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Amps for KEF Blade 2

I am looking for advice from owners or dealers of the KEF Blade 2 loudspeakers. I am concerned my current pair of amps will not be sufficient for the B2s because of an article written about the original Blades published on July 5, 2013 in The Absolute Sound:

"The Blades have a nasty kick in their crossover that will suck an amplifier dry quicker than a student downing free tequila shots ... Just don’t be tempted to cheapskate on the driving amps, or you’ll live to regret it. Tube amps at least have an output transformer to hide behind, but when the Blades suck out a solid-state design, they celebrate by spotlighting their tweeter something chronic. To give you some idea of the lengths required, the otherwise excellent Rowland 625 [550 watts into 4 Ohms] wasn’t up to the job, it taking a pair of the 725 monoblocs [650 watts into 4 Ohms] to restore order. "

Are the Blade 2s just as demanding as the original Blades in terms of amplification? I would guess not due to the smaller 6.5 inch woofers, but this is just an uneducated guess. I own a pair of Benchmark AHB2 amps, which according to the manufacturer produce “a little over 500 watts into 4 Ohms”. Will this be enough?
e91811
yyzsantabarbara
4,917 posts
 

Yea, like some of the Wilson or Darth Vadar speakers (as my wife said to the Wilson rep).  A Wilson demo with close to $300K speakers and Dagastino gear was really great but was it fun, I am not so sure. I was more fascinated by the price of the gear than into the music. I like the sense that you are transformed to the live show and I get that with the Blades. 

I like the old Blades even more than the great Vivid Giya (the most recent iteration) and that is a $100K speaker. 

Another that came to mind was MBL with all MBL gear in a large room. I did not understand the hype.

steve59's avatar
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steve59
1,783 posts
 

The first time I heard the kef uniq was the R105/3 in 1990 and it stood out from everything else in the room due to the 3d soundstage and precise imaging that I bought them, wife was 8 months pregnant and we were buying our first house but I didn’t care, I had to have them. Those ended up biamped horizontally with kav 300il on top and a b&k4420 for the bass.  I expect the more power I can feed the blades the more alive they’ll be. I do wonder if the h590 is a good choice for the pre/dac should I add the T&A amp to drive the top leaving the h590 to push the bass? AT suggested the E200 dac/pre to go with the T&a A3000 but I really believe the speakers will open up even more with 2 amps driving them. 

yyzsantabarbara
4,917 posts
 

I was considering using 2 amps for the Blade that I am getting. I already had a KRELL Duo 175XD and I could get a Dou 300XD for $6-7K used. However, after some research on this I came to the conclusion that a single amp is better than 2 amps, unless they were 2 amps built as mono. I sold the 175XD to buy a more powerful amp.

The Rotel Mitchi mono and the Hegel mono are what I would look at for overwhelming power and still very good sonics. Do not discount the Mitchi because of Rotel. It is a very nice sounding unit. I heard the much lower powered integrated.

 

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