KEF R3 Speaker Review

[hardisj]

Do you have driver measurements available for them?

I do not.

 

[jhaider]

Elaborate

A single point measurement in space can’t tell you anything useful about the in room response. That’s why techniques such as spatial averaging or moving-mic were developed.

Drawing any conclusions based on single point measurements in space is frankly irresponsible.

 

[HammerSandwich]

I do not.

Zaph measured an ATC dome back in 2011. Ctrl-F.

 

[laurelkurt]

Pure conjecture based in my own ignorance, but perhaps vertical reflections? The M16's 2kHz-4kHz dip in his room measurement mirrors it's vertical dispersion graph, perhaps suggesting he's picking up a lot of floor and ceiling reflections (mostly floor). As the R3 has a lot more vertical energy he's similarly picking up a lot of positive reinforcement from both planes in its measurement.

And I'm assuming a hard concrete floor in a garage.

 

[tuga]

Unless I am misunderstanding you @QMuse, you do not want to gate the impulse response in this case. Gating it turns just turns it into a quasi-anechoic measurement. Amir was looking to see how the PIR matches the actual in-room curve.

Is there any contraindication to using steady-state pink noise analysis?

 

[ROOSKIE]

I'd suggest, KEF being British and all, that they're tuned for typical British rooms where they will likely be close to the front wall. Indeed KEF bookshelf speakers I have tried seem rather lean unless they are reasonably close to the wall. The other observation I'd make, is that once the bass is brought into balance in this way, they tend to sound rather polite at the high end.

Been wanting to say this about bass tuning but I kept forgetting. Thank you!! Yes, much smaller room sizes for many folks over there. Yes many here have that as well, but a number of our systems are tuned for very large living spaces.
This is why there is not a one size fits all way to asses bass response. Some speakers are designed to be 1 or 2 feet from the rear Wall and other more like 4-6 feet. Additionally many systems are designed not to be toed in (such as KEF and Dali) so on axis measurements are not design correct.
Anyway.

 

[Fone]

I heard these with a subwoofer in a store and really liked them.

I have heard the similar KEF LS50 probably a dozen times and like the driver engineering and style. But I thought they sounded rather mediocre.

 

[amirm]

I have made a breakthrough in finding the conflicting subjective listening tests to objective data. It opens a huge can of worms though so I need to do more testing to confirm hypothesis. For now, I can make the R3 sound almost as gorgeous sounding as M16 with a simple hack.

For now, the science is mostly correct. As was my subjective listening tests.

All the guesses here including mine were wrong. At least not the high order effect. In hindsight though, it is an obvious thing.

 

[mi-fu]

I have made a breakthrough in finding the conflicting subjective listening tests to objective data. It opens a huge can of worms though so I need to do more testing to confirm hypothesis. For now, I can make the R3 sound almost as gorgeous sounding as M16 with a simple hack.

For now, the science is mostly correct. As was my subjective listening tests.

All the guesses here including mine were wrong. At least not the high order effect. In hindsight though, it is an obvious thing.

Looking forward to it!

 

[TimVG]

$5 on a bottle of wine

 

[goldark]

I have made a breakthrough in finding the conflicting subjective listening tests to objective data. It opens a huge can of worms though so I need to do more testing to confirm hypothesis. For now, I can make the R3 sound almost as gorgeous sounding as M16 with a simple hack.

For now, the science is mostly correct. As was my subjective listening tests.

All the guesses here including mine were wrong. At least not the high order effect. In hindsight though, it is an obvious thing.

Don't tease us like this!

 

[amirm]

Don't tease us like this!

Well, the alternative was to let you all keep speculating/accusing me of being deaf.

 

[goldark]

Well, the alternative was to let you all keep speculating/accusing me of being deaf.

Would this affect all previous speaker reviews potentially? (in terms of the subjective listening impressions)

 

[tecnogadget]

All the guesses here including mine were wrong. At least not the high order effect. In hindsight though, it is an obvious thing.

You put the grilles on the Kef’s

 

[Absolute]

It must have something to do with a wife and a kitchen. If not, it can't be trusted

 

[amirm]

Would this affect all previous speaker reviews potentially? (in terms of the subjective listening impressions)

Probably although more so the far field tests.

 

[napilopez]

I have made a breakthrough in finding the conflicting subjective listening tests to objective data. It opens a huge can of worms though so I need to do more testing to confirm hypothesis. For now, I can make the R3 sound almost as gorgeous sounding as M16 with a simple hack.

For now, the science is mostly correct. As was my subjective listening tests.

All the guesses here including mine were wrong. At least not the high order effect. In hindsight though, it is an obvious thing.

Hmm. Wall distance? Toe in? SPL? Room nodes?Whether or not you were eating a brownie sundae while listening?

 

[BYRTT]

$5 on a bottle of wine

Will put mine $5 reason is for far field a critical or picky listener needs them speakers that on axis have a shelved down contour in lowest octave moved closer to frontwall so they get a natural close enough boundary surface to try fill up that natural missing shelved down lowest octave, PIR curve should benefit that low end boost also because many listeners are often told to be more or less some bass heads ...

 

[McFly]

It must have something to do with a wife and a kitchen. If not, it can't be trusted

Hahahaha classic.

$5 amirm got his ears cleaned

 

[Thomas_A]

Sorry guys, I loaded wrong PIR for M16.

Here's how they look when range 1khz-10kHz is matched:

View attachment 54112

I can see that the proportion/level of the 1-2 kHz range vs the 2-5 kHz range is opposite in these two speakers. I guess that one thing that makes the presentation, at least in a stereo setup ("error correction" according to Shirley et al). I know what I prefer, and that is a bit higher level 1-2 kHz vs 2-5 kHz. It would be interesting to hear what the subjective evaluation would be if the R3 would be EQued to the same response as the Revel in the 1-5 kHz region.