Floorstanding three-way reflex-loaded loudspeaker
Made by: GP Acoustics (UK) Ltd, Maidstone, Kent
Supplied by: GP Acoustics (UK) LtdTelephone: 01622 672 261
Web: www.kef.com
Price: £17,500

LOUDSPEAKERKEF Reference 5 Meta
The ‘Blade’ models fly the flag for KEF’s speaker tech, but its
Reference 5 offers a more accessible route to ‘high-end Uni-Q’
Review: Andrew Everard & Paul Miller Lab: Paul MillerF

ortunately, the Reference 5 Meta
is the £17,500 flagship of KEF’s‘conventional’ speaker range, betteredonly by the striking-looking Bladedesigns [HFN May ’22]. Fortunately? Well, yes,because this is an imposingly huge design,
standing just over 1.4m tall, even if someof that impression of scale is minimised by
the slenderness of the cabinets. Indeed, if
the enclosures were any narrower than their
205mm, there wouldn’t be room on the front
baffle for the quartet of 165mm aluminiumconed bass drivers, arranged in pairs aboveand below the company’s 12th-generation
Uni-Q treble/midrange unit.
KEF’s Reference 5 Meta looks strikingly
clean in its all-white high-gloss
finish seen here, with bass
drivers anodised to match theimmaculately finished cabinet
and champagne coloured Uni-Q.
There’s a wide range of othercolourways on offer – you canhave white with a blue Uni-Q,
satin walnut with a silver baffle
and driver array, and high-gloss black with theUni-Q in either grey or a lustrous copper.

the driver, with two porous rings further
damping resonances. The midrange motor
has a new copper ring to reduce inductance,thus lowering distortion and compression,
while the company’s tangerine waveguideis used to control dispersion, and response,
over a wider listening area. Importantly, KEF
has decoupled the Uni-Q array from the main
cabinet to prevent direct interference fromthat powerful quartet of bass units, whichtake over from below about 450Hz.

Built for bass
A full four of these 165mm drivers amounts
to a substantial radiating area, their light,
stiff and dished diaphragms driven by hefty,
vented magnet systems withlarge aluminium voice coils.
And there’s as much ‘devil inthe detail’ when it comes to thecabinets themselves, and thedesign of the skeletal stabilising
plinth in particular. Rather thangoing for a large rectangularslab to extend the footprint,
here the assembly bolts into place to form
four spiked outriggers, adding just under
12cm to the width of the cabinet, and amere 5mm to the depth, the better to locate
the 60kg enclosure. Tall it may be, but theReference 5 Meta feels rock-solid.
Neat, too, is what goes on around theback of the speaker [see p59]. The flexible
bass-reflex arrangement affords some DSPfree room-tuning [see PM’s boxout, right]
while the design of the terminal panel is alsoworthy of mention, as this usually prosaic partof a speaker’s build shows KEF’s customaryattention to detail. High-quality terminals,
able to take 4mm plugs, spades or bare wire,
are provided for bi-wiring or bi-amping, but
selecting between these and single-wireoperation is merely a matter of turning a pairof well-finished knobs. Styled to match the‘They arealways readyto turn on
the drama’

Meta physicalThe white was well suited to the light woodfloor and general décor of PM’s listening
room, but I must admit to a real hankering forthat gloss black/copper finish. And while a setof ten magnetically attached grilles, finished inblack and with one for each driver, is availableat £250, frankly it would be a shame to coverup KEF’s beautifully finished drive-units.
In fact the whole of the Reference 5 Meta
exudes precision engineering: the coincident
Uni-Q driver, with its 25mm aluminium
dome tweeter in the ‘throat’ of the 125mm
midrange cone, also made from aluminium,
will be a familiar concept to HFN readers.
So too will KEF’s Metamaterial Absorption
Technology (MAT) used to absorb a claimed
99% of the unwanted output from the rear ofthe tweeter [HFN Jun ’21].
The absorber is a compact maze-likestructure, comprising channels that ‘soak
away’ specific frequencies, the MAT discitself sitting in a redesigned space behind

RIGHT: Two pairs of 165mm aluminium-coned
bass units flank a 12th-generation Uni-Q array (withMAT). The tall, slim cabinet is stabilised by spiked
outriggers and available in numerous contrasting
cabinet/driver colourways, including High GlossBlack/Copper and High Gloss White/Blue

Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution | www.hifinews.co.uk

PORT TUNING
KEF’s ‘Flexible Port Technology’ is aptly named because not only is the flareand soft polymer compound of the tubes designed to minimise air turbulence
but a choice of two tube lengths are offered to better help ‘tune’ the speaker’s
bass to suit different room locations. The soft port tubes are held in position
by a circular collar that can be unlocked to provide access, the long tube beingnearly twice the length of the short option. As the internal cabinet volume
is largely unchanged by the different tubes, and the bass drivers/crossovers
remain entirely consistent, the extra mass of air in the long tube delivers aslightly lower Helmholtz resonance of 30Hz [red trace], some 3.5dB lower inamplitude than the 36Hz tuning of the short tube option [black trace]. The port
responses are normalised in the inset Graph to better compare their respective
bandwidths – note also that KEF has successfully minimised any port or othermodes at ~400Hz associated with that tall and narrow cabinet.
The four 165mm alloy-coned bass units operate over a 50-350Hz (–6dB)
bandwidth, delivering a diffraction-corrected bass extension of 33Hz (shortport) and 29Hz [long port, see Graph1, p59], all re. –6dB/200Hz. The
short port offers a slightly ‘peakier’bass response with more mid-bass
punch in a freestanding location
while the long port will better
suit a near-wall location where it
achieves a smoother and fuller low
bass. Audiophiles might also care toexperiment with a long port for thelower bass drivers and a short port
for the upper pair. PM

terminal clamps, these levers move aninternal link that connects, or disconnects,
the two halves of the split crossover.

Sitting pretty
If the industrial design of the Reference
5 Meta seems better suited to those whowant all that ‘KEF engineering’ without
the radical styling of the Blade One
Meta, not to mention the £30,000 pricetag, then the sound is not held hostage.
Despite my initial fears that the Uni-Q
driver might be set a little low in thebaffle, at less than a metre from the floor,
when I settled into the listening seat itwas clearly perfectly placed. There was nochange in tonality whether I sat uprightor slumped, and I experienced an evenbalance and excellent imaging at every
position along PM’s big four-seat sofa.
In fact, and at the risk of damningwith faint praise, the Reference 5 Meta
does that impressive thing of being a
big speaker, with all the bass power andextension that brings, while having
the speed and agility of a muchsmaller design. Listening to theBill Charlap Trio’s version of ‘SunnySide Of The Street’, from Notes FromNew York [Impulse! 4778388], there’s
excellent intimacy and lightness of touch,plus convincing weight in the piano, bassand drums. Even with the height of thespeakers and all those drivers, the musicalpresentation enjoyed excellent focus.
Excellent, too, is the way the soundhangs free of those enclosures, creating anentirely credible soundstage in the room.
In the Steven Isserlis reading of Elgar’s
Cello Concerto [Hyperion CDA68077], theplaying of the cello is more about fluidity
than the sheer attack of, say, the du Pré
recording, but the dynamics are fabulous,
the orchestra has realistic weight, andthere’s a fine sense of soloist and bandworking together, rather than the cellobeing spotlit. Driven by the remarkable
Halcro Eclipse Stereo power amp [HFNMay ’23], the Reference 5 Metas delivered
fine detail when required, but were always
ready to turn on the drama.
Their grand but focused balance waswell suited to the sizzling brass openingof Mahler’s 5th Symphony [Czech Phil./
Bychkov; Pentatone PTC5187021]. TheseKEF speakers delivered a great, stately
weight to those opening chords, and afine impression of the orchestra before
the listener. Nothing seems to be trying
too hard, which is no bad thing given thesparkling quality of the performances here.
With more intimate recordings, theability of the towering Reference 5 Meta
to sound small and precise, yet with plenty

www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution

Labreport
KEF REFERENCE 5 META
LEFT: Port rim mouldings can berotated and unlocked to interchange
long and short internal ‘tubes’ [seeboxout, p57]. Split crossover and dual
4mm cable posts, with an internal link,allow for bi-wiring/bi-amping

Thibault Cauvin’s acoustic guitar
arrangement of the Bach ‘Toccata
and Fugue’, from his Bach album[Sony Classical 19658784622], theReference Meta’s superb resolution
did a magnificent job of placing thesolo instrument in an atmospheric,reverberant space, with laser-like
focus and every touch of finger on
string clear to hear.

