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Please keep reviewing the high end stuff as well. I think its super interesting to compare its performance with the budget stuff

Fact is that the lower priced stuff has been reviewed to death. This is a refreshing change.

This is the speaker I will buy used in 15 years. :-)

Keep the costly stuff coming, please. LOVE THIS review style, Erin. The substantive comments on what you HEAR are deeply valuable to me (and I'm sure others). They also happen to literally mirror my own in completely different spaces. Never be afraid to relay what you hear... you're trusted by us. 👍🔥❤️

Probably the best speaker review I have ever watched. Please keep up the great work 👍

This has become my go to review channel. Amazing information, combining state of the art measurements and technical information with listening observations. Well done, I wish you all the success

I can REALLY appreciate your articulation of the sound quality. You never come across as pretentious. Those test results often back up what you are hearing. Thank You!

So glad to see these getting measured and reviewed. I've been curious about them for quite awhile. 🍻

Great job, Erin. Been hoping someone would review this one for a long time. It really looks like a legitimate competitor for the Kii 3s, D&D 8C's etc. Lower distortion than both of them to boot, though it does require a sub to reach into that lowest octave. Just about as good as something like this can be, I think.

Your reviews are amazing, I just discovered your channel! Thanks for the measurements, too! Nice gear!

Love the high end review! Wasn't too high end compared to some, it's an obtainable price point, keep them coming. Looking forward to mid level speaker reviews also. You must be the hardest working person in hifi, keep up the great work.

What I am happy about the most is that your channel is getting better views which is absolutely deserving!!! This is helps both, not just you but your ardent supporters like me as well!

Thanks Erin! I love the review of the higher priced speakers too!

Great review as always Erin. Just for ref Bowers & Wilkins (B&W) were supplying frequency response print outs with each speaker back in the 70’s which meant they could pull up the response for the individual and match a replacement driver years down the line.

Awesome work, man. I’m way below the price level of this KEF, but your channel content in general and the website info have provided me with a LOT of powerful knowledge to select my loudspeakers. It’s really essential to be able to cut through so much of the BS we see around in this industry and the, say, prose in the “journalism” that covers it. Keep up the excellent work. I’ve just made a donation! Cheers.

I am sure there will be a tone of reviews over the next few years on this speaker but doubt any will be as compressive as this review. Well done

Thanks for this. After you reviewed the Bose 901 and admitted you had fun with them it became apparent you are very open minded and honest with your impressions.

I had KZfaq running in the background and then I heard your musical intro and at first I just felt excited and my mood became more positive but I couldn't place the channel until I walked over to the computer. Then I was like yeah that makes sense. I had a Pavlovian response to your catchy jingle. Thanks for making my day.

Thanks for your review. Learned a lot!

Really enjoyed your in depth reviews! Fantastic. Really like the hi end speaker reviews.

Awesome review Erin! Thanks so much for this. Keep it coming at all price ranges. I can only afford entry level speakers in the $300-500 range, but I still like reading about and hearing samples of TOTL and SOTA designs.

Great review! Easy to follow, good job Erin!

I am delighted to see you so delighted about these =)

excellent review as usual, also like that min impedance above 80hz add.

I have heard good things about Kef loudspeakers, but looking at the design I was unconvinced. This review goes a long way toward getting me to try Kef.

well done, i auditioned the kef ref 1 meta today; needs avery good amp, something like the hegel h 190 works well

I definitely don't mind you reviewing the higher end stuff (especially if it's competently designed). I probably wouldn't be in the market for a pair of 9k bookshelves...but 5-7k floorstanders are definitely worth considering for me (Kef, Elac, Revel, etc). Might even be interested in something a bit crazier like a Spatial M3 (but subjective reviews only aren't going to cut it). RMAF going away kinda hurt...really wanted to listen to a bunch of these.

They are nice and it nice to see a review of high end equipment something I can't afford

Good review!. It would be nice to see a review of Focal Sopra N°1 and Revel M126Be.

Great review as always! I hope you'll review the Falcon LS3/5a speakers some day 🤞😊

Insane speakers. KEF are amazing as always.

Wow great review. I’m gonna have to go to a demo room to check them out. How would you say they compare to the Perlisten you reviewed that are in similar price range?

These measurements are amazing out of the box. I have to admit I just watched becaue of the shirt.

I had the privilege of a personal tour of the KEF factory, including their test chamber that measures off the production line and their anechoic chamber by the main Jack Oclee-Brown Head of Acoustics, KEF back in 2015. I have a pair of old non-meta Reference 1's.

