KEF R500 Floor standing speakers

Compact floor KEF R500 speaker system from R series has on board absolutely new drivers. Previously such drivers were used only in the older Reference series. The latest version of coaxial 125-mm Uni-q driver is equipped with the diffuser made of magnesium-aluminum alloy and also with Z-flex suspension. HF-dome is made of aluminum.

130-mm low-frequency heads are not less interesting. Here are a sound coil of big diameter, an aluminum diffuser in the form of sphere's part and rubber suspension. All the drivers are assembled on cast aluminum frames and equipped with very powerful magnetic systems on neodymium rare-earth magnets. The developers paid special attention to ventilation in the construction, thereby got the absence of reflections and compression. The body is narrow and solid, differs by wonderful inertia. It has special X-shaped pedestal with spikes, which provides stability to the system. Acoustic design is bass-reflex. Both ports are on the back wall and have variable cross section. At the same place there is the panel with connectors for two-wire connection. By the way, it also has built-in jumpers to select one or two-wire connection scheme that is very convenient.

KEF R500 sounded quite massively and thoroughly for its compact size. Overall tone is light, resolution is high. There is lots of air and space. Voice range is covered with a light veil. I think that after warm-up this should go away. Top is clear, but with a slight synthetic taste, the middle is clear too. Bottom is not very deep and well-defined, but, however, it is comparable to the system's caliber and LF drivers. KEF R500 is configured well - the sound is unified and homogeneous. The arrangements of heads by D'Appolito scheme also contribute to this, especially that there is no tweeter in the center, but a coaxial driver.