Adante are a great speaker for vocals. They have the same wide and uniform dispersion as the KEF, but is slightly flatter in response in the range of vocal harmonics (2-8K). Where the KEF is maybe +/- 1db in this range, the Adante is closer to +/- 0.5db.
Due to the soft dome, the dispersion is directional above 8K. This makes the KEFs sound like they have more air, while the Adante sounds much more vocal focused, since this increases the relative volume of the vocal range. Also the KEF R3 is warmer and has about 10db more of bass extension.
For the size the Adante sounds smaller than the R3 (less air/smaller soundstage, less bass extension) which is surprising for a speaker with 65% more internal volume than the R3. I would say the Adante’s biggest problem is that it’s just too big for what you get. It’s also about 25% bigger than the Kef Reference 1 but gives up about 15hz of bass extension.
Due to the soft dome, the dispersion is directional above 8K. This makes the KEFs sound like they have more air, while the Adante sounds much more vocal focused, since this increases the relative volume of the vocal range. Also the KEF R3 is warmer and has about 10db more of bass extension.
For the size the Adante sounds smaller than the R3 (less air/smaller soundstage, less bass extension) which is surprising for a speaker with 65% more internal volume than the R3. I would say the Adante’s biggest problem is that it’s just too big for what you get. It’s also about 25% bigger than the Kef Reference 1 but gives up about 15hz of bass extension.