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KEF’s Reference, Blade speakers updated with metamaterials

Neil Jansen
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KEF has released the newest iteration of its flagship Reference and Blade product lines. These high-end speakers are getting a performance upgrade featuring KEF’s latest acoustic innovations, including a new high-end 12th Generation Uni-Q with Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT). Uni-Q is KEF’s proprietary driver technology that features the prominent star shape in the center and is found on all of the high-end speakers in their lineup.

According to KEF, metamaterials are “specially developed structures that use existing materials in such a way that they exhibit new, desirable properties that are simply not found in naturally occurring substances.” The company claims that adding the new MAT technology removes 99% of distortion and unwanted sounds from the rear of the speakers.

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Blade Series

The KEF Blade is known for its unique visual design and Single Apparent Source technology. When developed in 2009, engineers sought to design a speaker that is extremely transparent and creates the illusion that sound is radiating from a single area, rather than from separate speaker towers. This can help music or movies feel more immersive and lifelike.

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KEF offers both the Blade One and Blade Two, with the latter designed for smaller listening environments. You can buy them right now in their four standard finishes (piano black/gray, arctic white/champagne, charcoal gray/bronze, frosted blue/blue), but if you desire something more bespoke, four special order finishes will be available in June 2022: Piano black/copper, frosted blue/bronze, charcoal gray/red, racing red/gray.

  • Blade One Meta: $35,000 per pair
  • Blade Two Meta: $28,000 per pair

Reference Series

The KEF Reference has been a staple in the speaker industry for decades. KEF boasts that this new iteration has “pipe organ” depth in the bass response and a pure midrange and treble response. The Reference line has a more traditional speaker appearance and is available in bookshelf size with the Reference 1 Meta, plus 2-woofer and 5-woofer tower options in the Reference 3 Meta and Reference 5 Meta. The Reference line also features two left-center-right (LCR) speaker options, the Reference 2 Meta and Reference 4 Meta, which the Blade series does not offer.

LCR speakers are designed for home theater use and can be used as a center channel when placed horizontally, or as left and right front channel speakers when oriented vertically. If opting for the Reference 1 Meta bookshelf design, KEF also offers the S-RF1 Floor Stand to accompany them. Similar to the Blade series, the Reference is available in a myriad of finishes (satin walnut/silver, high-gloss white/champagne, high-gloss black/gray) and two special order finishes: High-gloss white/blue, and high-gloss black/copper.

  • Reference 5 Meta: $22,000 per pair
  • Reference 3 Meta: $15,000 per pair
  • Reference 1 Meta: $9,000 per pair
  • Reference 4 Meta: $8,000 each
  • Reference 2 Meta: $6,000 each
  • S-RF1 Floor Stand: $1,200 per pair

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