Another great video Erin, I am curious about the internal bracing and damping the Kef Meta series use

Finally someone reviewing this

Imo the slight bright FR of the R3 is nit much of a problem when you use equalisation. I use my R3 with dirac an a sloped down target curve which resolves the brighness.

Hi Erin, great video! I am very curious curious about this speaker compared to the Revel Performa 226Be? You also seemed like the Revel. Note, I would be crossing both speakers at 60-65 Hz. Thanks in advance!!! Mike

A bit late but great review as with everything else you do. Wasn't able to demo in my area but your review helped me decide to purchase the Ref 1 for my L C R channels 3 months ago and I'm simply loving it. Upgrading from the Dali Euphonia MS4, I didn't think the sound would be as much of an improvement, glad I was wrong. Money well spent and these should carry me over the next decade or so. Thank you again 🙏

"Don't Worry Be Happy" is one of my top reference songs. It's a great recording with low compression.

Once again, you've done it...you made another great compelling video complete with useful information. However, please stop worrying about the length of your videos. The information and insight that you provide hold our attention so stop apologizing for what we came to the channel for. Keep up the great work, and congratulations to your daughters on her science project.

I did a review of that speaker when I was I with AVS Man O Man that speaker is great! Costly! but great.

I just pulled the trigger on a pair of Reference 3 Meta after listening to them in a store. I compared them to the Blade 2 Meta side by side and these actually had the upper hand against the blade in my opinion. Excited!

Just an FYI for the community and yourself, if you care to check it out, you can see the effects of tube length in WinISD. 1) open WinISD and get whatever driver you want to play with setup for a vented enclosure. 2) after you have got the enclosure roughed out, along with any filters added to the model, etc., go to vent and set a fixed circular vent size (like 3 or 4 inches or whatever for your project) 3) flip over to the box tab. Leave the size of the box the same and only change the tuning frequency. 4) flip back to the vent tab and notice the change in the length. In the last driver I modeled, I had a 3" port with a recommended 4.27" length when tuned to 100Hz (using a pro driver with high sensitivity on a 6.5" Eminence driver). At 90Hz, it recommends 5.79" in length on the port. This can vary with drivers, but is an easy way to see how tuning is effected by port length. Also, sometimes, you want to tune the speaker higher to get better performance. Why? As you try to dig down low to the edges of what the woofer can handle, you also make the driver act under different load conditions that can approach the X-max. As the driver moves closer to X-max, the linearity of the driver movement is less. That lack of linearity can cause distortion and artifacts (as well as moving closer to bottoming out the driver). By tuning the speaker higher, you reduce the effects of approaching X-max, thereby lowering your distortion overall on the driver, having more linearity, and a cleaner sound (or that is my understanding of it). But, a speaker is not the whole of the system. Here, the different vent lengths also took into account boundary effects of the room in which you place the speaker. They varied the port length to take into account how it would interact near a wall versus in the middle of the room. That is beyond where I'm currently at on simulations and modeling, but it is awesome to see this being taken into account. But, that's my two cents.

Great review, I always appreciate your thoroughness and explanations. Any thoughts of measuring IMD?

One thing I think is interesting is the evolution of thinking on cabinet diffraction by the more technically competent speaker companies over the last ~15 years or so. If you look at the speakers that represented top-tier engineering back then - KEF 20x/2, Revel Ultima, Vivid, TAD and Pioneer EX, NHT xD, GedLee, Grimm, JBL LSR 6-series studio monitors - they were all quite curvy or often had big roundovers or sculpted baffles. I'm not sure there's a 90 degree angle or for that matter a flat plane on my Revel Gem2's! But today everyone except Genelec and Vivid seem to have gone boxy: 201/2 to Ref1/Ref1M, Revel Studio2 to F328Be, JBL 6328 to 708, and so on. While fashion, production costs, and bass efficiency (cabinet volume) play into that, what's notable to me is this boring box shape with nothing but a slight waveguide flare around the concentric driver does not seem to suffer from the diffraction effects.

I loved The non meta reference, I’d love to hear that

I like what I see in this review. The fact that KEF offers port tuning is a nice touch - no two rooms sound the same. The listening window is 'stinking' flat, much better than R3. If I just could audition a pair, since Erin's comment on soundstage depth and layering is very favorable. I think KEF also listened what people said/think about R3 to make this model. Erin, BTW how do they compare to March Audio Sointuva (Purifi/SB) you have reviewed earlier this year.

