KEF Q500 Floorstanding Speakers Black (Pair)

Product Information

The last KEF speakers I spent any time with were the Blade 2 and the LS50 – both members of the Concept end of the KEF design thinking. The R500 by contrast is a more conventional design but none the worse for this. Simply put, this is a beautifully proportioned design that uses the slim cabinet and driver layout to look elegant and symmetrical both as a pair and as a single unit. The review samples are in the walnut finish and this works absolutely brilliantly to complement the lines and leave the KEF feeling like a piece of furniture. I continued to run the speakers for a good while to warm them up a little and today I have been trying different sounds out to see what they can do. I´ve tried allsorts like, Carpenters, Jamiroquai, Limp Bizkit, Pink Floyd, Everything Everything, Muse, Oakenfold and some classical music. Thankfully, this thing comes with a passive crossover. Although it is only a passive crossover, it still helps to prolong the lifespan of your passive speaker as it splits up different frequencies from an audio signal after it is amplified by a single power amplifier, so that the amplified signal with its specific frequencies can be sent to two or more driver types, each of which covers different frequency ranges. This setup results in more clarity to the sound. The KEF R500 has been in place for long enough to see use in a variety of situations and with a fair amount of other equipment. In that time that have stood in my listening room attracting nothing but positive comment for their design and aesthetics. This is a handsome and capable speaker and one that is going to work well in a variety of spaces.

Not much to be found on the Internet about these speakers, as the Q300's took the limelight at the time.I run the Q500's, Q200, Q100's with a Definitive Technology Sub on a Yamaha RX-V1800 and the sound is incredible.

to the same dealer today. I decided to have another listen to the R500 and CM8 S2's. They had not yet changed the position in the listeningroom, and still connected to the same cambridge amp. My listening room is 13′ by 21′, with lath-and-plaster walls, hardwood floors, and a 9′ 4″ plastered ceiling. The speakers are located on the long wall. With the exception of some large record-storage shelves along portions of two walls and a large floor rug, the room is “live.” I initially installed the Q500s 19″ from the front wall with the faces toed-in towards the listening position, similar to the way my reference Sunfire CRM-2 speakers are oriented. My listening seat placed my ears level with the tweeters. The KEF is the smallest floorstander in the R Series range which sits above the ‘entry level’ (all things being relative) Q Series and below the Reference models. The fact that the R500 is the smallest model is fairly noteworthy as by most standards, this is not a small speaker. With the plinth installed, it stands over a metre in height and what is more, it feels fairly large – more of which in a bit. The speakers have to have front reflex ports as far as I'm concerned and I want floor standing speakers. I'm a bit out of the hifi game these days, but what new speakers that I have looked at so far seem to have rear ports which is a big no no for me. I've been looking at used Kef Q4's and used Mission 752 Freedom speakers, as my brother has some and they are great speakers. The KEF’s party piece is the creation of a stereo image. Any matched pair of speakers should generate a sense of a complete space of sound in front of you with the performers arranged within it – or in the case of many modern recordings, how the engineer feels you should perceive the musicians. Most speakers do a solid job in this regard but the R500 is absolutely exceptional. Listening to the stunning recording of Spaces by Nils Frahm, the KEF is so utterly self-explanatory in the way it positions the piano, the stage and the audience, that your mind simply stops questioning what it hears and focusses on the music instead.A new damped loading system greatly reduces distortion, giving a smoother, more detailed top-end. The "tangerine" wave guide system helps the treble integrate more smoothly with the mid-range. Another improvement with the Q550 is the sealed top compartment - meaning that treble and mid-range aren't affected by the air movements from the bass units. But the real highlight of the Q500 speakers lies on it’s new Uni-Q array consisting of one 130mm (5.25in.) aluminium LF driver and two 130mm (5.25in.) aluminium ABRs for enhanced bass response while on top of them we find one 25mm (1in.) vented aluminium dome for the high frequencies and is based on the state-of-the-art HF driver developed for the Concept Blade. We connected a pair of Q500 speakers to our Onkyo av receiver and positioned the speakers so they can have some breathing space around them. After manually calibrating them to be in balance with the rest of the system we were ready for our movie testing. Movies I tried the speaker in different position ,it is currently placed in top of a shelf . I have also tried some isolation at the bottom with some rubber and it acually had an effect on the bass as it became nuch more tighter. An also tried to bung the front port, though the sound was less bass but the clarity of the SQ enhanced a bit. As of now I am listening without the bungs after a month or so with the bungs. As I am writing this, the Q100 are playing 'The call of the Valley' a must listen Indian classic music the ambience it creates is excellent.

