I still prefer my much "brighter" Sceptre S8 coaxes (though I've neutralized this now with EQ).

I wasn't calling them names or bad mouthing them by saying they made my ears numb, that's literally what they did. I could be more sensitive to fatigue than many as I still have excellent hearing into my late 30's. The original LS50 also fatigue me but EQ'ing the 2-5k range fixes that. The KH120 don't measure bright, I think it's simply due to the mismatch between the direct sound and the reflections, almost like it's confusing to the auditory system where something like the LS50 simply accentuates certain frequencies and causes fatigue after long sessions. I've also been listening to coaxials for a few years now so maybe being used to near perfect verticals makes me more sensitive to that issue now I don't know.

This is probably the most controversial opinion on this forum. For me every coaxial speaker sounds like headphones, TOO much controlled directivity.

I don't know where it got started that KEF are extremely narrow in dispersion because they're really not, at least not the latest models. If you compare the directivity index of various KEF and compare them to various Revel speakers(consided "wide dispersion") they aren't much different at all. On top of that, I think the smoothness of the directivity indices is extremely important and I haven't seen any speaker with as smooth of directivity as coaxials like KEF or Genelec. I personally haven't noticed a large difference in dispersion patterns but I have a smaller room with sidewalls only about 3ft from my mains and point them straight ahead. Most of us have seen Toole's research showing the ratings between mono and stereo and how even a very narrow dispersion panel has it's spaciousness rating basically match the wide dispersion speaker when a 2nd is added for stereo. My takeaway from that study is worrying about ultra wide dispersion isn't a worthwhile goal when all of us use at least 2 speakers at a time. I believe this is 1 negative consequence of how Harman tests speakers in mono, it makes wider dispersion much more important than it is in real world use.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

Yeah I know we all have a tendency to look at things in a strict scientific way sometimes around here. We all know crossing over a midrange at 400Hz is going to basically eliminate IMD distortion but as far as a pure point source I do notice the difference between the R series and the 2-way coaxials. The reference are crossed over at 270hz so are probably better in that regard.

False.
Reference:
Crossover Frequencies
350Hz, 2.8kHz

The same as R series, because the uniq work the best at these frequencies

 

[KMO]

The Reference brochure I just checked said 350Hz, 2.8kHz.

(I double-checked because I knew there were at least some at 300-and-something...)

Blade is also 350Hz, but Blade Two goes to 320Hz.

 

[BrokenEnglishGuy]

The Reference brochure I just checked said 350Hz, 2.8kHz.

(I double-checked because I knew there were at least some at 300-and-something...)

Blade is also 350Hz, but Blade Two goes to 320Hz.

Lol, i see 2 crossover frequencies, never 270hz but 400hz and 350hz xD

 

[KMO]

LOL, someone's pasted some of the R11 specs into the Reference 3's web page.

 

[aarons915]

LOL, someone's pasted some of the R11 specs into the Reference 3's web page.

It does seem like something has been changed because I know I didn't make up the 270Hz number lol. Looking back at Stereophile's measurements of the Reference 5 you can see they are 270 also.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/kef-reference-5-loudspeaker-measurements

Either way it's a compromise in order to be able to play louder with lower distortion because they aren't going to be better at producing a point source presentation than something like an LS50. That's the reason people like me try to make them work with higher crossover points, we want to retain that point-source capability while offloading as much of the bass as possible(without subwoofer localization) to play loud cleanly.