Ready to rockSuccumbing to the temptation
to hear the speaker’s quartetof bass drivers in real action, I
steered my listening towards
the ‘Cowboy Song’/‘The Boys Are
Back In Town’/‘Don’t Believe A
Word’ sequence from the 1977
Philadelphia set on Thin Lizzy’s
remastered Live And Dangerous
boxset [UMC 0819035]. Here I
was instantly rewarded with Brian
Downey’s powering drums, PhilLynott’s voice and thundering
bass focused dead centre, and thesoaring interlocked guitars of Brian
Robertson and Scott Gorham.
This is no-frills power rock done
proper, and thrilling, as the band
wraps one track and slams straight
into the next. Sleek and elegant
these big speakers may be, butthey’ll take – and deliver – someserious level, too, making them
just as adept when rocking out asthey are portraying the most elegantof ‘audiophile’ recordings.
of weight, is again in evidence. Erin
Bode’s cover of ‘In My Life’, fromher YourSong Volume 1 album[Bandcamp download], was givena rock-solid stereo image, every
breath clearly delineated, as was
her version of ‘Happy Together’,
where the presentation was like ahigh-definition version of something
wonderfully old-fashioned, withevery word crystal-clear. Rachael
Price’s voice on ‘Join Me In ADream’, from the Rachael and Vilray
I Love A Love Song set [Nonesuch075597909746], was equally lucid,bringing great vivacity to a piecewith a deceptively simple – butgorgeous – arrangement. And withHI-FI NEWS VERDICTIn practice this ‘Meta’ version of the original Reference 5 [HFN
Oct ’14] has evolved from tip-to-toe. KEF’s specs reflect this too– bass extension is unchanged [see boxout, p57], but sensitivity
is down from 89.5dB to 88dB and the Uni-Q crossover adjusted
from 2.8kHz to 2.1kHz, etc, in this latest model. Once again,
the typical listening axis will lie a little above the (now) 12th-gen
Uni-Q mid/treble driver where its 39.6kHz dome resonanceis reduced in severity from ~17dB to ~6dB above the mean
midband level [blue trace, Graph 1]. Otherwise, the effect of the‘labyrinthine’ Meta disc in quelling mid-treble resonances above
the 2.1kHz crossover is evident in the CSD waterfall [Graph2, below] just as conventional harmonic distortions are also a
creditably low 0.25% (re. 90dB SPL).
The forward response shows the same slightly downtilted
trend we saw in the Reference 5 but with tighter errors ofjust ±2.0dB and ±2.1dB, respectively, caused as much by thegeneral uplift in low mid/bass below 600Hz. Pair matching is asuperb 0.6dB. The 88.4dB/1kHz axial sensitivity (or 89.2dB from
500Hz-8kHz) is reduced by about 1.5dB if you listen ~20cm
above the Uni-Q axis, but these figures are still within thecompass of KEF’s latest 88dB specification. Otherwise, this goodsensitivity and 33Hz (re. 200Hz) bass extension has, in part, beenbought at the expense of a slightly tougher amplifier load than
we encountered with the original Reference 5 – KEF’s 4ohm
(3.2ohm min) impedance rating being closer to 2.7ohm/73Hz
and sub-4ohm from 29-280Hz in the ’5 Meta. The minimum
EPDR is 1.3ohm/30Hz (and 1.5ohm/895Hz). PM

ABOVE: Response inc. nearfield summed driver/port[green], freefield corrected to 1m at 2.83V [yellow],
ultrasonic [pink]. Left, black; right, red; off-axis, blue0 dB
-80.0-16
1.3-24
2.7-32-40
200

500

1k

2k

5k
10k
Frequency in Hz >>20k4.0msec
60kHz

Maybe they lack the last word ofdetail delivered by the innovative
Blade Meta design, but these
top-of-the-range Reference
floorstanders are speakers witha sound as refined and measured
as their stylish looks, along with
an ability to deliver a massive,room-filling sound when required– even in the largest space. Gofor the all-white cabinets for
elegance, or black and copper fora more menacing presence!

Sensitivity (SPL/1m/2.83V – 1kHz/Mean/IEC)

88.4dB / 89.2dB / 87.6dB

Impedance modulus: minimum& maximum (20Hz–20kHz)

2.7ohm @ 73Hz
15ohm @ 2.2kHz

Impedance phase: minimum& maximum (20Hz–20kHz)–42o @ 28Hz
+48o @ 1.28kHzSound Quality: 87%

THD 100Hz/1kHz/10kHz (for 90dB SPL/1m)

0.35% / 0.25% / 0.45%

Dimensions (HWD) / Weight (each)

1350x205x462mm/60kg

0-------- 100

ABOVE: Minor breakup modes associated with thealloy bass drivers but Meta scrubs the treble clean

HI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONSHI-FI NEWS SPECIFICATIONSPair matching/Resp. error (200Hz–20kHz)

0.6dB/ ±2.0dB/±2.1dB

LF/HF extension (–6dB ref 200Hz/10kHz)

33Hz / 53.9kHz/53.6kHz

www.hifinews.co.uk | Reprinted from Hi-Fi News for global distribution