Are the KEF Blade/Blade 2 Metas a Significant Upgrade from Blade?

I was on the triumph rat forum and on a thread titled audiophiles ahoy a member posted being at a kef demo where they compared the blade to the blade  meta and he said the difference in sound didn’t live up to the hype. I think that could be said for most of the products we pine for. I often wonder if new is really better or just different? ‘Coarse I have a vested interest 

Here’s a comment from Hong Kong on the Blade One Meta, making some comparisons to the original Blade One: "What a surprise!!! KEF’s previous Blades are not my cup of tea. I personally think that they are a bit clinical and uninvolving. This pair of Blade One Meta is a totally diff story. They perform excellently on all hifi aspects : dynamics, freq extensions, density, soundstage ...etc, and most important of all, they are exceedingly musical!" https://www.whatsbestforum.com/threads/kef-blade-one-meta-a-surprise.35045/post-803870

Also here’s a very favorable new review of the Blade One Meta from Hi-Fi News which details many of the changes made from the previous version: https://www.hifinews.com/content/kef-blade-one-meta-loudspeaker

I own the older version of Kef Blade twos . The dealer I bought them from has a pair of new Kef Blade twos metas . My wife and I heard them after he had them for about 9 days or so .  He had a little over 200 hours on them .  They sounded good but not as good as I thought they would . We went back about 2 1/2 weeks later . He had played music on them non-stop . They sounded so much better , it was such a startling difference.  The Blade two metas do need a lot of run in time to sound at their best .  They are overall better sounding , bigger soundstage , better depth, clarity or transparency is improved .  If you read up on them they changed the UniQ driver 12 different ways , they changed 9 parts in the crossover .  I do remember when I first got my Kef Blade twos it took about 400 hours for them to sound their best !  Looks like you need that much if not more time to get Metas to shine .  Not all speakers are like this obviously.  But to my wife and my ears the Blade two metas are noticeably better . This was our experience!

@jrn Thanks to you and your wife. Very useful info for me.

Can you tell me what amps the dealer was using? I think I am going to go with the CODA #16 amp for the Blade 2 Meta. I am also very intrigued by the upcoming KRELL KSA 400i amp, but that 25-inch depth of that amp may make it incompatible with the wife.

I have the KRELL 175XD upon which the upcoming KSA 400i is derived from.

that amp is listing around $35,000!