Kef R5 Floorstanding Speaker Review (P.S.: I'm sick of listening in mono)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2024
- Written review/data: www.erinsaudio...
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All of my tests are conducted using KLIPPEL Hardware and Software. KLIPPEL is an innovative leader in providing unique test equipment for electro-acoustical transducers and audio systems. Founded in 1997 by Dr. Wolfgang Klippel, the novel techniques developed for control and measurement systems of loudspeakers and other transducers are the result of over 30 years of fundamental research. This provides more accurate physical models of loudspeakers, micro-speakers and headphones valid for both small and large amplitudes. The focus is on revealing the root causes of signal distortion and defects and giving practical indications for improvements in design and manufacturing of audio products. For information on KLIPPEL products, please visit their site below:
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![Best Floorstanding Speakers 2024 [don’t buy one before watching this]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Nq7GjbSgtnU/mqdefault.jpg)
Erin, you are reaching "reference standard" as a reviewer. Incredibly useful, solid, well based information. Great presentation style. Thanks and Kudos!
Thank you very much. ☺️
Best channel man, you do good work.
Buy: bit.ly/3oo5ffF
*Affiliate link: may earn me commission at no additional cost to you.
I love how narrow my r500s are so slim and elegant. Plus wife approved
One of the things I truly enjoy about your channel and reviews is that they are both geared toward 'regular' HiFi Enthusiasts in the area of price and what you can reasonably expect from the products based on their price points.
Rolling off the lower bass like that could lead to a better ("less boomy") response in a smaller room with the speakers mounted closer to the walls. It's basically a damped EBS alignment that should be able to get you flat down to Fb if the "room gain" is right. That little dip and peak around 30 Hz is unusual though. Can't think of any logical reason for engineering a speaker to do that.
Hi Brian, I looked at the R series Kef White Paper and it shows the same lower bass roll-off that Erin measured. (without the small 30 Hz bump that is an aberration or something that only shows up in high-resolution measurements). I agree with you that the lower bass roll-off would work better with speakers mounted closer to the walls as would be required in smaller rooms for practical reasons and in fact, the Kef owners manual shows that in their positioning recommendations. Their more expensive Reference 5 does not have this lower bass roll-off and interestingly is recommended to be placed further into the room.
Erin great work as usual. Love the inclusion of SPL and compression data.
@@BradSteeg "Extended Bass Shelf". Basically a larger box with a lower Fb than your typical "maximally flat" alignment, and usually characterized by a response that slopes downward to Fb.
@@williampoynton7323 Thanks - looks like I guessed it right, this time :-).
@@Grommet2007 Yes, good observation. This is why I appreciate having the data. Because it's easy to overlook things like this sometimes. Frankly, it didn't even cross my mind, yet I've mentioned it on other speakers I have reviewed (usually bookshelf speakers). And it's nice to have people catch stuff when I don't. :)
Thank you for the measurements! I'm excited for the budget subs.
I'm happy with my compact r5/r2c 3.1 AV setup with sb3000. I don't really understand the measurements, but Erin's description is on point aligning with my experience. Case/grill work is awesome and wife is happy too. I do crossover the bass at 50hz, and I can push them plenty hard without issue when family isn't around :)
Very competent, spouse friendly, nice looking small floorstanders. Would even work quite close to a wall say 1ft, would likely fix the low end up. Just don't expect those 5.25" woofers to do high volumes of bass from hip/hop or electronic tracks. I don't think there's much out there in this form factor that would measure as well. Thanks for the review Erin, nice work as always.
Completely agree about slim towers such as a lot of def tech stuff. Getting pretty close to having reviewed this whole lineup lol. Keep up the good work!
To me, it looks like they wanted to make a tower and get some low end, but didn't do a good job of the low end part of it. I would either like to see larger woofers, or passive radiators, or the tuning to get better output to 80hz.
I would rather see a 8" or so mounted on the side, instead of the second 5" woofer. Then possibly they wanted something for small room, close to the wall placement. Definitely I would close the ports (tuned kind of high) if paired with sub.
Nice video. As much as the low rolls off at 100Hz I am fine setting my subs to cross with these at 100-120Hz to deal with all the lows anyway.
Must be my room but going from Klipsch rf62II to my q750s was like adding front wide and height speakers. The soundstage encompasses the entire 13' front wall. Thanks for the reviews.
This looks like more of a filler product between the R11 and the R3.
