In your traditional loudspeakers, the individual drivers are all stacked in a column on the face of the speaker. The problem with that setup is that the varying frequencies will interfere with one another, which results in a distorted sound. Or so say the KEF engineers (and I’m gonna take their word for it given that I was lost at “driver”).
Their new Blade speakers are designed specifically to avoid such interference. Rather than blasting the full range of sound solely out of the front face of the speaker, they set two opposing pairs of mid-range drivers on the sides of the cabinet with the tweeter alone on the front. By setting it up this way, the sound appears to come from a single distortion-free source. Get ready to give up an arm and a leg for the privilege of pampering your ears — systems retail for $US30,000.
Michael
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 11:17 AMThe modern flim flam man sells hifi rather than snake oil and nobody is an easier target than the rich audiophile. Any multiple driver setup will have frequency ranges where one driver interferes with another. You can move them whereever you like top, sides, bottom, whatever, there will still be interference. At the end of the day what you get is different sounding speakers that may sound better or worse depending on the subjective listener.
Ian
Friday, May 20, 2011 at 11:18 AMDid a speaker designer play a little too much Portal?
I don’t think they should be called Blade but rather Turret :P