High-performance sound from Allnic’s L6500 linestage

IN-DEPTH REVIEWS◗ AudioQuest ThunderBird◗ Copland CSA100◗ Melody AN300B MAX◗ Titanic Audio Model S207

£5.99

May 2022

All updates
you love onabout– now
an exciting
new look!
For regularthehi-fi+hottesthi-fiwithproducts
visit www.hifiplus.com

EQUIPMENT REVIEWKEF Reference 5 Meta
floorstanding loudspeakers
Jason Kennedy

Ishould know by now but like a few other things
the meaning of the KEF acronym eluded me.
So I looked it up; it’s not Kids Earth Fund nor isit Knights of the Eternal Flame (which is a pityperhaps), but Kent Engineering & Foundry. KEF
is a loudspeaker company founded way back in
1961 in a Nissen hut in Tovil, Maidstone, that’s thebit that I can remember. I’m not sure if they still have thehut, but Tovil is where KEF makes its best loudspeakers
including the Blade and Reference ranges, of which theshiny Reference 5 Meta is the top dog.

Reproduced from hi-fi+ Issue 207

hifiplus.com

EQUIPMENT REVIEWKEF Reference 5 Meta

KEF is describing this as a complete ‘ground up’ design forced to some extent
by the internal conical waveguide required for the MAT system.

The Reference range has recently been revised andgiven the ‘Meta’ suffix to indicate a new way of treatingenergy coming off the back of the tweeter in the middleof the Uni-Q treble/midrange driver at the heart of theseloudspeakers. Unlike other companies that have usedtapered tubes and damped cavities to prevent the air
behind the driver from bouncing back and distorting its
behaviour KEF has developed a relatively shallow mazeof channels to do the job. Taken on its own this MAT(Metamaterial Absorption Technology) looks like one ofthose toys that you have to tilt around in order to get asmall ball down a labyrinthine path. But the length of eachof the paths has been carefully chosen to absorb a narrow
band of frequencies and when combined the 30 channels
offer “almost 100% absorption across the spectrum above620Hz”. And given that this is a tweeter it doesn’t operate at
anywhere near that frequency, in fact it crosses over to themidrange at 2.1kHz.
MAT was developed for and introduced in KEF’s popularLS50 model so it’s a rare example of technology tricklingup the range and indicates that it’s not just a matter ofspending more on the bigger speakers, but a ground up
upgrade and one that has required other changes to thedriver as a whole. For a start, the ‘tangerine’ waveguide thatsits over the tweeter dome on the latest Uni-Q has been
reinforced because MAT was causing a deformation in thesurround support; this has been remedied with reinforcing
ribs to the rear of this element.

Small spiders
KEF’s acoustic engineer Jack Oclee-Brown has alsomade changes to the midrange motor system in an effort
to improve linearity. In fact, KEF is describing this as acomplete ‘ground up’ design forced to some extent by theinternal conical waveguide required for the MAT system.
As you can imagine, the combination of two drivers on
one axis is already a complex challenge and here it has asplit top plate on the magnet system so that flux density
does not reduce as the coil moves away from what would
usually be the area of maximum flux. Something that
equates to maximum control and minimum distortion. Thedriver suspension, its surround and spider, has also beenupgraded. The spider is now smaller and thus lighter making
it easier to place its resonant frequency out of the driver’s
operational range. Also the surround, which forms part of
the tweeter wave guide now has greater and importantly
more linear excursion for reduced overall distortion.