Thanks for the review, this can be a good comparison with the KEF LS60. Cheers!

Wow really nice speaker! I have the R300's myself, and I like them. But they're not my favorite. The Elac Carina bookies are better, and to me it's not a subtle difference. But to be fair, it's also not a huge difference either. Thing is though, I really want to like them, because they do so many things right. And it seems like this is the perfection of this type of speaker. And I'm thinking that I would probably love this one. Because it most definitely has none of the bad, and all of the good stuff. They fixed every issue basically. Too bad I can't afford them. I'm definitely going to be watching the used prices though. And praying for good B Stock prices during a sale period. Either way. Great review of these. I'm amazed at the measurements. I almost didn't watch the end, because I'm not overly concerned with them myself. But the in room looks like someone ran Dirac on them! That's seriously impressive!!! Love the music choices BTW. And nice shirt too man! I'm going to pull up those videos on KZfaq in a minute here (just recently set up my system to watch videos on my 50”, and have the sound go through my HiFi*, coincidentally). I love that BM DWBH video, and haven't seen it in decades probably. 😁✌️ *totally dating myself here, but hey, what would you expect from a guy who grew up in the 80’s? 🤷🏻‍♂️😁

❤ this review.

These are supposed to be a R3 related design with a warmer signature and less of an upper mids/treble bump. I'll be curious to see how it compares against the R3.

Hi Erin, great review as always even though i will never hear this speaker in my lifetime...way to rich for my blood. And btw 'I don't care anymore" i agree one of Phil Collins' best tracks. Although i personally prefer 'I cannot believe it's true". Probably his best solo album.

Interesting stuff. Thanks

Thx. Good review

Hi Herin,i'm looking the rdference 1,now I use the R3 with audiolab monoblock. Is really a big change the Reference?? Saluti dall'Italia 😇

You mentioned that you preferred the tonality of the KEF to the Ex Machina. Would you please elaborate on the sonic differences between the two? Thanks and great review!

Kef reference range speakers are just beautiful.

Hello my friend... firstly congratulations on your videos, they have helped me a lot in choosing my speakers... I would like your opinion on the timbre of two speakers... I want to upgrade my home theater speakers and of stereo sound, but I only have one room... I want to buy the KEF Reference 1 and the others I want to put from the R series, central and surrounds... do you think it will make a significant difference in timbre by putting the front Reference and the others from the R series? Thank you

They do look real nice in that finish

How do you compare it to March Audio’s passive Purifi based spesker

Guys, I watched this review so many times and finally pulled the trigger on a pair of Reference 3 Meta. I tought the "small" bump in price compared to an extra woofer (less distortion) and a floor standing design (no stand needed, more bass extension) compared to the Reference 1 Meta was worth it. Let me tell you, it's end game. It's all you ever going to need. Pair it with a KC92 sub and the system can't get any better. It serves you any song on a gold platter. If you are saving for speakers, the KEF Reference are your thing to go for for sure.

If you could choose one for life would it be this, or the Revel f226be?

Hi, I have the Dynaudio Contour 20, do you think this Kef R1 will sound much better?? Thanks!!

I have always wanted to know what the difference between this one and the R3. Oh and Erin the R3 is 2200 dollars now. Erin based on your testing and listening could you say the Ref was 6800 dollars different or better than the R3? The Ls50s were a one trick pony in my room, highly fatiguing and the R3 were not.

Love your channel man. Great reviews and great attitude. I can’t stand audiophile music either. However for reviews I think maybe you should listen to some well recorded jazz and classical just to see how those instruments sound. No offense man. I don’t mean it in that manner. I always find that pop music sounds larger and more impressive because of the instruments used and the recording techniques. When I listen I also put on some pop music but put on some well recorded classical and jazz to see the tonality/timbre of the instruments as a benchmark of how real they sound. Cheers man. Good stuff.

I do not find this KEF Ref1 to be an "expensive speaker". Properly set up I think it would be quite satisfying in most higher end systems. I will gladly put this on my short list.

You interpretation of meta is correct. If anybody has ever played with those little ball maze toys as a kid, it's literally that attached to the back of the tweeter housing. The maze "halls" are calculated lengths and folds to absorb the backwaves from the tweeter. Thus less distortion. But for anybody wondering, think" ball maze toys" and attach it to the back of a woofer magnet. That's what it looks like.

