MUNICH SHOW: KEF celebrates 50th anniversary with flagship £20,000 Blade speakers
It was at the Munich Show two years ago that we first set eyes on KEF's futuristic Concept Blade speakers.
At the time they were just engineering prototypes, destined to do the rounds of various hi-fi shows and demos.
But now all that development work has come to fruition in these, the production-ready KEF Blade. Although derived from the original Concept Blade, KEF says there are several significant upgrades to the earlier design.
At the heart of the KEF Blade is its Single Apparent Source technology, a new, fully pistonic KEF UNi-Q MF/HF array which "forms a seamless point source driver array handling the entire frequency range".
Four side-firing 22.5cm newly developed bass drivers handle the Blade's low frequency response, arranged in symmetrical pairs so the forces of each moving cone cancel each other out.
The force produced by the bass drivers is so powerful, says KEF, that massive rear magnets have had to be bonded directly to each other to obtain the full benefit of this engineering approach.
All this technology is housed in a rigid, heavy cabinet made from polished glass reinforced composite.
The KEF Blade will be available to order from KEF retailers in July/August for £20,000 a pair, available in gloss black or white.
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Comments
Wait for the technology to filter down to Reference Jax, then use the Reference centre :)
Try here for example, oldric – but thanks for your kind words of support...
We also posted a range of pictures and comments from the Munich show on our Twitter feed, which is linked to at the end of every news story...
oldric_naubhoff, we posted several stories from the Munich Show in our News channel, not just the KEF one, including announcements from Naim, Cambridge Audio, Beyerdynamic and PMC.
And we'll be publishing an in-depth show report on our Blogs channel later today.
that's pretty pathetic. the whole show ended yesterday. and over a 4 day period just 1 news emerged - and it goes without saying that it had to be about some British product...
but then again, who cares about some Munich since we have our Bristol Hi-Fi show. that's where it all happens!!
Sure, that's fine for the rears, but what do I do up front?
That's my Christmas present from the Mrs sorted then.
Matching centre speaker?
Being the geek that I am, does anyone else think they bear a resemblance to the Portal turrets?
Just to expand...one of the strengths of the Glastonbury's is their 'virtual point source' configuration. Apart from a 'tickle' from the tweeter all the work is done by one main spun aluminium driver, so, I feel the Blade's 'Single Apparent Source' technology has merit.
And it does look like a rotor blade! From where my 'name' derives...'bladeslap' is the 'whop whop' choppers make as epitomized by the Huey in all those 'Nam movies;¬) Sadly I never got a chance to fly one!¬(
They are gorgeous. Temptations section, here we come!
I haven't found anything yet to match my twenty-two year old Glastonbury's but I'd buy these on looks alone...gorgeous!