In terms of dimensions, the speaker measures 180 x 272 x 870 millimeters (WxDxH). It is crafted with precision, providing an optimal listening experience. The KEF Q500 is designed to bring out the best in your audio, delivering high-quality sound with accuracy and clarity. This pair of speakers has received a very significant professionally-installed upgrade over the standard Q-50 configuration. The original early 90's UniQ mid-tweeter array in each speaker has been replaced with a set from the succeeding generation, straight from its top-of-the-line flagship model, the Q75. As KEF describes it: "The 165_19 format Uni-Q array included a low profile surround that was moulded onto the cone to provide not only an improved cone-surround mechanical termination and a subsequently smoother mid-band response, but also a more continuous waveguide for the high frequency tweeter radiation. The result was a step-up in smoothness and tonal neutrality." That is a mouthful, that it basically means these new driver designs were a big step forward in sound fidelity from the previous generation. The KEF Q550 also has a great omnidirectional response, which means that the sound stage and frequency response stays consistent even if you move away from the speaker’s sweet spot.Dynamic shifts were excellent while the speakers managed to keep control through all the dynamic range. Even at high volumes the cabinets were sturdy without any audible distortion which shows the great work KEF did during manufacturing. Great quality brinks great performance and this is the case also here.

The KFE Q550 comes with complete bolt-on plinths that offer excellent stability. The spikes on the plinths stretch out to provide the level of stability possible from such a slender speaker. It helps in reducing the effects of vibration from loud music as the speaker is likely to stay in its position. Utilizing the Link facility to bi-wire the speakers was easy—merely rotating the dedicated knobs a few turns on each speaker to connect/disconnect the internal shorting mechanism instead of dealing with or, worse, losing pesky external shorting bars. While bi-wiring the Q500s, I experimentally (using resistors on hand, and don’t try this at home) connected my Sunfire 300~two current-source outputs, first through a 1.9-ohm resistor, subsequently replacing it with a 3.3-ohm resistor, in series with each tweeter input. (The amplifier’s voltage-source outputs were connected directly to the speaker LF inputs at all times.) The upper-octave response diminished substantially with 1.9 ohms in series, and continued to do so with 3.3 ohms. Indeed the experiment reinforced my thinking about the value of a proper adjustment control. WOW!!! I LOVE ÉM! Initially I was looking for the bass and was expecting floor trembling bass sounds and glass shattering high-end and that didn´t happen. What I found though Is that the speakers do deliver a beautifully ballanced sound throught the range and nothing is exaggerated. It´s a good clean sound. But when playing a bassy sound like Limp Bizkit´s "My Generation" you get plenty of bass and when playing something more acoustic like The Carpenters "Close to you" you get to hear every subtle detail, even the sound of her mouth opening and closing. The KEF Q550 is only equipped with premium-grade gold plated bi-wire terminals as its only input. You can use any bare wires or any kinds of banana plugs to connect with it. All passive speakers are really limited with their controls and connectivity. But even with these possible deal-breakers, the Uni-Q technology, the Tangerine Waveguide technology and other unique technologies employed to create the KEF Q550 floorstanding speaker make it worth the trouble.

Design

I wasn't sure what to expect from these small speakers when they sat next to my floorstanders but I connected them up to my Marantz PM6004 and Marantz CD63 KI. Initially I wasn't impressed until I turned the volume up a bit. Sitting down and relaxing with various music I found these speakers very open but with a real punch to the bass. In fact it's the bass punch and definition as well as the clarity and detail, which is similar to my Q500's but on a small scale, that makes me smile with these speakers. My room is pretty small and not ideally shaped for hifi. The Kef's with the front reflex port have been ideal, but they are quite old, my cat (RIP) scratched the speaker grills and they look sh*t without them, so I'm thinking of finally upgrading. No matter what type of music are you playing, the KEF Q550, always shows that it is versatile and an all-rounder speaker. The KEF Q550 produces a detailed and well-balanced sound. Its frequency response of 58Hz – 28kHz is more than enough to handle different genres of music and movies. In the higher price ranges, the differences were not so night and day, with the R500's having the edge there. It may help that the R500's have a different driver arrangement, helping to tighten the stereo image up. Also unfair there is that the CM8's where not placed on spikes etc so that could have improved the bass response.