KEF ls50 meta’s are on the way

@mapman  Very interested in your review. I have Harbeth P3esr's which someone will have to pry out of my cold dead fingers, but I'm tempted to sell my current LS50 wireless and get the new ones (non-wireless). 

At the audition today,  first listen was from about 6-7 feet in front of the speakers which were on stands a few feet out from the rear wall.   That was a very good first impression but what struck me special was when I backed up further the soundstage and imaging really kicked in.   It sounded very right top to bottom and when I turned around to look at some gear along the opposite wall the impression of the music just being there and totally disassociating from the speakers kicked in.  Also this was in a very sizable open area yet the bass extension seemed to be there.  I would agree with Guttenburg’s assessment that the sound was very much like no box involved like open baffle speakers.  I am not a fan of box speakers in general so that was a big plus. The older ls50s are pretty good in that regard but these did seem to take it to another level. 

@arafiq

i have auditioned Harbeth 40.2, but never the P3ESR. Based on my first audition today, I think the new KEFs share some attributes of those Harbeth, which I liked very much, but on a smaller scale of course. The setup was more modest though and associated soundstage and imaging was much different so really not an apples/apples comparison.

The back to the speaker listener position is how I listen to my LS50s in my 12x11x9 room. I kind of like it, not looking at a speaker makes me just listen. I have no choice in this positioning. Speaker does not completely disappear like some others ($$$) but it is pretty good.

The KEF Ref 1 is what to hear in my small room with this Meta stuff.

Kenjit if you read the white paper, which is very well written, you will see the attenuation is down to 620hz not just the range of the tweeter and there are measurement charts that show it. Also that there is a lot of science and expertise that went into the technology to enable its high performance.