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Is KEF no longer relevant?

It seems to me that 20 years ago Kef was quite a respected speaker manufacturer. Granted I knew far less back then about audiophilia, but for someone just starting out, that was my impression at the time.

Although Kef still makes speakers in the $5,000 - $15,000 range, they never seem to be the subject of serious discussion here on the 'Gon. These discussions are dominated by a group of the usual 20 or so suspects that we hear about over and over again. And no disrespect meant against that group - they are mostly, if not all, great speakers to be sure. But Kef certainly at one time was a pioneering and extrememly respected brand. What happened? Is this because they lost their "sound" after Raymond Cooke died? (an accusation I remember reading somewhere) Or are they just perceived as a "yesterday's news" brand?

No doubt there are many happy Kef owners out there who may answer this thread telling me how great their speakers are, even by today's standards, and I have no argument with them - I am a former Kef owner and very fond of the brand - but they clearly are not "darlings" of this forum. What happened?
studioray
aball
2,016 posts
 
Kef is REALLY popular in Europe but it seems they are dismissing the US market for some reason. Maybe they will head back this way in the near future.
texsun
21 posts
 
Some would say that they've diluted the brand by focusing at least their lower-end models to the home theater crowd (the Eggs, for example).

In addition, I get the sense that the Uni-Q concept was originally perceived as a bit of a gimick and backed up by mediocre reviews of the original implementations. However, their latest upper-end models (XQ and Ref lines) have been getting some good press.

Finally, as Aball has pointed out, Kef seems to have largely ignored the US market to focus on Europe.
audiokinesis
2,737 posts
 
I have very fond memories of building particleboard cabinets and soldering up crossovers for my collection of B139 woofers, B110 midranges and T27 tweeters. Kent Engineering and Foundry used to be at the top of the game as far as drivers available to the amateur speakerbuilding community.

I was very favorably impressed with the more recent KEF Maidstone speakers. Haven't heard any other KEF speakers recently, though.

The Maidstone's designer was Andrew Jones. Andrew has left KEF and gone to work for Pioneer where he designed the very well respected Model 1, which also uses a coaxial mid/tweet driver. I think that system is superb. So count me as an Andrew Jones fan.

I think it's not so much the company as the engineer that does the design work. I never would have expected Pioneer to build a truly first-rate high end loudspeaker, but they obviously found the right engineer.

Duke
chazzbo
1,007 posts
 
IKef still makes decent speake but to my mind isn't competitive at higher price ranges as now there are so many very good speakers that adjusted for iflation are like old Kef 104.But don't count thme out.Anothr company that was respected and fell shjort for a while was Snell.Now they have some hevayweight speakers that are extremely competive.Go tak e listen to what you canb afford and see for yourslef if j\kef stands up or you'd rather anothr.Probably I;'d reccomend staying with speakers made for Brittish domestic market like Harbeth,Spendor,B&W etc since I find that speakers are first made to appeal to doemsrtic markets and then "world domination".I characterisze them as say compared to Amnericanb oir acandian speakers to nbbe leaner and more neutral and some folks ddon't like it some do.Other speaker in that vein is Audio Physic from Germany.
Chazzbo
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