Kef Blade or Kef Blade Two for bigger room

i just found a Dutch review saying the same as Audiotroy, both Blades sound alike but the bigger sounds bigger, giving off more energy... which one is best depends on the room you use it in...

How much distance is recommended from the side and rear walls, I looked up their user manual, but text and picture on that seem to imply different things...

With my room being 4.8 by 9.3m would it be advised to completely change my setup for them and have them against the long wall, firing down the short end? This would be strange for me, as I like to sit like 4.5 to 5 m away from the speakers... With the depth of my sofa and the depth of the speakers, plus some rear distance from the wall that would be impossible... 

Hi blueskywalker,
You're very welcome. In my basically L-shaped space I have the Blade 2s firing down the length of the room. It isn't ideal, because that results in the right speaker being 1 meter from the side wall but the left speaker sees open space into the foyer, to the outside of the speaker. In my situation, locating the speakers along the long wall would be a non-starter with my spouse, and I perfectly agree with her -- it would end up being an awkward traffic pattern through the room as well as resulting with me having my head very close to the wall behind me if I had the Blades firing across the short dimension of the room.

To address the asymmetry I use GIK Acoustics bass traps and a hinged free-standing trap to the outside of each speaker -- the right side to take care of the wall being close, the left speaker to be symmetrical with the right, though of course the left side bass trap and freestanding trap do not have a wall directly behind them. The left side free-standing trap visually serves as a nice room divider between living room and foyer.
In practice this seems to work well, since I do not have any "pulling" of the center image to one side or the other.
My Blade 2s are slightly more than 2.2 meters tweeter to tweeter and I listen at about 2.7 meters ear-to-tweeter.  However, because of the Blades' wide dispersion and effectively point-source radiation pattern, they are not fussy about distance along the center axis. I have the speakers facing directly ahead and not toed in at all. Also, listening from other positions left or right of center is still very enjoyable when I give up the listening chair to guests. Though not the same imaging and soundstage, the wide sweet spot has a very even tonality even quite a bit off-center.

From the back of the Blades to the wall behind is approximately 1.4 meters, however a bay window area extends the wall back farther between the two speakers and I have my equipment rack in the recessed area to avoid having the rack directly between the speakers.
If you can afford it, do give the Blade 2s the best amplification you can and they will not be the limiting factor. I think highly of Pass Labs (and I still do) but the D'Agostino Momentum amplifier is the real deal and I was astonished how much better the soundstage and imaging and how seamlessly life-like the Blades sounded.

Good luck!
Steve Z

Just remeasured my room, 4.65 m to be exact... leaving 65 for the width of the speakers I could put them 2 m apart and leave 1m each side... But still room treatment then would be needed seems...
No idea if the big blade would be at disavantage because of the limited width more then the Blade two?

 Fred,  can you buy an american made speaker .   Made a wise choice with the Amp then went down hill fast 

Blueskywalker,

I have Blade 2s in my apartment living room which is 4.66m x 4.35m and opens on one of the 4.35m ends into a dining area which is 5.63m x 3.81m.  Ceiling height is a uniform 2.6m.  Dining area also opens into a kitchen area a long corridor.  

I have the Blade 2s on the long wall (4.66m) of the living room with the left speaker positioned 2.35m from the left side wall and the right speaker at the end of the long wall where it opens into the dining area giving 3.8m distance to right side wall from speaker.  Not sure if all those numbers add up exactly but gives a rough guide.  Back of speakers are however only 70cm from wall. Speakers tweeters/ Uni-Qs are 2.62m apart.  Listening position is 3.2m from each tweeter / Uni-Q which puts me closer than I would like to the wall behind me.    

I am driving the Blade 2s with just an Ayre AX-5 twenty (250w per channel 4ohm) at present with Cardas Clear speaker cables / interconnects.  Blade 2s have Isoacoustics Gaia 1 footers and Cardas Clear jumpers.   Ayre AX-5 twenty runs on 240V / 50hz as I live in Australia.

So, even driving the Blade 2s with an amp capable of only 250w per channel I can easily produce thunderous bass at just mid level volume (26 out of 46 on amp volume scale) that pressurizes the room.  I picked the Blade 2s over the 1s to better match my room dimensions / amp power and I am really happy with the results so far. With a more powerful amp driving the Blade 2s I could undoubtedly achieve more bass but friends have commented that bass levels on some tracks already sound like we are in a nightclub.  I have a HSU VTF15H in my HT system which makes the couch shake (on just 20% power) - so I like heavy bass when appropriate.  

Interestingly I found that adding both the Gaia1 footers and Nordost BC sort kones to my system added bass depth as well as better defining it within the soundstage on certain tracks.  I recently posted on another thread that powering my Ayre amp and DAC with a Goal Zero Yeti 1400 lithium battery also significantly improved overall SQ, soundstage and bass characteristics.  I have found that the Ayre AX-5 Twenty provides excellent SQ driving the Blade 2s at low volumes too. I have no room treatments at present which will be my next system upgrade.  However clarity is still striking which I put down to the Blade 2s working well in smaller listening spaces.

I heard some Blade 1s at a dealership driven by a Naim Statement amp can that put out 1.45kW into 4ohm and reckon my little Ayre amp driving Blade 2s had the Blade 1 / Naim combo beaten for clarity and accuracy of vocals and instruments within the soundstage.  Bass of course was a lot more powerful with the Naim amp in the driving seat.  How much of the difference in clarity / soundstage accuracy however was due to the Blade 1s vs 2s is difficult to say without a direct comparison using the same amp.  

I heard some Vivid B1s at the Melbourne HiFi show. Excellent clarity/ staging but I found them too bass shy for my taste.  Not sure what amp was driving them. 

When funds become available I would love to try driving the Blade 2s with an Ayre KX-R / VX-R combo or an integrated amp from T+A or Dan D’Agostino.