Kef Blade or Kef Blade Two for bigger room

Just remeasured my room, 4.65 m to be exact... leaving 65 for the width of the speakers I could put them 2 m apart and leave 1m each side... But still room treatment then would be needed seems...
No idea if the big blade would be at disavantage because of the limited width more then the Blade two?

 Fred,  can you buy an american made speaker .   Made a wise choice with the Amp then went down hill fast 

Blueskywalker,

I have Blade 2s in my apartment living room which is 4.66m x 4.35m and opens on one of the 4.35m ends into a dining area which is 5.63m x 3.81m.  Ceiling height is a uniform 2.6m.  Dining area also opens into a kitchen area a long corridor.  

I have the Blade 2s on the long wall (4.66m) of the living room with the left speaker positioned 2.35m from the left side wall and the right speaker at the end of the long wall where it opens into the dining area giving 3.8m distance to right side wall from speaker.  Not sure if all those numbers add up exactly but gives a rough guide.  Back of speakers are however only 70cm from wall. Speakers tweeters/ Uni-Qs are 2.62m apart.  Listening position is 3.2m from each tweeter / Uni-Q which puts me closer than I would like to the wall behind me.    

I am driving the Blade 2s with just an Ayre AX-5 twenty (250w per channel 4ohm) at present with Cardas Clear speaker cables / interconnects.  Blade 2s have Isoacoustics Gaia 1 footers and Cardas Clear jumpers.   Ayre AX-5 twenty runs on 240V / 50hz as I live in Australia.

So, even driving the Blade 2s with an amp capable of only 250w per channel I can easily produce thunderous bass at just mid level volume (26 out of 46 on amp volume scale) that pressurizes the room.  I picked the Blade 2s over the 1s to better match my room dimensions / amp power and I am really happy with the results so far. With a more powerful amp driving the Blade 2s I could undoubtedly achieve more bass but friends have commented that bass levels on some tracks already sound like we are in a nightclub.  I have a HSU VTF15H in my HT system which makes the couch shake (on just 20% power) - so I like heavy bass when appropriate.  

Interestingly I found that adding both the Gaia1 footers and Nordost BC sort kones to my system added bass depth as well as better defining it within the soundstage on certain tracks.  I recently posted on another thread that powering my Ayre amp and DAC with a Goal Zero Yeti 1400 lithium battery also significantly improved overall SQ, soundstage and bass characteristics.  I have found that the Ayre AX-5 Twenty provides excellent SQ driving the Blade 2s at low volumes too. I have no room treatments at present which will be my next system upgrade.  However clarity is still striking which I put down to the Blade 2s working well in smaller listening spaces.

I heard some Blade 1s at a dealership driven by a Naim Statement amp can that put out 1.45kW into 4ohm and reckon my little Ayre amp driving Blade 2s had the Blade 1 / Naim combo beaten for clarity and accuracy of vocals and instruments within the soundstage.  Bass of course was a lot more powerful with the Naim amp in the driving seat.  How much of the difference in clarity / soundstage accuracy however was due to the Blade 1s vs 2s is difficult to say without a direct comparison using the same amp.  

I heard some Vivid B1s at the Melbourne HiFi show. Excellent clarity/ staging but I found them too bass shy for my taste.  Not sure what amp was driving them. 

When funds become available I would love to try driving the Blade 2s with an Ayre KX-R / VX-R combo or an integrated amp from T+A or Dan D’Agostino.

Thank you Ayrefan for the long and detailed info!
Seems there are a lot of happy Blade 2 campers out there 😎
I am wondering if any Blade one owners want to chip in and tell us their experiences?

Strangest thing... I accompanied a friend to pick up his new Hegel 360 amp in a shop, and asked to,hear the blade 2s on it... I did not like at all... we changed for the Kef Reference 5 and all was well... better imaging, no midbass bloat...
In all fairness the setup could have been better suited, a cambridge audio sacd player was used to play cds, connected with optical cable to the Hegel. When the Blade2s where changed for the Kef REF5, the optical cable was replaced by a good coaxial one...
I imagine this accounts for part of the improvement, especially imaging, but wonder if only the optical cable would have been responsible for the boomy bassline on the Blade 2 vs Kef reference 5...