KEF Meta Reference 1's? anyboy heard them?

I know the Reference 1 and the LS50, although not the meta versions. While the R1 fixes bass oriented problems and congestion with the LS50 and is a way better speaker, it has the same KEF type sound. It also is not as bright, ime. The R1 also has the nice feature of changeable port lengths. A very, very worthy stand-mounted 3-way alternative, imo, is TAD ME-1.

Who's anyboy? 

When you get into that kind of money, there are a number of floorstanders that will blow away a stand mount speaker. My choice in that price range is a Triangle Alpha or Delta. 

Dynaudio Heritage Special

The TAD ME1 blows away floor standers at the 10K price. At the $15K of the TAD ME1 then I think the ME1 can hang with similarly priced floor standers, especially in a medium sized room. I would want to hear how much closer the new KEF Reference 1 is to the TAD ME1. I would also want to demo the Magico A1. I had the opportunity to buy the ME1 a few times, but I could not justify the $15K price, especially after raising the price for no apparent reason than what seem to me perception.

Some of us have moved away from floor standers. I augment my Reference 1s with a pair of Velodyne HGS-15s with SMS-1 acoustic bass management, and high-pass them with a passive balanced Marchand filter that sits between the Ayre KX-5 Twenty preamp and VX-5 Twenty amp.  Primary source is Roon via Ayre QX-5 Twenty endpoint.  Setup sounds good to me

db

heard them the other day driven by a hegel H390 amp.  

recessed midrange, midbass coloration, poor bass depth and extension.  

at least the metallic treble was gone.  

not a fan of the KEF reference series and consider them some of the worst return on investment in audio.  

check out the Legacy Audio Calibre standmount.  blows the KEF away in every metric.  

@avanti1960 

Poor synergy of the combination. Don't discount the KEF, it's the Hegel. Just recently heard a Hegel integrated playing through a pair of Focal's. The Focal's sounded terrible. The Hegel is the common denominator!

BTW, heard a pair of the LS 50 Meta's thorough a Prima Luna integrated in a small room. I could not believe the bass that the little guys produced. We tested them against everything up to $5K, nothing compared!

I hope you are wrong about the Reference 1's, just ordered a pair!!

Ref 1 are primo, I owned a pair 5 yrs ago. Needed cash back, sold them a few months into it. Always regretted it. They're small but thunder with the right amp. 

I have only heard the Reference 3 but my thoughts align with avanti1960. Just shows you how important hearing things for yourself are. 
 

I would spend a little more and listen to the Focal Kanta 2. Or spend a little less and demo the Revel 226be (these would work in a small room close to a wall). I would run all of these with subs… If your open to use the Kanta 2/3, or Sonus Faber Olympica III would be in your price range and take up no more floor space then the Reference 1. A used pair of Wilson Sabrina is only a grand-ish more than a new pair of metas…

Nothing wrong with liking the kefs. I just felt they sounded hard (as in compression) and the bass heavily relied on the ports for output which made it sound “boxy” to me. I have a 20 year old Thiel 2.4 in my second system that outperformed the much newer Kef to my ear. One of my local dealers has Revels sitting next to the kefs, you would have a very hard time selling me the kefs. The Revels are cleaner, more open and play louder. 

It's funny how we all hear things. I owned the Revel Salon1 and heard the Salon2 several times. Whenever I heard the KEF Blade or Thiel CS3.7 I was thinking how much more I was enjoying the music over the Salon 1's.

I like the Reference 1 and the Blade the most from the KEF lineup. Looking forward to hearing the Meta.

BTW - I am under the impression that Revel no longer exists.

yyzsantabarbara,

Yes it is interesting how different our opinion is on the kefs. I have followed your posts over the years and very much respect your opinion. we have owned and enjoyed some similar gear over the years (Thiel, Revel, benchmark).

As always mood and room make a big difference in demos. We might listen for different things too. The kefs have a very wide soundstage and if you put a high value on that it could make a difference.

these days I value bass texture, center focus (vocals pop out front and center) and dynamic range.

Revel is still going strong but the ultima line is discontinued. I am assume the tooling needed replaced due to age and it was not profitable to retool for an old line. Seems like they got too caught up in R&D with blind testing and never brought out a Salon III.

the new Performa be line is pretty close to the ultima (heard both side by side). The Salon 2 has a bit more sound stage depth (curved cabinet?) and the 328be had better center focus and better highs all around.

As a huge Thiel fan myself I would guess anyone that likes Thiel could also like the 328be (or 228be/226be with subs). They have similar traits of wide dispersion and even tonal balanced. Interesting that one is first order crossovers and one is 4th. I would think the Thiel would image better but they don’t. Playing my 2.4 and 228be back to back in the same room/system the image is much better on the 228be while sound stage width is about the same. The Revel is much more detailed in the mids and highs but the drivers are much newer. It has been a long time since I hear the 3.7s so I can’t comment.

I found the 3.7 near perfect at the time. My only grip (minor) was that male vocals would collapse to the bass drive low to the ground and I struggled to get a razor sharp center focus. Probably had them toed out too far but on axis they got a hair bright.

Anyway back to Kef. My local dealer does not stock the blade but Best Buy does (they don’t count lol) so maybe I will give them a try for something to do. But the Reference 3 is a dud to my ear. 

At axpona I heard the 3 and the 5 while the ref 3's were positioned poorly the mids sounded metallic, in the same size room at axpona with the hegel h590 driving them the ref 5 sounded amazing. since they all use the same uniq in the ref line you will love them once properly placed, seriously