R3 Meta

The Diablos are amazing... Yet Steve Huff, who uses them as his reference speakers, out right said - while testing the KEF R3 Meta:"Did I miss my Focal Diablos while the R3 Meta were in? Well, maybe on a couple of nights but in reality I did not."AND"These speakers sound AMAZING with vinyl, at least

I have pretty extensive experience with both the R3 and R5, and despite their minor differences on the spec sheet, I've concluded that for real world use, they are effectively the same speaker in different form factors. The R3 is a beefy bookshelf speaker and the R5 is a small, skinny tower. Just pi

Quick short list (models I’d start with for “wide sweet spot”) If you want a tight, practical shortlist across price tiers: • Genelec 8351B / 8361A (active, reference-level coverage) • Revel M126Be or F226Be (passive, broad and consistent off-axis) • JBL HDI-1600 / HDI-3600 (waveguide + dynamic, wid

Ohm Walsh , Mirage ( now extinct). Several people recommended KEF but even KEF doesn’t work as well as Ohm walsh in terms of sweet spot and instrument separation when you’re closer to the speakers. KEF was great when you sat at a considerable distance from the speakers. I am saying this having perso

I have different experience. I had Enyo 15th for a few days connected to Hegel H120 -> KEF R3 Meta and I was dissapointed. It was more smooth and had deeper soundstage but it sacrificed a lot of details and dynamic comparing to Hegel DAC. It was just boring. I do like much more Mojo 2 as a DAC which

I find the KEF R series to be good, but quite overhyped on the forums, usually because of their good measurements. They resolve to a point, and then you would have to go upstream, KEF or otherwise. I had the R3 Meta in house for a little, and they just couldn't hold their own against my (then) curre

This hobby is pretty diabolical, as taste, your room, your listening skill, supporting gear in your audio chain and knowledge on setup will dramatically affect your perceived performance of a piece of gear. That's a lot of factors outside of the gear itself. Recently there was a poster who said the

Yep, while the towers take up more visual space than a bookshelf on stands, physically they have the same footprint. Main drawback positioning wise, is that they're a little too high and it's harder to tilt it - but thanks to KEF's Uni-Q drivers, it's not an issue sound wise. Also the bass output an

SMSL SU-1 was the go-to cheap option to try out AKM or finish a cheap secondary system, but I think they may have gone up in price. I have seen used Geshelli Labs J2's go for less than $200 also, and those are almost always well recieved. If you find the AKM DACs in the price range you want, you can

I have a similar setup to you minus the shelves at the sides. They definitely need 18”+ breathing room laterally. Remove the side cabinets if you can, but being bolted onto heavy spiked stands (S3’s?) stood a little out into the room would be better. I would also go slightly against ‘tweeter exactly