0:07 I'm going to set the stage for this
0:13 review of the KE R11 Meta, the flagship
0:16 of the R series line. It's the biggest
0:18 one. And one thing I've learned in my
0:22 long career as a reviewer is that size
0:25 does matter. It matters well in the way
0:28 this speaker excels in terms of
0:32 dynamics, scale, sound stage size, bass extension,
0:34 extension,
0:37 mid-range purity. It checks all those boxes
0:39 boxes
0:41 because it's a really good design, but
0:44 also because it's the biggest one of the
0:47 line. I mean, I've reviewed smaller KF R
0:50 series speakers and love them. This one
0:53 though, I I I was kind of surprised how
0:55 much this one is better than the others
0:58 because of the reasons I just mentioned.
1:01 Oh, wait, hold on a second. I want to
1:05 interrupt the flow to say I have done a
1:08 lot of interviews on this channel and
1:10 last week's last Tuesday's uh one with
1:13 Richard was a hit. You guys really love
1:15 what Richard had to say and I had the
1:18 best time interviewing him. But I have
1:20 done many many o well over a hundred
1:22 interviews on the channel and there's a
1:24 playlist that contains all of them. I'm
1:28 showing it to you right now. So anyway,
1:30 giving you a heads up on that and there
1:33 will be an Aophiliac viewer system of
1:35 the day later on in the show and also
1:37 the ailiac
1:40 album of the day. Anyway, back to the
1:45 R11 Meta. It is a threeway speaker. Two
1:47 of the ways are in that concentric
1:51 driver, the KEF UniQ 5-in mid-range and
1:55 also an aluminum 1-inch dome tweeter.
1:57 That's the concentric design. It's the
2:01 12th generation UniQ. Uh Kev has been
2:03 using this meta technology for a bunch
2:05 of years now. But what it basically is,
2:07 it's a disc looks like this. I'll show
2:09 you right now. It's at the back end of
2:13 the uniq driver and it absorbs the
2:15 backwave of the tweeter. So, it's sort
2:18 of nulling out the energy behind the
2:20 tweeter. So, you just hear the tweeter
2:22 without any resonance or backwave
2:24 interference. It's a cool design. It's
2:27 been around for a while now and it is
2:30 very effective. Nice. But then there's
2:35 also four six and a half inch woofers.
2:37 Yeah. Now I'm going to and those are
2:40 also aluminum by the way. So there's a
2:43 consistency in the design. I'm going to
2:46 show you this uh cutaway of the cabinet
2:49 and you'll see there's a lot going on
2:52 inside this speaker. The uniq is in its
2:55 own separate compartment as are the two
2:58 sets of six and a half inch drivers. A
3:00 lot of bracing, a lot of acoustic
3:03 treatments inside the speaker. It is a
3:08 very uh advanced design. Round back,
3:09 there's a port for the top set of
3:11 woofers and a separate port for the low
3:13 set of woofers. And I've got to tell
3:15 you, when I played music with lots of
3:18 bass, I didn't feel I put my hand in
3:20 front of the ports, I didn't feel hardly
3:23 any breeze coming from the ports. So,
3:26 you can put this speaker near walls.
3:29 Although, I would always quickly add
3:30 speakers sound better when they're
3:32 further away from walls. But if you're
3:33 hung up on the thing about the rear
3:35 port, there's not a lot of bass energy
3:38 coming through those ports. And KEF
3:41 supplies foam plugs that you can use if
3:43 you really need to jam the speakers
3:45 close to walls.
3:48 Also back there are bywire connectors.
3:50 An unusual way they do it that you
3:53 unscrew that center post and that makes
3:55 it that configures it for by wire
3:56 operation. When you screw that center
3:59 part in, then it's a single wire
4:02 speaker. I actually prefer the sound of
4:05 these speakers definitely bywired with
4:07 these Triode Labs cables. I don't always
4:09 think that by wiring makes that big a
4:12 difference. In this case, it's a I don't
4:14 know it's big, but it's certainly a
4:17 worthwhile difference. The R11 Meta is
4:20 available in three finishes. Gloss
4:23 white, which is what I have here. Also
4:25 gloss black, of course, everybody loves
4:29 black. and real walnut veneer, not
4:33 vinyl, but actual wood veneer. All three
4:37 sell for the same price, $7,000 a pair.
4:40 Oh, and what else? Oh, there are smaller
4:43 R series towers, the R5 and the R seven
4:47 Meta. Now, as for a comparison speaker,
4:51 uh I used my one of my references, the
4:55 Klitchch OJ speaker, the KO1 horn
4:57 speaker. It's about the same price as
5:00 the R11 Meta. And I will discuss a
5:01 little bit. I didn't do a head-to-head
5:04 comparison, but the last set of towers
5:07 that I reviewed here, the Dine Audio
5:10 Evoke 30. I'm going to put up the
5:12 complete specifications.
