I am using the S3 stand.
Breaking-in KEF R3 Metas
- Thread starter regavegas
- Start date
alanbeeb
pfm Member
Ok.... Just try unbolting the speakers and sitting them on rubber washers or such like instead.
Have you got the stands filled? Fill them about 3/4 full of something heavy like atabites or kiln dried sand, should help.
Just general comment. Changing cables, stands or amplifiers is not going to affect the directivity or basic frequency balance of the speaker. if you don’t like what you are hearing, it might be time to consider switching to a different speaker.
hifinutt
hifinutt
Stick with the kimber ..quality stuff
les24preludes
pfm Member
Not a lot of love for the LS50 here....
Speaker Asylum
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I don't have them filled; they're sitting on Herbie's Audio Lab footers designed to minimize vibration. Any fill you recommend for the S3's?
gez
pfm Member
If, as has been suggested above, your previous speakers had a raising treble response. The mininum you're going to want to do with the KEFs is angle them so you sit direclty on axis to them. Then give yourself time to adjust to them. You may find that ultimately you'll learn to prefer the more neutral presentation.
It's been my experience that more neutral speakers are overall more satisfying for a larger spread of music and recordings. Of course you may not feel the same way and even after some weeks listening to all manner of music you may still not jell with the new presentation. In which case you only really have one option, that's to change speakers. No electronics, cables or stand modifications etc are going to make enough of a difference to the balance of the speakers to make them sound like your old ones. Even pulling the speakers further away from the wall, whilst it'll make the mid/treble region more "exposed" and lead to a "brighter" more "forward" presentation won't change the fundamental treble response of the speakers.
Personally, I'd give them time. You may well grow to prefer the new presentation.
It's been my experience that more neutral speakers are overall more satisfying for a larger spread of music and recordings. Of course you may not feel the same way and even after some weeks listening to all manner of music you may still not jell with the new presentation. In which case you only really have one option, that's to change speakers. No electronics, cables or stand modifications etc are going to make enough of a difference to the balance of the speakers to make them sound like your old ones. Even pulling the speakers further away from the wall, whilst it'll make the mid/treble region more "exposed" and lead to a "brighter" more "forward" presentation won't change the fundamental treble response of the speakers.
Personally, I'd give them time. You may well grow to prefer the new presentation.
alanbeeb
pfm Member
did you try unbolting the speakers from the top plate and using something rubbery instead? made a difference to mine for sure.
atabites - https://www.atacama-audio.co.uk/products/atabites-smd-z-7hd-inert-filler - but its quite nasty stuff to handle, don't let it spill onto the floor, best fill the stands somewhere outside the house.
or kiln-dried sand, or some people recommend heavy cat litter!
atabites - https://www.atacama-audio.co.uk/products/atabites-smd-z-7hd-inert-filler - but its quite nasty stuff to handle, don't let it spill onto the floor, best fill the stands somewhere outside the house.
or kiln-dried sand, or some people recommend heavy cat litter!
I will try a direct on axis toe-in. Currently, I'm following KEF's recommendation with a 15 degree toe-in, which is not quite firing at me. So far, I've been impressed with the sound. The treble is present, polite and refined.
You're absolutely right about getting used to a different presentation. As some here have said, my previous speakers had a more raised treble response. I am beginning to appreciate this KEF sound signature: there is detail and finesse, but not quite as up front as what I was used to. The midrange is impressive, and I'm using the R3's with a pair of REL subs, which compliment the base response nicely. There have been moments when I've heard things in recordings I've never heard before.
I tried switching speaker cable and went back to my original pairing, which was a Kimber Monocle XL. The Kimber gives instruments and vocals nice space in the soundstage. The imaging has been impressive.
I will follow your advice: I'm giving these time. I'm in the US and bought these from Crutchfield, which has a 60 day return policy. If, by that time, I decide to move on I will, but at this point, I don't think I'm headed in that direction. We'll see.
