KEF “Concept Blade”—A State-of-the-Art, Not-for-Sale, Concept Speaker
May 29th, 2009 -- by Chris Martens
Source: AVGuide
Source: AVGuide
The British speaker maker KEF today revealed a visually stunning, state-of-the-art, not-for-sale technology concept speaker called “Concept Blade.” KEF sources say the speaker is the result of a “hush-hush engineering project” that has been under development for more than three years. While the Concept Blade may never become a commercially viable product, it embodies research concepts and technologies that, KEF sources say, “will surely trickle down to the rest of the KEF lineup.”
What makes the Concept Blade so special? In a nutshell, the speaker takes KEF’s familiar Uni-Q array concept (where a tweeter is positioned coaxially within a midrange or mid-bass driver, with the drivers sharing the same “acoustic centers”) to a much higher level. In essence, Concept Blade is designed to behave as if the entire loudspeaker has become a giant, full-range Uni-Q array.
At the heart of the Concept Blade is a 10th-generation forward-firing Uni-Q array. KEF then surrounds that array with four side-firing 10-inch bass drivers positioned symmetrically around the Uni-Q array. Together, the four bass drivers share the same combined acoustic center as the front-firing Uni-Q array, essentially become part of it. From the listener’s point of view, then, the Concept Blade behaves like a single, phase-coherent, full-range driver with very wide dispersion characteristics—or what KEF terms “Single Apparent Source” technology. The resulting sound field, says KEF acoustic engineer Jack Oclee-Brown, is “astonishingly convincing.”
But there’s more to the Concept Blade than Single Apparent Source design. For example, the new 10th-generation Uni-Q driver incorporates an injection-molded midrange driver diaphragm made of liquid crystal polymer, plus a new tweeter that is tube-loaded to the rear and that also uses KEF’s new “Tangerine” waveguide. In a video on the Concept Blade, Oclee-Brown says the new Uni-Q array is one of the most intensively studied driver arrays KEF has ever made, and that the array “behaves pistonically over 7-octaves without any trace of breakup”—a bold claim, indeed.
The Concept Blade’s 10-inch woofers are arranges as “opposing pairs” to cancel out vibrations. The forces involved are so large, however, that KEF found it necessary to both bolt and bond the pairs of woofers together.
Finally, the Concept Blade features a curved-wall enclosure made of a carbon fiber/balsa wood composite. The compound curves of the Concept Blade enclosure are said to give the cabinet much greater rigidity and resistance to resonance than conventional flat-wall enclosures.
While we can’t buy the Concept Blade, we would certainly welcome the opportunity to hear the speaker in action.
For more information and a video presentation on the Concept Blade, visit: http://www2.kef.com/us/conceptblade
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It looks like the industry has started moving and in a relatively short time from the increasing use of rare natural metals like titanium, magensium and beryllium in their pure or modified forms to increasingly exotic synthetic materials like that used in Magico's drivers and KEF's new material. I think that driver materials and design will be a key area of development in the hi fi industry in the coming few years.
I think if they get this voiced okay it'll be a fantastic speaker; love the narrow curved front with the uniQ, probably has great radiotion characteristics, and putting the bassunits on the side and opposite of each other will cancel out a lot of internal vibration, and since there a 4 of them they don't have to work too hard, better bass and/or even less vibration.
And it looks great too! If this ever comes available at a price I can afford (g.i. with only one pair of woofers) I will go and give it serious listen ASAP.
In an s'phile article I recall seeing an estimated price of over $140K. What's the point in building these things and not selling them? Maybe because KEF realizes the'll never be able to command that price....just plain silliness.
Congratulations on the KEF engineering team. The Brits know the value of research and what the design objectives need to be. Like Peter Walker's group at QUAD they understand the importance of recreating the point-source and, advancing to the next step, KEF's Q-source projects sound over a widely-dispersed area to reproduce a realistic soundstage. By contrast, I can't imagine how so many audiophiles can purchase expensive speakers that have an infintesimally small "sweat spot" and are incapable of producing any kind of reasonable power response throughout the listening room. I can also understand KEF's insistence on only producing a prototype at this stage; there is no point in producing a 6-figure product that only wealthy audiophiles (most of whom have no appreciation for the optimal presentation of music) could afford. Instead, they want to use this as a first step in a trickle-down product development strategy.
RonLev
A logical configuration - but $140,000? Carbon fibre? Not for sale?
There is nothing intrinsically expensive about this - why doesn't KEF put it on the market for $3000 and perform a real public service and gain the satisfaction of genuinely surprising and delighting the buying public. Enough of this faux "exotica".
Larger sales numbers might earn KEF more profit, anyway.
RE: Misinformation about that price for the KEF Blade.
Hey guys,
The KEF blade is NOT being made to be sold for $140,000. The blade is strictly a prototype and has no listed or proposed price. It is the KEF Muon that has a price of $140,000; this is a showpiece by industrial designer Ross Lovegrove, it is not a technological demonstrator, and has been on the market for a couple years.
RonLev, Philly
Good afternoon gentlemen,
I hope you're all good. I just wanted to clarify a few points about project blade.
There is no RRP attached to this loudspeaker as it is purely a concept. We invest a huge amount of time, effort and of course money in developing new products, and sometimes the best way to do this is in "the real world" as opposed to just relying on the computer modelling and FEA which can only ever show us a limited amount of information. As a company we are constantly innovating, and the technologies we are able to develop from this project will certainly have a bearing on where we go in the future. That's not to say the next Reference loudspeaker will be a "baby Blade", but what we learn will help to steer us in a particular direction. A great example of this is the Uni-Q driver developed for project Austin (latterly Muon) which had a huge presence in the development of the Uni-Q used in our Reference 207/2.
This projest was never undertaken to make money - it was an exercise to push the boundaries of loudspeaker design by a group of people who are truly passionate about what they do.
I had the pleasure of having a couple of hours in the listening room in Maidstone with these yesterday, and I have to say, I honestly believe we're moving into uncharted territory. I hope you guys get the chance to see (and hear!) them in all their glory soon!
Best wishes,
Paul
Wow! I am thinking this may have some of the characteristics of the Lowthers and other similar beasts.
While not a single driver design or a horn speaker, methinks it may share some characteristics, but without the drawbacks of those designs.
Can't wait until they actually put them into production.