John Darko
Newly arrived in Berlin, KEF’s all-new Q Concerto Meta (US$1299 or €1198/pair) starts with a 0.75″ aluminium tweeter, concentrically and coincidentally aligned with a 4″ aluminium midrange driver. This is what KEF calls Uni-Q, presented here in its 12th Generation design, complete with a metamaterial MAT™ disc placed behind the tweeter to – according to KEF – absorb 99% of its back wave. That’s energy that would otherwise reflect and fire forward once more to distort the tweeter’s output with ‘late’ sound. The tweeter’s output is ‘wave-guided’ by the midrange driver and the ShadowFlare moulding surrounding the Uni-Q array. This two-fer blocks any line of sight the tweeter would otherwise have to the cabinet edges to – according to KEF – significantly reduce edge diffraction.
The nerd talk continues with the Q Concerto Meta’s separate 6.5″ bass unit: an aluminium-skinned paper driver augmented by a rear-firing reflex port and crossed over to the midranger above at 430Hz. That midrange driver then hands off to the tweeter at 2.9kHz. According to my KEF America contact, the company’s Kent-based engineering team has built a new measurement facility — one that has already netted improvements to the Q Series’ crossover designs. The talk behind the scenes is of an off-axis frequency response that more closely follows the on-axis frequency response but with the desired upper-frequency descent.
Being the only 3-way standmount in the new Q Series Meta range, KEF reached back to 1969 for a 3-way standmount from its past to lend the newbie the ‘Concerto’ moniker. Catch up on the vintage Concerto here and watch KEF’s new promo video here. We should, however, note the visual disconnect between the old and new Concerto. In the late 60s and early 70s, ‘standmount’ speakers had wider front baffles and were placed directly on the floor sans stands. The Q Concerto Meta is deeper than it is wide and intended for stands. KEF will supply the optional SQ1 for an additional €299/pair.
For yours truly, the visual similarities between the Q Concerto Meta and the R3 Meta (review here) are more striking. The latter is also a 3-way design housed in a cabinet that’s deeper than it is wide. The Q Concerto Meta is the smaller of the two and uses slightly smaller drivers but at €1198/pair – half the R3 Meta’s asking price – it’s a side-by-side comparison that must be considered. But there’s a wrinkle: per the photos, my Q Concerto Meta are in Berlin and the R3 Meta are in Lisbon. I’ll need to buy another set of at least one model to make that side-by-side comparison a reality. For price-commensurate comparisons to speakers from my Berlin pool, I’ll be looking to the GoldenEar BRX (review here), Monitor Audio Silver 100 7G (review here) and – if the stars align – Wharfedale Linton (review here).
We’ll end this preview on a bit of a bum note. Removing the see-through film that protects the KEF logo on the SQ1 stands lifted the ‘K’ clean-off one (see photo below). This is the second time this has happened to me with a pair of KEF stands so perhaps KEF needs to look at the glue it uses here.
Further information: KEF
