Kef Blades (1), being auditioned...please share your experience.

I’ve never encountered speakers with side firing woofers that weren’t a bugger to get right in a room. Only exception perhaps were my small MBL 121 monitors.
but every floorstander....not an easy set and forget

yyzsantabarbara, thanks for the references.............I'll take a look.

https://www.stereophile.com/images/615KEF2fig05.jpg

If you look at the horizontal dispersion characterstics of the Blade, they are a bit on uneven side past 30 degrees off-axis.

The newer Reference and R series are a lot better in this regard and should have much less variation as you move around. While they also start dropping off at around 30 degrees, the continued drop off is very gradual and should sound a lot more uniform.

Alcoholbob,  Thanks for that.  I am upgrading the KEF Reference 1, and yes, the Reference series are much more room friendly. IMHO the Blade stands apart.....

Bump, I had the kef r105/3 that had 2 6'' mid bass drivers and they still made male vocals sound like choir boys. Designers believe wide dispersion speakers are the way to go and maybe so, but with that coax driver pushing so much radiated sound of reflected surfaces and our ears being more sensitive around the 3khz range we need room to let the speakers breathe. My solution was to put acoustic tiles over the sheetrock on my 7' ceiling, use heavy carpet pad under the carpet and keep the speakers 5' from the sidewalls. I'm looking at the Blade now and if I go for it i'll be posting my impressions for sure.