Reproduced from hi-fi+ Issue 207

KEF has also sought to reduce vibration from the front
baffle that muddies the midrange but not by the usual
method of putting a compliant ring under the chassis
mounting and decoupling the whole driver as is found in a
lot of designs. They argue that this method allows the whole
driver chassis to move and thus removes the mechanicalgrounding that the cones need for low distortion operation.
Instead KEF has decoupled the magnet assembly, which is
the heaviest part of the driver chassis. Apparently the main
benefit of this is that the chassis rim stays still and doesn’tradiate any sound itself.
There is not a lot of detail about the four bass drivers
which continue from the previous Reference series. They
are 6.5 inch units with an alloy cone and a large aluminium
voice coil in a “massive, vented magnet assembly” that isnaturally designed to complement the latest iteration of theUni-Q mid/treble in between.
The cabinet is constructed using constrained layer
damping for minimum vibration and is distinctly tall andhandsome with a slim profile but plenty of depth, it looks
very modern in its white livery with silver drivers. KEF offers
a number of finish combinations in high gloss paintwork orbook matched veneers alongside five driver finish options
including copper and blue.
It looks straightforward, but caps on the back coverfixings hold the front baffle in place and explain why
there aren’t any trim rings on the bass drivers. There are
two ports on the back with removable inserts and theReference 5 Metas are supplied with four shorter alternative
ports. The idea being that in situations where the bass
output is too much for a given room or speaker position
these can be used to stop the bass from being overblown.
The Reference 5 Meta sits on a pair of outriggers thatbolt onto the bottom and provide a wider footprint forstability. The spikes and their seats combine to form a cone
shape that’s capped with a lightly domed top, the latter canbe removed for easy height adjustment with an Allen key.
The terminals look like they come from KEF’s biggest model(the Muon) with asymmetrical aluminium clamps for bi-wired
connections to the amplifier. If you only want a single wired
connection as I did, KEF have come up with a neat wayof linking the bi-wire terminals internally rather than usinga plate or jumper wires. Two adjusters screw in for single
wiring or can be removed for bi-wired set ups.
All the work that the team in Maidstone has done on thelatest Reference 5 Meta pays off almost immediately when
you put a good record on the turntable, especially one withhifiplus.com

EQUIPMENT REVIEWKEF Reference 5 Meta

some emotional impact. These speakers seem particularly
adept at delivering this critical facet of the music, arguably
the most critical one given that emotional communication iswhat music is ultimately all about. I happened to play Ryley
Walker’s Golden Sings that have been Sung [Dead Oceans]
and the song ‘I Will Ask You Twice’, which sounded rather
more heartfelt, deep and meaningful than usual. This isclearly a special loudspeaker, one that breaks down barriers
between artist and listener in ways that you don’t often find.

Metaphysical
There sometimes seems to be an inverse law ofcommunication abilities with regard to number of drivers,
the more drivers a speaker has the harder it can be for it
to get the message through. There are enough ‘technically
excellent loudspeakers that leave you cold’ to make onethat doesn’t stand out. Whether this is down to the Meta

factor is hard to say but reducing midband distortion must
help in this regard. These KEFs are not short on detaileither, they are extremely revealing in an unhurried yeton the ball fashion. When the bass and drums of Patricia
Barber’s version of ‘Yesterdays’ appear in front of your ears
it seems almost magical, it’s partly because of the totalsilence that precedes the first notes but also because of
the way that their presence takes up physical space in theroom. It’s safe to say that these cabinets are not adding
much if any coloration to the mix, especially in the bass
which is both very well extended and powerful, more sothan I had expected in truth. This is not a huge loudspeakerin terms of physical volume, yet it’s capable of providing thelowest octaves even in a fairly dry room. And this meansthat double bass and drums have both impact and bodythat makes for a very satisfying listening experience with agood recording.

This is clearly a special
loudspeaker, one that breaks
down barriers between
artist and listener.

Reproduced from hi-fi+ Issue 207

hifiplus.comEQUIPMENT REVIEWKEF Reference 5 Meta

The Reference 5 Meta is very revealing and a strong
communicator of a key element of music.