Hope your channel is successful financially! 👍🏻
Thanks...sound is what matters more than numbers😁
Most people do not want the R5, they want the R7 and R11. Strange how one of those 3 speakers has avoided scrutiny this far into production...
I have Kef LS50 Meta but thinking about replacing them with R5 for my living room. Do you think they can make difference to compensate their price?
I have been waiting for this
Very interesting measurements results. Have you used a different resolution or smoothing for this R5 on the Klippel vs the R3 ones ? The R3 results are much smoother and the R5 more ragged. Another thing that surprises me is that the R3 has a slight advantage on distortion results.
Even they are using the same size 5" UniQ, the R3 has lower distortion on its usable range, I don't get it, I would expect differences on the bass drivers frequency range.
All data is smoothed to 1/20-octave resolution. So no difference there. The R3 scale is a bit more coarse which will drive the appearance of the results to *some* degree. The reason for the larger y-axis on the R3 is because a 50dB scale would have cut off the DI results.
The only difference between Uni-q on the R3 and R5 that I know of is the R5's shadow flare is smaller.. Maybe that explains why the R3 is smoother. Maybe the larger shadow flare is better at preventing diffraction? Not sure why the R3 would have lower distortion in the Uni-q frequencies 400hz-Up.
I’m seeing more of a difference in the tweeter range. If the R3 shadow flare is deeper then it stands to reason it is more “horn loaded” than the R5 which means higher SPL on the lower end of the tweeter which means lower distortion when the passive network flattens that natural gain.
The r3 has a bigger woofer than r5 (6.5 vs 2 x 5.25 in). Larger woofers tend to have more excursion, lower fs. This may offset the woofer area advantage the r5 has in distortion.
Im loving this forensic thread 👍🏻. As Vinnie pointed out, R5 Shadow Flare is smaller, so I want to point out it resembles more with R2C thickness than R3.
I got the R700 with the larger 6.5 inch woofer's and love them
The polar response is a bit interesting. This speaker is basically symmetrical - mirror symmetry down the center of the baffle. Shouldn't the horizontal polar response also be symmetrical, or at least a lot more symmetrical than the chart indicates?
Yea, I noticed that. I’ve seen similar on other plots from other tests. It has more to do with my script and the dB steps being 3dB. Rounding sometimes can make the difference there and while the Klippel NFS is great, it is completely within reason that one side may be 0.50dB off from the other side. Combined with not lining up the speaker perfectly (say, being off by a degree or two), and you’ve got a culmination of these resulting in the polars looking a bit skewed. When I used to generate them in 1dB steps it wasn’t a problem. But with 3dB steps these “perfect storms” are more noticeable.
Hope that makes sense.
It possible to show spectral decay? It indicates where the ringing or stored energy is at a given frequency if the speaker isn't well dampened. GRR channel shows it when he evaluates a speaker. Love your Channel we need more of this. It really shows what materials work and don't work. Doped paper cones are a sure bet but others do well. Metal aluminum can cause problems.
Lets hear it for the original Acoustic Research. ( AR ) audio design. developed not only sealed bass but the dome tweeter, still in use today. products like the AR 4 , AR 2 and AR 3. from early 1960's. also a fine amp and clunky T'table. > your comment at about 8 min in....I believe their last legit product was in early 1990's ( AR 302 303 and 338 ) and they were co designed with NHT, which recently closed.
What tweeters were used before dome tweeters? Wasn't aware they were innovative.
@@stevenswall small cones, same visual design as a typical woofer or cone mid. domes lighter, quicker & provide wider dispersion.
How do the KEF R5 compare to KEF R3 bookshelf?
R3 is priced very similar when taking into account speaker stands.
A lot of people recommend the R3 over the R5, Whats your opinion?
Personally, I like the R3. I’m not saying it’s better. I just like it more from an overall perspective.
@@ErinsAudioCorner I have a pair of r11s that I just bought and want to buy the rc2 center. how do you feel about it versus this R5 or an r3 used as a center channel I'm afraid that the r11s will overpower this center although I did hear it in Best buy it sounded pretty good just not as extended as I would like
Do you find it easier to evaluate speakers by ear when listening to a single speaker as Harman's research suggests? I understand it's not as fun to listen for long sessions for sure.
It makes it a bit easier to spot relative differences in the timbre when listening in mono. But I don’t find it telling of the soundstage like stereo listening does (despite what others say).
