KEF R3 Speaker Review

[q3cpma]

The ATC SCM11 measures pretty well, so no clue what you are talking about:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/atc-scm-11-loudspeaker-measurements

Doesn't look really good, to be honest. That 1-3 kHz off-axis dip and Verdun-tier landscape after 8~9 kHz together with the vertical directivity horror looks quite bad.

 

[Bear123]

I am more curious what the next speaker I have not tested, measures.

Revel F35???

 

[Doodski]

I've found some KEF coax speakers in my past experience to be a love it or leave it affair. I like them. Sounds like these are similar in that regard. I'd be interested in a stereo pair listening session to see how they image.

 

[napilopez]

I think the big lesson here is that measurements may be objective but their interpretation is still an art =] Even when you've heard the speakers too!

But I think it's important to keep things centered around frequency response and directivity. I think some people underestimate just how much can be determined from those two elements.

 

[QMuse]

Doesn't look really good, to be honest. That 1-3 kHz off-axis dip and Verdun-tier landscape after 8~9 kHz together with the vertical directivity horror looks quite bad.

It's merely a different format of directivity which emphasizes the worse as 45 deg curve is in front. On-axis is flat and spinorama would look quite decent has JA's comment that it is well-engineered speaker.

 

[Ilkless]

Read together with your your comments on subjective listening and the PIR curve in the 705p review, this review comes across as a bit disingenuous. The R3 and 705p are similar in that they are nearly constant directivity in much of the tweeter band (illustrated as a "kink" to straightness above the tweeter high-pass in the power response and PIR), instead of the downward slope a speaker with smoothly narrowing directivity like the M16 tends to have.

There is a possible explanation for your preference. He was referring to the Kali waveguide, but the Kali waveguide resembles the Revel waveguide much more than the M2-style Image Control waveguide, and his comments should still apply wrt power response.

@Charles Sprinkle himself wrote on Reddit:

The Image Control waveguide was designed to provide individual control of vertical and horizontal coverage and lower pattern control frequency. It was also constant directivity. The Kali waveguide has an elliptical waveguide with a sound power that drops at about 1dB per octave. This creates less of an inflection in the soundpower than a constant directivity waveguide and in our opinion sounds more neutral. By controlling the spacing of the transducers and vertical pattern, we were able to optimize system integration.

The "inflection" refers to the kink in the power response from smoothly declining response to straightness (circled in yellow with green guide lines) in handing over to a constant(ish) directivity HF transducer. See here:

Charles thinks no kink sounds more neutral, and I can see why from the perspective of reducing discontinuity in the indirect sound. That may explain why you prefer the M16. Nonetheless I still find your glowing appraisal of the 705P disingenuous, considering it has a similar early reflection and power response trend to that you slag on here - and arguably does it less competently except in edge cases of sustained high SPL since the 705 admittedly has exceptional SPL ability for the form factor.

 

[ta240]

1. Warm, fantastic mid to upper bass. I can't emphasize enough how much difference this makes and how it impacts my subjective reviews.

So..... like a tube amp?


just kidding!!!!

 

[Vuki]

On axis, R3 (red) vs M16 (blue). As you can see R3 is much more linear.

Imho, shifting M16 2.5dB up would better correlate with listening impressions.

 

[Ron Texas]

KEF R3 is -3 dB @ 65 Hz and has a bump in the treble on a mostly flat FR graph.
Revel M16 is -3 dB @ 60 Hz and has a bump in the bass and slightly rolled-off treble on a mostly flat FR graph.

Maybe just a preference for warmth / bass emphasis which Amir mentions as a possibility in his impressions.

That's most likely it. We can look at a single preference score or we can dig deeper. I just gave my EQ curve a little bump between 100 and 200 Hz. The difference was immediately audible. REW gave filters which were a bit below the house curve in that range to start with.

 

[amirm]

@amirm Is it possible to complete the Advanced Speaker Measurements section with Early-Horizontal-Vertical reflection plots, SPL Horizontal & Vertical, Eye-Candy measurements?

It is a lot faster to post reviews with these few graphs. So I was hoping I would get away with not posting the rest. They are included in the spinorama enclosure for others to plot.

 

[amirm]

I wonder how difficult it would be for someone with technical/tinkerer know-how to take an off the shelf remote controlled (or IP controlled?) speaker selector (or perhaps multi-zone AVR?) and make an app for say a Samsung phone (with an IR beamer) that could randomly choose (and obscure from you) the playing speaker but allow you to subjectively score them and then give you the result at the end.

It would be great if someone could piece together a full solution. I know how to do it, but just don't have the time to do it.

 

[amirm]

Revel F35???