5:14 And note that this is a low impedance
5:16 speaker. It's rated at 4 ohms. Drops
5:20 down to I think it was 3.2 ohms.
5:22 Sensitivity. Yes, the sensitivity is a
5:25 bit high. It's 90 dB, which is good. uh
5:28 means you can use it with somewhat lower
5:29 powered amplifiers as long as they're
5:34 happy driving 4 ohm and lower loads. Uh
5:36 as for setup, pretty straight ahead. I
5:39 have the speakers 8 and 1/2 ft apart
5:41 center to center and 8 and 1/2 ft from
5:44 me with a good amount of tow in. Now, as
5:47 for music, you guys know that I have a
5:49 soft spot for piano recordings, good
5:52 piano recordings. And this one from
5:55 Reuben Gonzalez, who was a member of uh
5:58 the Buenav Vista Social Club. Anyway,
6:00 it's Cuban music. And this one from
6:02 Reuben, if anything, is even better in
6:04 my opinion than the Buenov Vista Social
6:08 Club album. And anyway, it's beautifully
6:11 played, very uh spacious sounding.
6:12 Sounds like it's recorded in a large
6:16 studio in Cuba, I think, in Havana. And
6:18 anyway, it's a gorgeous recording. And I
6:22 played it, let's say, realistically loud
6:24 or near realistically loud. And this
6:27 speaker wasn't holding anything back.
6:30 The big dynamics, the subtle shading in
6:33 dynamics. I felt it. I felt it and heard
6:37 it all through the R11 speaker. Sound
6:39 stage was big, deep. This speaker does
6:42 sound stage depth better than most. And
6:45 the low-end support from those eight six
6:47 and a half inch drivers between the two
6:50 speakers was definitely something I felt
6:52 not only heard but I actually felt it
6:54 from these speakers. So yes, they can
6:56 get down. Oh, one thing I need to
6:59 mention here is that uh this review
7:02 commenced not long after the dine audio
7:06 evoke uh 30 floor standards departed.
7:07 So, there was some crossover in terms of
7:10 the music that I played. And I can tell
7:12 you that, yeah, this one, the R11,
7:15 sounds like a bigger, much more powerful
7:18 sounding speaker than the Dine Audio. I
7:21 mean, it's bigger. It's also
7:22 considerably more expensive than the
7:24 Dine Audio. The Dine Audio would
7:26 actually be better suited to small
7:28 rooms, small to, let's say, just barely
7:31 midsize rooms. And this one, the R11
7:34 Meta, would be for bigger spaces. Yeah.
7:35 I just want to I just want to mention
7:37 that because they appeared close in time
7:39 to each other that I felt like, yeah, I
7:42 could mentally compare those two. Over
7:45 the course of working on this review, I
7:48 was listening to many different genres
7:51 of music and my friend Spencer, he
7:53 loaned me some records and at the top of
7:57 the pile was this one, Moby Grape 69.
8:01 Uh, I never own this record, but it's so 1969.
8:03 1969.
8:05 It has that vibe if you're of that
8:09 generation, and I am. And uh it's their
8:11 San Francisco band. It's kind of hippie music.
8:13 music.
8:18 It just sounded so perfect, so like
8:22 then. And these speakers, the R11 Metas,
8:24 were taking me there. They were taking
8:30 me to this different time zone. And uh I
8:32 was digging it. I was having a good
8:34 time. Next up, I I played this recording
8:37 which I have mentioned before. Uh it's
8:41 the band is called M Boom. The album is
8:44 Collage. The leader of this group is the
8:48 legendary Max Roach, jazz drummer Max
8:51 Roach. And he actually gave me this
8:52 album. I'm not going to go through the
8:53 whole story, but he gave it to me back
8:56 in the 80s and I'm still playing it. I'm
8:59 still digging it. Now, Mboom is an all
9:02 percussion group. So, it's got small
9:04 dynamics and large dynamics occurring
9:07 simultaneously. It's recorded again in a
9:11 big space. Uh I was eager to compare the
9:16 R11 with the Clips OJS horn speaker. And
9:18 uh since this is a a percussion
9:21 recording, it dynamics played a large
9:23 part in the comparison. And I'll give
9:25 you give it up right away. Yeah, the
9:27 horn speaker did that better. Large
9:31 dynamics, subtle dynamics, shading,
9:34 a live quality to the sound. Absolutely.
9:38 The clips won that contest. But on the
9:41 other hand, the R11 had more brawn to
9:42 the sound. It sounded like a bigger
9:45 speaker because it is. It had more
9:48 weight to the sound. Uh a bigger sound
9:50 stage, a better focus sound stage. They
9:53 were doing very different things with
9:55 that recording. And I I enjoyed the
9:58 music on both. I would give a since it
10:00 is a percussion recording. I would give
10:03 a slight nod to the Klitchch Ojas
10:05 speaker because because of its height.