I was struck by the image height that these KEFs
produce and initially presumed that it’s because they are
fairly tall speakers, but then it occurred to me that themid and treble drivers are no higher than on a bookshelf
speaker, and this is the source of much of the detail that
goes into producing an image. It’s a result of KEF’s workin improving dispersion from the Uni-Q, but also a factor ofbetter quality bass, subwoofers after all have the effect ofcreating more convincing imaging. I used the Reference 5
Metas with a Moor Amps Angel 6 power amplifier formuch of the time and it had no trouble with their 88dB atfour Ohms sensitivity which is to be expected of 150 Watts,
what surprised me was that the Melody AN300B Max(also reviewed this month) managed to drive them without
much difficulty. It’s hardly surprising that the bass lost
some of its gravitas with this 21 Watt triode amplifier but
the combination proved to be rather enjoyable, smooth andpolished whilst delivering the body in the image. In fact theextra fluency that these tubes brought to the party proved
rather enchanting, especially with the harmonies of Crosby,
Stills and Nash singing ‘Helplessly Hoping’ at the peak of
their vocal powers. It was very easy to hear that two voices
shared the right channel while the third got the left, and it
was no effort at all to be swept up in the beauty of the song.
I also indulged in a bit of Massive Attack for contrast andfound that there was enough power and control in the bass
and impact through the mid to appreciate the darkness
that their work explores in a more tuneful and clean fashion.
An old blues compilation on vinyl was perhaps the perfectmaterial for the tube powered KEFs, the recordings wereprobably made with tubes in the first place and the effect
was almost like time travel, the years falling away so that
despite the absence of stereo there was a palpable senseof musicians in the room.
Back with solid state power and the Weather Station’s
mumblings on ‘Marsh’ and other tracks where it’s notclear what is exactly being said but the feelings behind
it are transparent in the hands of these KEFs. With anolder favourite in Talk Talk’s New Grass where the vocals
are quiet but easy to follow and the nuances of theperformance are clear thanks to the transparency on offer.
These speakers are borderline explicit when it comes todetail resolution, they really drill down into whatever you
put through them and deliver the musical treasure that
other speakers fail to expose. It gets the micro dynamics,
the differences between the volume of notes, spot on andthis brings a variety and colour to subtle pieces that often

Reproduced from hi-fi+ Issue 207

gets lost. It does the macro too of course and I thoroughly
enjoyed Led Zeppelin’s ‘Killing Floor’ where they managed
to give the bass a thickness that Metallica would havekilled for, and were clearly attempting to emulate on theBlack album.
I didn’t need to use the alternate ports with theReference 5 Metas because the bass remained clean andcontrolled with the Angel 6, in fact it sounded deeper andmore substantial on some familiar tracks than is often thecase. Radiohead’s ‘Desert Island Disk’ for instance usually
washes over me in an ambient fashion but here there was a
lot of detail at low levels and a substantial kick drum, which
made the track more diverse and interesting.
Late in the day a CAAS EPre II preamplifier and Elysian
100 monoblocks turned up and had a spin with the KEFs.
This amp’s first 20W are Class A which helped thesespeakers produce an even more polished and finely
detailed result, one that was beautifully relaxed yet withexcellent imaging.
Clearly the latest KEF Reference 5s are remarkable
loudspeakers, how much the Meta treatment has added/
taken away is hard to say but if the results I got are anything
to go by they haven’t done any harm. The Reference 5
Meta is very revealing and a strong communicator of a key
element of music, it gets to the heart of the performance ina way that makes you want to listen longer, and that is after
all the point of a great sound system.

Technical specifications
Type 3-way, six-driver, reflex loaded floorstanding speaker
Driver complement One Uni-Q incorporating 25mm aluminium
dome MAT tweeter and 125mm aluminium cone midrange;
four 165mm aluminium cone bass drivers
Crossover frequencies 450Hz, 2.1kHz
Frequency response 32Hz–40kHz (long port), 35H –40kHz(short port)
Impedance 4 Ohms
Sensitivity 88dB/W/m
Dimensions (H×W×D) 1402 × 205 × 462mm (inc grille,terminals and plinth)
Weight 60kg/each
Finishes Satin Walnut/Silver, High-Gloss White/Blue,
High-Gloss White/Champagne, High-Gloss Black/Grey,
High-Gloss Black/Copper.
Price £17,500/pair
Manufacturer KEF

kef.com

hifiplus.com