KEF blades 2 or Dynaudio C4?

@mountainsong
Are the speakers going to be on the 12’ or 18’ wall? If on the 18’ wall I personally think either speaker speaker would be too much. On the 12’ wall either would be fine.
Is there anyway you can demo the speakers? Both are really different sounding. If you can I would also suggest bringing your amp cables and source. It can really make a difference. I say that because dealer will usually set up their systems with top end cables and amps for demo to show what they are capable of. They can make a significant difference to the point if you were to buy and get it home and say why doesn’t this sound as good as at the dealers. A lot of Dyn folks will say the Blades are too forward and bright and I’ll bet most Blade owners would say Dyn’s are too laid back and dark.

Everyone has a personal opinion and I find the Audio Doctor has their opinions just like other folks who are not dealers (honestly to me most non dealers are the most biased). BTW I commend the Audio Doctor for disclosing he is a dealer.

My local dealer carries Dynaudio - Focal - Kudos - Scansonic - Raidho and soon Borresen speakers. It amazes he how most of his customers are dedicated to only one brand and refuse to even listen to others. I think all his speakers are very good but I too have my favorite.

From our experience the Blade 2 will work in a smaller room, then you think. We just put out the KEF Ref 5 which are nearly exactly the same in terms of specs vs the Blades,  our smaller demo room is 18 by 14 and the Ref 5 sound fantastic in that room.
Our Blades are shown in our reference demo room which is 26 by 20 and the Blades do a fantastic job in that room.

The best thing is obviously to hear them in your room or at least in a similar sized room.
Dave and TroyAudio Doctor NJ

xti16 just made a good point most speakers sound best a few feet from surrounding walls so either way you'll probably be listening pretty close to the speakers, not a bad thing, but know what the speakers were designed for. How did you narrow your list down to the 2 speakers? At Axpona this spring I could list on one hand the BIG speakers that sounded good to me in the hotel rooms, Maggies, carver, revel... while I wanted to buy every small speaker I heard! 

I'm coming to the opinion that once I get past the $4-5000 mark the room decides what sounds better between competent brands. 

Steve59, we have to agree to disagree, over the years we have seen large expensive speakers shoe horned into less then ideal rooms with sometimes surprisingly fantastic results.
The key is how the system is tuned and how the system is adjusted.
Systems which do have external subwoofers that are part of the system, speakers such as the Scaena Iso Arrays, which have adjustable gain for the woofers worked great in two of our clients rooms that weren’t large at all.

We demoed  the Paradigm Persona 9H a speaker capable of 22hz bass response in a rather ordinary sized hotel room again with fantastic results and the same thing with the Legacy Aeris.
With today’s higher end dsp based room corrections systems you can solve the biggest issue in hifi which is bass which can over load the room and become boomy and ill-defined.

Even rooms and systems without Dsp you can use bass traps and custom hemholtz resonators to tune out the worst offending frequencies.
Our general philosophy is big room big speaker, small room small speaker, but as illustrated careful system matching and tuning can many times overcome the perceived issues.
With the desire to have X product and its intrinsic sound qualities and strengths and weakness in your room and commitment to getting it right you can accomplish things that shouldn’t sound right sounding pretty awesome.

Dave and TroyAudio Doctor NJ

@ OP

     I´ve owned the original C4s almost since they came out and over the years have listened to some pretty well regarded speakers since then, (including but not limited to the original Blades, not the 2s, older KEFs, Avalon, Proac, Pass´active Rushmores,Harbeth, Martin Logan CLX, Raidho, Sonus Faber and others),when the upgrade itch unsettled  my tranquility and sense of satistfaction with what I already had acheived in putting together my sytem.
     In fact I was very interested in the Blades based on curiosity concerning their concentric driver and I must admit their great looks from an industrial design perspective. As always personal taste will influence opinion so let me describe mine. What I´ve noticed over the years is the tendency in hi end design is towards speed, ¨accuracy¨ ?, detail, resolution, resolution and more resolution. Definitely not my cup of tea since most recordings are not up to snuff to be held up so close to such inspection.
     Most of the above descriptions about the C4s seem to me pretty accurate. They do need volume turned up to sound their best and that requires plenty of current. Also needed is plenty of space for them to open up and project a huge soundstage with electrostatic like coheviseness and imaging. Bass can be pretty awesome, almost full range but not quite with one caveat. Unles they have enough space they will sound muddied and indistinct as Atkinson described in his review. Not only that but the midrange and treble will suffer as a result. I wonder why he even bothers to review full range speakers with his obvious limitation in room size.Many find their treble response subdued, specially compared to the ilk of  metalic or ceramic tweeters. Personally I was convinced by the Esotar tweeter ever since I heard them on Sonus Faber Extremas. In fact only some ribbon or plasma tweeters I consider superior and then there are implications in integrating those with drivers of different materials but that is totally different matter.
     But summing it up, the main reason I have kept my C4s thru the years is as their publicity used to push is their total honesty to the source. As an example there is an older late 50´s mono recording of a string quartett that I use to evaluate string tone which was obviously recorded using tubes. Well you would swear my system was tube based which it is not. SS pre and 400 watt mono amps !
     So as you can see I´m pretty biased towards the C4s but based on your described room conditions I´m pretty sure they are not for you at this time. I´d look more at different the Harbeth offerings, all great speakers at their and I stress reasonable price points or just keep your speakers that seem to satisfy you. Changes are not always for the best.
     On a further point, has anyone noticed that KEFs top of the line $150,000 USD Muon is a total ripoff of the C4s cabinet design ?