@@ErinsAudioCorner You can hear soundstage differences in mono, but it’s pretty impossible to mentally extrapolate what that means for stereo.
So yeah, force yourself to listen in mono for timbre and then listen in stereo for imaging/soundstage.
🙃
@@homeboi808 pretty sure you just repeated what I said. 😉
Looks like a very good speaker to me. What I am not getting from the review is how the three Kef's stack up relative to one another. The R5 is more than the LS 50 Wireless II and the R3's as well. What I'm not getting a sense of from this review is what incremental performance, if any, those additional dollars are buying.
You’re not getting that because that’s not the purpose of this review.
I've got the KEF KC62 sub and was wondering whether these would be a good pairing in a smallish room. You've got me worried about the ports, particularly as these will have to sit close to the walls. Would using bungs on them work or should I be looking elsewhere?
Man great work, any chance you can get your hands on Emotiva T2+ ?
i have a question, maybe a little stupid but... is there any difference in the klippel using the stock spikes and litteraly nothing?
Nah. The transmission is the issue. Not the sound. The little feet are supposed to help control tactile vibration.
this is a really weird design, it's obvious that they focused on making a smooth Listening Window but at the same time do you really want that in a floor stander instead of a smooth Predicted in-room response?
Eitherway the flat DI should make it 'Room EQ Friendly' which is really important for Home Cinema as well.
All in All It's a good speaker, but a slight let down from its younger brother the R3. Also Distortion measurements are really nice for a Uni-Q.
You are an amazing reviewer, thank you for reviewing these! I was on the fence and am not sure I will go for these.
Since you have reviewed the KEF R3 and the KEF LS50 Meta I would greatly appreciate your feedback! Which one do you think is best! My use will be three of them in the front for my home theater 🎭 80%-20% multichannel music listening!
The room is 18 x 20 x 10 treated with just one row of seats! Also using two subwoofers.
I have plenty of power 600W monoblocs 😉
The bass roll off for a floorstander occurs too soon..or am I wrong?
Those are just twin 5.25 inch woofers. Not amazing, but that's what the R7 is for, I guess.
If you high pass the main speakers at your processor is necessary to seal the ports?
It really depends on your room, your subs and your taste. The crossover point is decided by you but based on those aspects as well.
How is the microphone away from the speakers when you measure?
Do you think there's a minor port resonance causing that dip and peak at 300hz?
Someone please send Erin a reference 1 or 3 !
Ditto!
Or 5. Or those crazy Blades. Go big or go home. 😂😂😂
Are you think about testing popular Polk Audio speakers and HTS Subwoofers?
I have a set of the Polk R200 speakers that are "reserved" for me to review once the manufacturer gets them back from the person who currently has them for review.
i'd love to see the R7 :D
or r11 :D
Anyone calculated what the Olive's score would be for this speaker, whether better than R3? I assume if the major issue here is bass extension and performance at high volumes, my appetite for a review of R7 or R11 is larger. With such parameters in place, we could have a winner
Pierre did. I emailed him the results. This was his reply:
“KEF R5 score 5.9 impressive speaker for the price (with eq 6.7)”
I would expect much better results spending the R3 to R7 or R11 $ difference on subs. I mean getting R3’s and spending the rest on the best sub or subs you can fit. R3 is the best speaker on the entire R series, measurements proves it, and logic since I can’t imagine R11 providing better dispersion and directivity than R3 because of its more complex D’ Apollito style array of MTM, in this not exactly the same but still 2 Bass, 1 UniQ, 2Bass...will change crossover design, bigger cabinet will diminish resonance control, etc.
@@tecnogadgethd I tend to agree. In fact, I have recommended the R3 + subwoofer to many who have asked for an “entry” hi-fi setup.
dali rubicon or kef r ?
who needs stereo… put it in a room, put some party music on and blast it
In my coutry R5 is the same price as KEF LS50 Meta (Pair for Pair)...
Going to do ATC SCM 11?
thanks for the numbers but i just care about the sound🎶
Where is the R7 meta review, what are they hiding? It should be the sweet spot since even the R11 still needs subs. ASR has done several metas but won't touch R7, you won't touch it, there are zero 'real' reviews just cheerleaders trying to make us feel good. We know the R3 is aggressive, does the R7 sound the same with just a tad more bass?
Why is your name not spelled aaron????
You mean A-A-Ron?
Mono albums like the Beatles!