KEF R SERIES 2018 LOUDSPEAKER RANGE AVAILABLE THIS MONTH

Without a break in its corporate stride, KEF completed this Herculean task in about 12 months, and what a task that was.

Job done, the new R-series models are here. They comprise the $8995 R11, $5995 R7 and $4995 R5 floor standers, the $2995 stand mount, the $1795 R2c centre and the $2195 R8a Dolby Atmos compatible speakers.

KEF didn’t opt for a makeover of its R Series. No way. It set about redesigning the complete range.

After the dust settled, KEF says it made 1043 individual changes to the range, and this includes significant improvements to the brand's famous Uni-Q driver.

KEF has given the Uni-Q driver a redesigned motor system to make a good midrange even better.

The area between the two drivers, remembering the Uni-Q features a tweeter in the acoustic centre of the cone, has a thin gap that has now been dampened to get rid of pesky resonances.

KEF has also fitted what’s called a ‘Shadow Flare’  trim ring that cuts down on diffractions that come from the edge of the speakers. With the ring fitted, the tweeter is no longer in the line of fire or hostage to cabinet edges.

The R Series bass drivers also get plenty of attention. They now have an improved motor, and new materials have been used in their manufacture.

Each bass driver now has a shallow concave skin stretched over a paper cone to make a two-part structure that aids rigidity.

And in a deft move, KEF gives the R-Series the internal bracing construction that it is calling ‘Constrained Layer Damping’ from its best selling LS50 speaker to reduce resonances.

This feature sees internal braces attached to the cabinet panels using a ‘lossy’ implementation rather than a rigid coupling.

The R Series is equipped with a flexible port design. Ports are precisely positioned and have unique flexible walls to combat longitudinal resonances from colouring the midrange.

Moreover, computer design was used to calculate the new port’s flare and profile, again to remove midrange colouration.

The R-Series comes in a choice of black gloss, white gloss and walnut finishes.

The range is available from this month.

For more information visit KEF.