Indeed.

 

[ROOSKIE]

Is it possible you can compare them blindly? Or Eq them and then compare them? Comparing these two offer interesting results because of the excellent spins these two have. It could be possible you are unconsciously biased towards the Revels.

This is really why I have several speakers I love. Sometimes I want analytical and detailed and others lush and rich.
The r3 and the m16 seem to typify excellence in the two respective zones.
For me I'll take both, others might really prefer one vs the other - even if slightly pejorative and biased.

 

[MZKM]

Wow, impressive! This one I was waiting for so long! You guys rock!
I BLINDLY bought a pair of R3 and center R2C without even demo and this review makes me happy. Before this, I did the same with the big center from the previous generation R600.

Great on-axis FR without noticeable/nasty peaks and dips, that broad increase from 3k to 10k does not bother to me as is low in amplitude and you can easily EQ it out to your taste with manual PEq or Dirac. I don't believe if you are in the pursuit of audio finesse you would simply buy a speaker, take it out of the box, place it on a stand and call it done. Your ears will listen to speaker + room interaction.

The in-room response is right on point, except for that small treble bump that you can work out with toe-in or Eq.
Harmonic Distortion super clean, below 0,5% until 200hz.

It surprises me not much has been discussed in the Sound Power & Early Reflections DI which looks extremely good! This makes for Dirac heaven when taking into account such a smooth frequency response.


@amirm Is it possible to complete the Advanced Speaker Measurements section with Early-Horizontal-Vertical reflection plots, SPL Horizontal & Vertical, Eye-Candy measurements?

I ain’t calculating more graphs, but the off-axis graphs are calculated
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...4PVMoZGM22HtNyjQ2TOVkDGtE0o1pGvAaNn2O/pubhtml
iOS users need to use Chrome and not Safari.

 

[Bear123]

Indeed.

I'm wondering if the Klippel is doing its thing at this very moment. Not that I have any strong personal interest in the results since I have *totally* different speakers. Revel F36.

 

[PierreV]

I still find your glowing appraisal of the 705P disingenuous

Disingenuous is a bit of a strong word imho - it's all relative to the orders of the speakers being tested. Forst example, the first amplifiers and AVRs were reviewed a bit harshly imho, because we were expecting DAC like performance for amplifiers and stand alone amplifier performance for AVRs. As the sample size builds up, expectations were a bit reset and an AVR that would have been panned if it had been tested first now gets a pass on cost/performance/field average.

 

[ctrl]

The German online magazine lowbeats.de has made multitone measurements of the KEF R3 (presumably in a damped listening room).
The occurring multitone distortions (containing IMD + HD among others) are ok for a 6.5'' woofer. This is of course also due to the "weak" bass reproduction.

Tried an A/B test against an ATC SCM11. Ha! No comparison. Subjective comments are just that, but........
The KEF sounded dead, boring and lacked any kind of drive some how. Even with the bass EQ'd up, it just didn't sing. Detail seams to be there, but not in the upper mid.

The concepts of the two speakers are very different. The KEF R3 with uniform, directional dispersion and the ATC SCM11 with the strong horizontal expansion in dispersion (outside the zero degree axis) typical of this concept due to edge diffraction.

Only found measurements from the ATC SCM11 for 0° and 30°, but compared to the R3, the differences can be clearly seen:

Because more "sound energy" is emitted horizontally in the 1.5-3kHz range, voices in particular appear much more lively and possibly "closer" than with the R3, but may sound aggressive earlier at high sound pressure levels - especially with low side-wall distance.

The crossover frequency at 2.2kHz withdraws "sound energy" in vertical direction, but in my experience this is often not sufficient to compensate for the horizontal expansion in the radiation.

 

[spacevector]

Thank you for the great review. I must say I am not really a fan of the pinkish-gold drivers with the wood veneer.

If you like to support him the same way, and there is no pressure, just start a conversation with me and I will collect the funds to give him.

I would love to chip in a bit. I have a small ask though - can you please apply the broad EQ you mentioned that would help the speaker and redo the listening test against the Revel M106? May be also apply a small bass (100-200Hz) bump that the Revel has. I think this will shed further insight into listening impressions vs measurement.

 

[tecnogadget]

It is a lot faster to post reviews with these few graphs. So I was hoping I would get away with not posting the rest.

haha there is no way you could get away with murder! This was meant to be the popcorn review of the week ✌ Cheers

 

[twofires]

I have to agree on there being something about the Revel line that the KEFs lack. I own KEFs, and have heard a lot of them and thought they were 'good', but a while back I was in a local store and happened to hear some M106s playing. They're something else. I would love to have that 'something else' quantified.