KEF iQ Series Speakers & Wireless Subwoofer Page 2

PERFORMANCE

In my opinion, how a speaker performs on the stuff we listen to day in and day out is just as important as how it sounds on slambang action movies and audiophile CDs. When I set up the KEFs, I happened to have on hand a new Blu-ray Disc of Season 9 of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation — and if a top-rated, super-popular weekly network crime drama doesn’t count as day-to-day fare, what does?

CSI let the iQs show off their extraordinarily natural tonal balance. The blend of bass, midrange, and treble was nearly perfect, as if I’d spent hours instead of minutes tweaking the speaker positioning. Dialogue in CSI sounded natural, with no nasality, harshness, or the bloating of male voices that’s all too common with center speakers. When actors moved from the center to the left or right, the uniformity of the matching Uni-Q drivers delivered a completely seamless effect; there was none of that distracting change in sound that some systems produce as voices move from speaker to speaker.

Through the KEFs, I soon realized that the soundtrack for CSI was no slapped-together production. The 7.1-channel mix, delivered in DTS-HD Master Audio, would embarrass many big-budget action movies. It’s chock-full of sound effects, intricate music cues, and channel-to-channel panning. A scene with footsteps that began in the surrounds and moved into the front channels showed off the superb tonal matching of these speakers. With all the lights off and only me in the house, the effect was realistic enough to stir me from my slumped position so I could look over my shoulder.

The only coloration I noticed was a slight sibilance, which in most voices was noticeable but not objectionable. Only when listening to high-pitched female voices, such as Marg Helgenberger’s, did this really catch my attention.

The iQ speakers’ pleasing tonal balance carried over when I switched to music. The iQ50s delivered a mellow, inviting presentation: smooth in the mids, clear but not exaggerated in the treble, and surprisingly powerful in the bass, even with the subwoofer out of the system. It’s no party speaker — the woofers start to distort when pushed hard — but I was surprised to find that it maintained its tonal balance even at extreme levels. I also listened to the iQ10s as a stereo pair and was delighted to find that they sound practically identical to the iQ50, although with less bass, of course.

The one thing these speakers didn’t deliver for me was the kind of airy, spacious sound that audiophiles prefer. This may be a result of the concentric design: The woofer acts as a horn for the tweeter, preventing it from dispersing sound as broadly as a conventionally mounted tweeter can. KEF does include its “tangerine” waveguide on the front of the tweeter, which helps minimize reflections of high-frequency sounds within the woofer cone, but still, I didn’t get the sense of air and space that I’m used to hearing on some of my favorite CDs from Chesky. (The best music systems let me feel like I’m sitting in the third pew of the highly reverberant New York City church where Chesky makes most of its recordings.) To me, this characteristic doesn’t matter for 5.1 or 7.1 playback, but stereo music enthusiasts will probably prefer speakers that are geared more toward ambience and broad soundstaging.

The HTB2SE-W subwoofer’s wireless transmitter and receiver worked without a single hiccup. Usual sources of household interference — refrigerators, razors, computers — had no effect on the sound, although the sub did produce audible thumps when it powered itself off automatically after a few minutes of silence. The HTB2SE-W itself sounded like some of the other compact, cool-looking subs I’ve heard: plenty of punch in the middle octave of bass from 40 to 80 Hz, but not so much in the bottom octave.

BOTTOM LINE

As a speaker geek, I can tell you that the KEF iQ Series speakers and HTB2SEW wireless subwoofer deliver a natural tonal balance; practically perfect speaker- to-speaker matching; and a consistent dispersion pattern that makes it easy to get great sound at every seat on your couch. But I think the average person would tell you something much more useful — i.e., that these speakers just sound really good. Even my mother would have to agree.

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