Jezzer
Unspecified
I have Bel Canto amps (Pre5 with Coherent modded ref1000) and tried the Kef LS50 Meta (after all the hype). Could not get on with them at all. Sold them after a month. Thought they lacked detail and that rear port was interacting chronically with a room mode. I bought a pair of Focal Kanta 1 and haven’t looked back. The treble is well balanced and, unlike Focals of old, not at all aggressive.
tuga
Legal Alien
That Kimber Monocle XL cable produces stupidly high capacitance (1,199.0 pF / meter) and could be rolling off the top end a bit...
tuga
Legal Alien
Where are you coming from in regard to speaker preferences?
The Lumina III seems to have a far more top-end dominant balance in room combined with a bit of BBC dip (quite similar in fact to the B&W house sound), also a somewhat drier bass.
The response is not flat/neutral and the speaker has a wider directivity above the mid-midrange (Stereophile & SoundStage measurements).
The Luminas are bound to sound very different from the R3s, particularly in narrow rooms.
Kimber says the Monocle XL has a capacitance of 479.6 pF/meter. May I ask how you came to 1199.0 pF? Am I misunderstanding something on the Kimber website? (And if my capacitance is 479.6 pF, would that be a problem with the R3's?)
gez
pfm Member
Capacitance isn't nearly as much of an issue as Inductance for speaker cables. Primary concerns for a speaker cable are 1. DC resistance. 2. Inductance followed by Capacitance some way behind. It's the opposite for interconnect cables. It's all due to the difference in impedances involved in the amp/speaker interface compared to source/amps. Typically the former we're talking fractions of an ohm output impedance in to impedances of around 4-8ohms, the latter several (sometimes even a couple of hundred) ohms in to kilo ohms.
For example:
"For a 5m Length of Speakercable there is about 0.1 Ohm DCR combinedwith about 1uH Inductance. The Capacitance is around 800 pF for5m.
Into a resistive 6 ohm load (respective of most modern tweeters+ Zobel) load that will allow a - 3dB Bandwidth in excess of 300 kHz.
The maximum frequency response deviation over the 20 Hz to 20kHz frequency range for a Speaker falling to a 4 Ohm Minimum will be about -0.2 dB. This will be at the 4 Ohm minimum, as compared to an infinite load impedance."
The Naked Truth about Speaker-Cables
The Naked Truth about Speaker-Cables, TNT - Internet HiFi magazine
www.tnt-audio.com
gez
pfm Member
Just to say though, you can go too far and it is possible for a speaker cable to have enough capacitance to affect the bandwidth in the audio band, but you'd have to have a pretty high capacitance to achieve that and it's basically a non issue for most speaker cable.
Kimber in particular do focus on low inductance in their designs, at the expense of more capacitance.
I myself use 4TC which IMHO is pretty much optimal for a speaker cable electrically.
Kimber in particular do focus on low inductance in their designs, at the expense of more capacitance.
I myself use 4TC which IMHO is pretty much optimal for a speaker cable electrically.
tuga
Legal Alien
Well spotted.
I clicked on the first link that popped up on Google, RussAndrews, which shows incorrect value for capacitance.
~500pF/m is still high but less likely to roll off the treble audibly.
Enough to fry an old Exposure, Naim or NVA amplifier.
wellers73
Member
It took me a while to adjust to the sound of my LS50s, and a lot of that had to do with getting the toe in correct. Unlike you, I was coming from speakers with a more rolled off treble, and the KEFs seemed overly bright, but there was a similar adjustment period. They sound perfect to me now. I think our ears adjust more than the gear changes during break in.
Speaking of which, the way you describe the sound of your R3 Metas sounds pretty close to ideal. I’ve demo’d the R3s recently and definitely didn’t find them lacking in treble detail. And your amps should be an amazing match as KEFs seem to really like powerful class D - their active speakers all use high watt class D amps, except for A/B in the tweeters of the LS50 Wireless and LS60.