This thread is a subject matter that I have been investigating for about 5 years now.
I owned the Revel Salon 1 for 5 years and liked it a lot but did not love it. I loved it the day I heard it at a store and made an impulse buy. I then started to learn more about speakers and the coincident driver technology intrigued me.
One day I happened to go to a store that sold the Thiel CS 3.7. I listened to this speaker for hours and came away floored. I thought all the music that I listened to at home sounded way better on the Thiel CS 3.7 over the Revel.
This was going to be the speaker to beat. I ended up following a girl to a small beach community and a very small apartment. So I sold the Revel and bought the Thiel SCS4 monitors as a stop gap until I eventually moved in to a bigger home and had space for the mighty Thiel CS 3.7. The SCS4 speaker was OK in the small room I had it in 14 x 13.
A few years later a friend of mine bought the KEF LS50 and lent it to me to have a listen. I was again floored. This was an incredible monitor and beat the pants out of the Thiel SCS4. So I thought, if the KEF LS50 monitor is better than the Thiel SCS4 monitor, maybe I need to have a listen to the KEF Blade. I did this one day for about 5 hours. It was hard to compare the Thiel CS 3.7 and KEF Blade but the Blade had 1 amazing trait that made me pick it over the Thiel CS 3.7. They both had huge soundstages but the KEF allowed a listener not to be parked at the perfect sweet spot to get great sound. I had more leeway as to where I could sit to get the best sound. The Thiel CS 3.7 was great in this regard but the KEF Blade was greater and now the speaker to beat.
I am currently using only the KEF LS50 speakers with great satisfaction in my office system and I cannot see the day when I would replace them for my small office space 12 x 11. However, I still want a big floor stander for hopefully a big room in a new house.
I have been listening to other coincident driver speakers and others speaker type at shows and dealers in Southern California. I have heard some mega buck speakers and none of these have beaten the KEF Blade.
Coincident driver types I have heard for long hours at stores:
Vienna Acoustics THE KISS
TAD Evolution 1
KEF Reference 1
KEF Reference 5
Great non-coincident driver speakers:
Wilson Audio Alexia
Magico Q7
Sony SS-AR2
Focal Sopra
My top 2 favourites in all the speakers I have listed so far are #1 KEF Blade and #2 Thiel CS 3.7. The others are all amazingly good but do not move me in the way the Blade and CS 3.7 do.
I owned the Revel Salon 1 for 5 years and liked it a lot but did not love it. I loved it the day I heard it at a store and made an impulse buy. I then started to learn more about speakers and the coincident driver technology intrigued me.
One day I happened to go to a store that sold the Thiel CS 3.7. I listened to this speaker for hours and came away floored. I thought all the music that I listened to at home sounded way better on the Thiel CS 3.7 over the Revel.
This was going to be the speaker to beat. I ended up following a girl to a small beach community and a very small apartment. So I sold the Revel and bought the Thiel SCS4 monitors as a stop gap until I eventually moved in to a bigger home and had space for the mighty Thiel CS 3.7. The SCS4 speaker was OK in the small room I had it in 14 x 13.
A few years later a friend of mine bought the KEF LS50 and lent it to me to have a listen. I was again floored. This was an incredible monitor and beat the pants out of the Thiel SCS4. So I thought, if the KEF LS50 monitor is better than the Thiel SCS4 monitor, maybe I need to have a listen to the KEF Blade. I did this one day for about 5 hours. It was hard to compare the Thiel CS 3.7 and KEF Blade but the Blade had 1 amazing trait that made me pick it over the Thiel CS 3.7. They both had huge soundstages but the KEF allowed a listener not to be parked at the perfect sweet spot to get great sound. I had more leeway as to where I could sit to get the best sound. The Thiel CS 3.7 was great in this regard but the KEF Blade was greater and now the speaker to beat.
I am currently using only the KEF LS50 speakers with great satisfaction in my office system and I cannot see the day when I would replace them for my small office space 12 x 11. However, I still want a big floor stander for hopefully a big room in a new house.
I have been listening to other coincident driver speakers and others speaker type at shows and dealers in Southern California. I have heard some mega buck speakers and none of these have beaten the KEF Blade.
Coincident driver types I have heard for long hours at stores:
Vienna Acoustics THE KISS
TAD Evolution 1
KEF Reference 1
KEF Reference 5
Great non-coincident driver speakers:
Wilson Audio Alexia
Magico Q7
Sony SS-AR2
Focal Sopra
My top 2 favourites in all the speakers I have listed so far are #1 KEF Blade and #2 Thiel CS 3.7. The others are all amazingly good but do not move me in the way the Blade and CS 3.7 do.