10:09 It's 52 in tall. It sounds bigger as in
10:13 taller and wider and deeper than the
10:16 Clip speaker, but also just had the R11
10:19 had a bigger presentation that was much
10:21 closer to life size. Not literally
10:25 life-size, but closer to life size than
10:28 the Klitchch Ojas speaker. Oh, I just
10:31 got to give special mention to the RL1's
10:34 mid-range because it's sense of with
10:37 vocals especially of hearing more of a
10:39 singer's presence in the room, presence
10:42 on the microphone and therefore presence
10:45 in my room. That was especially well
10:50 played over the R11 Meta. The KEF also
10:52 nailed high frequency extension and
10:55 clarity and detail and inner detail more
10:59 clearly than the clips OJ speaker did.
11:02 Now it's time for So Steve, what do you
11:07 really think of the KE R11 Meta?
11:09 I think it's falls in an interesting
11:12 place, right? That it's a $7,000 repair
11:15 speaker. So, it is definitely expensive,
11:17 but it gives you enough
11:20 more than enough of a taste of what
11:23 high-end sound can be without being
11:25 completely out of line, right? It's
11:27 also, I think, pretty room friendly
11:30 because it's so skinny. Uh, so it
11:32 doesn't seem to dominate the room even
11:35 though it's a very tall speaker and the
11:38 fit and finish are stunning. So again,
11:40 it feels like a much more expensive
11:45 speaker than $7,000 a pair. Um, in terms
11:49 of its soundstaging is phenomenal. Bass
11:51 uh capabilities are very very satisfying.
11:53 satisfying.
11:55 As always though, if you really want
11:58 like the deep deep bass, you should add
12:00 a subwoofer. That's true for pretty much
12:03 all speakers, but since I made such a
12:05 big deal about the bass capabilities
12:07 here, I do want to say if you're into
12:10 home theater, etc., etc., you will need
12:13 to add a subwoofer. That's true. But
12:16 anyway, I had the best time doing this
12:18 review and it and and I let it play out
12:20 over a longer period of time because I
12:23 was enjoying myself so much. And
12:27 speaking of enjoying things, yes, the
12:31 album of the day is this one from Teresa
12:34 Strata Sings Wild. The album is Strata
12:37 Sings Wild and her first name is Teresa.
12:40 And the funny thing is I bought this LP
12:43 when it came out in 1986. I played it a
12:44 little bit and then I forgot about it
12:47 completely. And then recently I was
12:49 like, "Wow, what is that?" I played it
12:52 and I was bowled over by the sound
12:55 quality and the musicality of this
12:58 recording. It's on the nonsuch label.
13:00 Um, it was recorded here in New York
13:04 City at RCA and this is the studio that
13:06 Chesy Records when it started in the
13:08 90s. We were recording in that studio.
13:10 So, I actually know the sound of that
13:13 room very very well. So, it's for voice.
13:17 It's recording his voice. Uh Teresa
13:20 Stratus' voice just not only is it
13:22 beautiful, it is powerful. She sounds
13:24 kind of like if a rock singer could be
13:26 an opera singer, that's what you get
13:29 with Teresa Stratus. So she's giving you
13:34 a lot a lot of energy coming off of her
13:37 and of course this beautiful orchestra.
13:39 So uh it is in German. Did I say that?
13:41 Uh, so I had no idea what the words
13:44 were, but the emotional power of this
13:46 recording really, really, really took me
13:48 by surprise. So even though I forgot
13:51 about it for nearly 40 years, it's going
13:54 to be in and is in heavy rotation here.
13:56 So I highly recommend it. If you have
14:00 any inkling to like serious vocal music,
14:03 please stream it and see if it works for you.
14:10 Hey, Ethan is 28 years old and he lives
14:13 in Nashville, Tennessee.
14:16 This is his system. The amplifier is a
14:19 Luxman SQN150
14:23 tube amp with 10 watts of power. There's
14:26 a real machine in there, an Akai
14:29 GX 630D
14:33 SS with a customuilt walnut cabinet from
14:34 a friend.
14:38 Turntable Project Debut Carbon Evo with
14:41 a Sumiko Reineer moving magnet
14:47 cartridge. Speakers Omega Junior 8XRS
14:50 towers in walnut finish.
14:53 The wiring is by Mattisound.
14:55 Thank you so much for watching. If you
14:57 want to support the channel, please uh
15:00 check out the Patreon. The address is on
15:02 the screen right now. You can join for a
15:05 couple of bucks a month up to50 or even
15:08 $100 a month at the top two tiers. You
15:12 and I will have a one onone conversation
15:15 every month. And they I never get tired
15:17 of saying this because it's true. I have
15:20 the best time doing these calls. And
15:22 that's it for today. Again, thank you
15:25 for watching. Do hope to see you back
