Kef Blade or Kef Blade Two for bigger room

I have Blade 2s in a room 3.7 meters wide by 8.2 meters long with a 3 meter ceiling which opens at the front to an entry foyer 3 meters wide by 4.3 meters long and 8 meters tall. An open doorway near the back of the room opens into a large kitchen and dining area, and several hallways open into the foyer. So it is a large volume.

I haven’t found the Blade 2s to lack the ability to pressurize the listening area but I have the advantage of a pair of SVS SB16 Ultra subwoofers reinforcing the lowest bass from 35 hz down. However, even without the subwoofers, the Blade 2s are capable of deep strong bass for all but the most subsonic EDM or pipe organ music.

I’ve used a Pass X250.8 stereo amp, a pair of Pass X260.8 mono amps, and now a D’Agostino Momentum S250 stereo amp to drive them, and they will play much louder than any reasonable person would ever subject themselves to for very long.

The only thing that concerns me about your proposed positioning is the proximity of the side wall which you have said will be 50 cm from the speaker. If that is absolutely necessary, then I strongly suggest using some room treatment at the first reflection points. The more room you can give the Blades to breathe to the sides the better, and they will throw a very wide, deep and tall soundstage with very precise imaging.

I can’t speak to how well the Blades would do in my space vs the Blade 2s. I was advised by several folks including the dealer who do have experience with both the Blades and Blade 2s that the 2s would work better in all but the largest spaces and to date I have not been disappointed with the Blade 2 performance.

The only tweak I’m using with my Blade 2s has been replacing the furnished spikes with Stillpoints Ultra SS.

Hope this helps.

Steve Z

Hi blueskywalker,
You're very welcome. In my basically L-shaped space I have the Blade 2s firing down the length of the room. It isn't ideal, because that results in the right speaker being 1 meter from the side wall but the left speaker sees open space into the foyer, to the outside of the speaker. In my situation, locating the speakers along the long wall would be a non-starter with my spouse, and I perfectly agree with her -- it would end up being an awkward traffic pattern through the room as well as resulting with me having my head very close to the wall behind me if I had the Blades firing across the short dimension of the room.

To address the asymmetry I use GIK Acoustics bass traps and a hinged free-standing trap to the outside of each speaker -- the right side to take care of the wall being close, the left speaker to be symmetrical with the right, though of course the left side bass trap and freestanding trap do not have a wall directly behind them. The left side free-standing trap visually serves as a nice room divider between living room and foyer.
In practice this seems to work well, since I do not have any "pulling" of the center image to one side or the other.
My Blade 2s are slightly more than 2.2 meters tweeter to tweeter and I listen at about 2.7 meters ear-to-tweeter.  However, because of the Blades' wide dispersion and effectively point-source radiation pattern, they are not fussy about distance along the center axis. I have the speakers facing directly ahead and not toed in at all. Also, listening from other positions left or right of center is still very enjoyable when I give up the listening chair to guests. Though not the same imaging and soundstage, the wide sweet spot has a very even tonality even quite a bit off-center.

From the back of the Blades to the wall behind is approximately 1.4 meters, however a bay window area extends the wall back farther between the two speakers and I have my equipment rack in the recessed area to avoid having the rack directly between the speakers.
If you can afford it, do give the Blade 2s the best amplification you can and they will not be the limiting factor. I think highly of Pass Labs (and I still do) but the D'Agostino Momentum amplifier is the real deal and I was astonished how much better the soundstage and imaging and how seamlessly life-like the Blades sounded.

Good luck!
Steve Z