Once the R3 meta is released it will be interesting to compare them to this Reference!

Would really like your opinion on the new r3 meta and maybe comparing it with this one (like, is this one worth more than 4 times as much).

Absolutely top class review - well done!

Erin a product like this would make a nice long term subjective reference for your ongoing evaluations. Your "Stig"

Excellent review as always. A bit rich for my blood, though the R3 Meta should perform similarly whenever it comes out, without the same level of build quality.

Great t-shirt :)

Impressive speaker!

0:42 "Why are you reviewing more costly stuff?" That's like saying no to a hot date! Even if it leads to nowhere. At least you got to experience it! Right? 🙂 Its kind of like going to the Space Needle for Brunch. You do it just to experience it. One of the things I'm sad about I missed out on? Taking a flight on the Concord. I did see it land. But I never got to take a ride. It was the last time it ever flew into SeaTac. Life is short. Take some chances. You never know if you may get the Chance to experience it ever again.

Dear Erin, I always enjoy watching your reviews. May it is possible to share on your homepage further songs you are using for your reviews? I'm want to create a "Erin's Audio Corner Test Tracks" playlist on Apple music for sharing with your other subscribers. Greetings from Germany!

That dynamic linearity… ❤❤❤

Now we need to see the Arendal 1723 S THX 🙏 ☺️

It would be nice to have a tier between the '3' and the 'reference'.

can you reccommend a pair of subwoofers to go with the Kef reference meta 1's in a 2.2 setup for films and music? I am thinking rel s812 or the rel carbon?? or would something else be better? I need a sub that will be able to keep up with these speakers. Thanks

@ErinsAudioCorner I have a feeling comparison between R3 Meta and classical Reference 1 has been avoided deliberately because the price difference wouldn't hold. What are your thoughts?

nice looking speakers

Erin, let's say this was crossed over to a sub at 100hz do you think for dynamics the woofer would still struggle at 97db? Or do you think kef reference 3 would be better and just take the hit on some cancellation from 2 woofers?

Going watch this on the big screen while i eat lunch :) Can't wait for the meta to trickle down just a bit farther to the r series. Will edit when done watching. Edit: that distortion results are amazing for a bookshelf speaker. I'll be really excited once you get the r series meta as then we will be able to compare to the old model and this model. I think it's pretty cool they have different ports that they provide. Would be cool if they had a plug that worked without the need for either of the ports to be in there.

When you said 98 db level, was that dba or dbc? Thanks. Also were you comparing the R3 meta or R3 regular. Thanks

What are the link adjustments for on the back of the speaker?

I like your tff shirt. What speaker is the best when playing tears for fears?

There is a lot more to the new Reference line that just the "Meta" material part of it; even though the Meta part takes the headline, its a complete revamp of the design. KEF's lead designer goes into depth: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mtdmityKqazdqH0.html

Wide is in part due to how the material has been recorded. So just don't listen to "Don't worry, be happy", find a wide stage song.

期待测试更多的低音炮。

Thanks for the review! As a fellow dealer, We can definitely confirm that Kef Reference 1 META Bookshelf Speaker is an incredible speaker that delivers exceptional sound quality. It features a 5.25-inch Uni-Q driver and a 1-inch vented aluminum dome tweeter, which works together to produce a detailed and natural sound. The speaker also has a sleek and modern design, with a black gloss finish and a curved front baffle. Additionally, the speaker is compatible with a range of audio equipment, making it a versatile choice for any home audio system. And as a fellow dealer, We can definitely vouch for the quality of Marantz products. If you have any other questions about the Kef Reference 1 META Bookshelf Speaker please feel free to ask!

Bedankt

Waiting for new KEF R3 metas

And with a GR $550 kit make it a really good speakers because 8000 plus isnt enough for it to be Phenomenal because Gary says so

Erin. When you coming out with the EAC floorstanders?

Well, I stay around for the 2 nd half... owning the original Meta LS , curious as to price. the LS version is not much more than the original LS, this is much more $$ than the R3 , didn't expect that.... I also have the moderate cost KEF Q 350 , to these 73 year old years ( can't hear above 8000 hz on Utube freq. response tests, right next to speakers ) voices are sometimes clearer but the general sound is similar. Of courses I use a sub with the Meta LS'. outlaw receiver.

I have the R3 Metas. They’re amazing and affordable.

These are wonderful speakers, when you start getting up to this price you might as well buy genelec the ones monitor with their glm software... That's the only issue...