KEF R500 Floorstanding Loudspeaker - High Gloss Piano Black (Pair)

I don't have a whole lot to compare these to, as they are my first and only set of audiophile grade speakers, but I can definitely say that the experience with them has been incredible. First thing that I noticed was that I could, in a way, hear my pre/pro and amp for the first time (they sounded bad, lol). Source material suddenly became important. Then I started noticing acoustic issues with my room and setup. Switched my main amplifier to a Parasound Hint and built bass traps etc. It was a long journey that started with these speakers, but I now spend a majority of my free time sitting in front of these and just enjoying myself. If these are a large step up from your previous speakers, be prepared to spend money on additional components and a ton of time acquiring all of your favorite music in a better format, lol. You absolutely will be able to tell the difference between poor mp3 quality and FLAC with these.

Let me just add one thing. To get the full soundstage you should either get a powerful amplifier (not av but a 2 channel amp) or else add a power amp. I have been running these with a Cambridge cxa80 and a parasound 2125v2 along with a hsu sub. And I am done for the next decade or so with this setup :)

Awesome build quality, really good sounds. Very clear and also strong bass output. IMO sounds better than my LS50.

We just purchased two pair of these remarkable speakers – one for a rental property A/V system, and one for our living room Bluetooth audio system. I have to confess – as an admission of bias – that I’ve owned ~ 10 pairs of various KEF Reference speaker models, so you can take that statement of brand loyalty any number of ways, but for me things have gone this way simply because I’ve not been able to find another line of speakers offering the same value for the dollar as the higher-end KEF models – and I’ve owned several other high-end late-model speakers including Revel Studio IIs, Ohm Walsh drivers of various forms, Infinitys, and JBLs. KEF R line models are technically not Reference line (but instead one notch below the expensive Reference line and Uber-expensive Blade models), but the ‘dirty secret’ may be that the R series speakers include a whole lot of near-Reference line-quality components, for a lot less money and thus, they represent a killer value.For this reason, we suspect that the current KEF R series (R100 – we own a pair of those), R300 , R500 (this model), R700 and R900) might be even pulling people away from the more ‘upmarket’ and pricey Reference line models. For the extra money, in the Reference line models (1/3/5), will get you even flatter response, better cabinetry, individually tweaked drivers and components, and a print-out of the frequency response curve on your individual speaker – with an assurance that the two speakers are within 0.5 DB of each other throughout that measured audible spectrum. It’s an individual buyer decision as to whether or not the sonic and cachet values add up to all that extra cash out the front door.Some history on this might be worthwhile. KEF has had this Uni-Q (integrated tweeter and midrange assembly) concept since the late 80s – early 90s, but it still needed a lot of work in the first iterations. They continued to refine their execution of the Uni-Q concept through the late 90s and into the early 2000s, but we first saw the true promise of this technology in the prior generation Reference line (which came out in 2007), in the Reference 201/2 (similar in size to the R300), 203/2 (similar in size to this model), 205/2 and their honkin’ flagship model, the 207/2. It took them 10 to 15 years and several generations of re-design in other words to really get the Uni-Q concept worked out to the point where it began to reveal its sizable theoretical potential (the benefits of a single coherent point source transducer). That 2006-2007 KEF Reference line garnered the first 'class A' review by Stereophile of this design approach - indeed there were two rave reviews of this prior gen Uni-Q Reference speaker by John Atkinson (the best technical reviewer in the industry IMHO) of the 201/2 and the 207/2. So from that generation, which is the preceding generation, to this newer group of speakers from KEF, we’re beginning to see the true fruits of those laborers in terms of the Uni-Q. The latest generations of this integrated midrange and high frequency driver have improved and smoothed dispersion, coming from what KEF calls a "tangerine waveguide" in front of the tweeter portion (which also offers additional protection from dome damage from small curious fingers!). While the version of this Uni-Q driver in the R series is not as clinically smooth and near ruler-flat as the new Reference and Blade model iterations, it shockingly close. I’m attaching a curve from the Stereophile review of its slightly larger brother the R700 as a JPEG. This is overall flatter frequency response than a number of $20,000 and up speakers, and except for its low-end, this speaker likely sonically identical to the R500, with an identical Uni-Q driver.These R series models sound almost as smooth as the prior generation Reference line models – and they certainly measure very close to those models, but for a whole lot less money. For example, the R-300 costs about a third of the original Reference model 201/2 (about the same size and driver complement), but might be almost as good sounding as that benchmark bookshelf speaker. These integrated drivers means that you have essentially a point source for all but your low frequency content, and additionally in the R500/700/900, the placement of this integrated tweeter/midrange in between two bass drivers means that the acoustic center for ALL the frequencies is the exact same location. This creates an exceptionally seamless sound, and when combined with the very flat frequency response, excellent transient response (enabled by very careful control over driver resonances and a physical corollary of their flat acoustic response), this design approach gets you as close to a neutral and yet vivid sound as I have found at this price point.What are they actually sound like? You really have to hear them with your favorite material to have any true judgment. They sound pretty much like the original source material. Vocal material – consistently the toughest test of speaker neutrality – is where the speakers really show their quality and value. Listen to Anita Baker’s smoky rendition of ‘Sweet Love’ on her Rapture album for example. It's just stunning. But they’re good on just about any high quality source material. We use Apple Lossless files on our two music servers, and although there are a few things that aren’t quite perfectly translated by that encoding scheme (super-high bass drive levels don’t seem to get properly encoded on the Telarc digital recording of Stravinsky’s Firebird for example), but outside of a handful of outliers, I can’t tell the difference between Apple Lossless files and original CDs played on a good player. On our music server libraries, the speakers consistently sound great.I haven’t compared these to the newer Reference models, but I have compared the R-500 to the KEF Blades which we also own and love (as a benchmark system), and outside of the low bass, it’s surprisingly close between the R500 and a system costing more than 10 times as much. They acquit themselves really well in this completely unfair comparison, and the differences are mostly pretty subtle, unless the material contains a lot of low frequency content – then it’s of course no contest. But you can’t change the laws of physics and in the low frequency domain, you can’t compare two 6½ inch drivers to four 9½ inch drivers in a cabinet with more than twice the cabinet volume. The Blades admittedly sound better outside the bass range too, and seem to have a clarity, esp. on massed vocals and other complex acoustic sources (vocals plus lots of instruments) that the R500 can’t quite match. The R500s still sound pretty solid at the low-end, with decent output down to 40-50 Hz, and with a bit of boundary reinforcement if you've got them near a back wall, they probably have the least some passable and audible output extending into the 35 Hz territory. But they’re probably not a speaker for dance club bass freaks, organ music junkies, and kettledrums aficionados, if you really need and crave that maximum visceral impact from low bass - not without a subwoofer anyway. But if you want maximum sonic faithfulness and neutrality, in a surprisingly compact footprint, and for reasonable money, these are a really great value.Paired with a decent subwoofer crossed over at about 40 cycles or so, which mitigates their only real deficiency relative to the big boys, they will amaze you with their overall sonic quality. And their fit and finish is just as smooth as their sound.