KEF Blade

Yes Texas, please share :-)

Well, now that I am back from Denver, I can share....but very little. I went in to the KEF Blade room Friday afternoon. It was packed so I only stayed a few minutes. (for those of you familiar with these type of demos, understand they are in a small hotel room with sometimes 10 people in there, often talking, moving about, etc). I got my pic of them and listened while standing up in the back of the crowd (all of the audition seats were occupied). They sounded nice and coherent but not much on to comment about than that. I had planned to go back on Saturday for an extended listen but apparently KEF had other ideas and they were already gone, being shipped back to England (or another audio show?). Kind of baffles me to bring a statement speaker for only the first few hours of the first day of an audio show and then not have them available on the day where the most people (locals and late arrivers, etc) would hear them. But what do I know. I'm not a marketing genius but seems odd to me.

I was anxious to hear them- I went early on Friday. The "music" they were playing was so bad that you couldn't tell. What I heard was truly horrible. Dealers or manufacturers who don't know what they're doing at shows should really hire someone to run them- but then again, if they do it do bad(as kef did), then They don't recognize the fact that they need help.

Hope to get my first listen on Saturday. Unfortunately also on an audio show. Will let you know.

I have had the Reference 207/2s for about three years now. I had a chance to hear the Blades recently and here are my impressions: First of all, I was impressed at how impressed I was with their sound. Very well integrated from top to bottom, wonderful timing and musicality with wide open and smooth mids and highs. The bass was tight and certainly not lacking. And this was with them being driven by a Raysonic CD player and a TEAC integrated amp! Coming home to my system, the key difference that I hear is the smoothness in the mids to highs and the integration of the sound over the frequency spectrum, the Blades were really smooth. I think my set up images better, but they had a set of horn speakers sitting next to the Blades for a demo later that day and I think that interfered with the sound. Also, I have much better electronics so I'm sure that makes a big difference as well, I can only imagine how they would sound in my system.

Hope that helps.

Bryston BDP-1 > ARC DAC 8 > ARC Ref 40 Pre > Bryston 28B Power > Cardas Clear > KEF Reference 207/2s. Shunyata Power and Cardas Clear ICs throughout.