My Model Threes live a double lifestyle. As part of a home theater (relax... hear me out) mated with a Model 200c and an old pair of the old THX fronts, (used as rears)AV2's. The image is massive, seamless and at times, haunting. I often find myself hitting mute to make sure folie effects are not actually thieves looting my home. The uni-Q is such a wonderful concept (touche Tannoy) and when set up properly will give an experience nothing short of dazzling - particularly with Dolby Digital soundtracks.
Having owned Thiel 3.6, Snell type B, Apogee Centaurs, and Matrix 802's. The KEF three is certainly the most fun. Massage your sternum - tight bass control. Can be somewhat bright on axis - which necessitates room tuning and MIT's which I absolutely swear by.

When setting up the threes. Toe in angle is much more angle-specific than KEF wants you to think. Left and right axis lines from the uni-q should intersect about three feet behind your head. PLacement approx. 1/3 of the room's depth out from the rear wall should yield eye opening bass extension. Be bautious in placing the big guys too close to the rear wall as bass will suffer. Spike them but don't waste your time loading the plinths.

The KEF Reference 3 Speaker
Description.

The Reference 4 was reviewed in the March 1996 issue of Stereophile. Because the Reference 4 has got-ten so much publicity, some comparisons are quite likely to follow. For those of you who have access to the Stereophile review, you can read it and skip to the next section of this review. For those of you who do not have that in front of you, I shall provide a bit of comparison with the bigger brother.

The Reference 3 is still quite a bit of speaker. They were not shipped by UPS, and the fellow who called me from the freight company didn’t think I would be able to fit both of them into the hatchback of my Saab 9000. But my trusty Saab is a tank of a car, and they both fit, in their cartons, and with the trunk fully closed and latched. The boxes are just big enough that a six foot tall man with normal length arms can’t quite reach around three sides of the box to pick them up in the obvious way. Getting them from the car to the house took a long time; I have wrestled with futons that were easier to move.

The Reference 3 is also about two thousand less dollars than the Reference 4. I have found that many times the one-from-the-top is the most cost effective member of a product line. It has an 10.5x14 inch footprint, and stands about 44 inches tall. This makes it quite a bit smaller than its bigger brother (12x16x48), but you aren’t going to hide it in any but the largest or most cluttered living room. Those of you who read the Meridian 505 review may recall that our living room is large, and may I say, it is also pleasantly cluttered with all the stuff of music in the home. We have since moved from the left to the right coast of the United States, and the new living room is now 26 x 20.5 with a sloping ceiling that goes from around 8 feet at one end to around 11 feet slightly off center along the long wall.

I should mention that the new room in the new house is so quiet you can hear your heart beat. We live about halfway between Richmond and Charlottesville, which is to say, the EXACT middle of nowhere. One of the short walls has an irregular rock face along a part of it, and the other short wall has two 45 degree bends in it at the one third points that make one of the long walls actually only 24 feet. In other words, it is a slightly irregular, non-resonant box. Let’s just say that we bought the house for the room.

The driver compliment is 1 Uni-Q midrange/tweeter driver, 1 mid-bass driver the same diameter (6.5 inches), and 2 woofers that are 8 inches in diameter each. KEF has a mediocre web page that gives the specs. The visible drivers are wonderfully blended with the baffle, giving the speaker an unusual appear-ance when the grille is removed. It is kind of neat to be able to reach inside the speaker through the large port and investigate the construction.

Set up.

When my wife first discovered these speakers in Seattle, she heard them demonstrated quite satisfactorily near the rear wall. We have them along the long wall, with the rear surface of the speaker about two feet out from the wall, and each 505 just behind the speaker being driven. They are 14 feet apart, and the chairs keep your head about three feet from the wall behind you. We also started out following KEF’s in-structions to not toe in the speakers, but wound up with them toed in about half the angle that would cause them to cross at the listening position. KEF also says the grille doesn’t make much difference. Well, it makes less difference than some speakers, but for best results you might want to leave them off. Seen from the side, the speaker does have a quite "feminine" appearance with the grille on.

The large brass feet make it quite easy to slide these speakers on the carpet. They are heavy enough that they indent the carpet in minutes, so once you decide where they go, you can flip them over on their heads, install the spikes and return them to the chosen locations.

Amplification.

We tried biamping and biwiring, and finally wound up with a single amp per channel and a single run of low-tech "George-wire." George-wire is a doubled run of 12 gauge lamp cord, with the various strands lightly braided together as one might braid a pony tail. It is flexible, cheap, sightly, and low impedance, capacitance, and inductance. What more could you want? (Oh yes. To spend money on the wire. I forgot.) I am using a little seat of the pants engineering to suppose that the braiding is good enough for Meridian inside the amplifier, and the raw material is cheap enough that I can spend the remaining money in more cost effective ways – like buying new music! The KEF speakers offer large wire crunchers for terminals, so no termination is required on either end.

The amplifiers are the previously reviewed Meridian 505 pair. These are bipolar transistor, balanced am-plifiers without anything really unusual in the way of circuitry. The rest of the front end is all Meridian, as well: 506 CD player feeding the 541 pre-amp (review to follow). In concept, this system is somewhat of scaled down, two channel version of the system discussed in a recent issue of Gramophone magazine.

The Sound.

I only got the Stereophile review of the Reference 4 from a friend at work last month, by which time we had owned the Reference 3 for almost nine months. I was puzzled by three significant characteristics of the sound that were not mentioned by Thomas J. Norton in his review.

(1) The mid-bass driver is what really sets apart the Reference 4 and Reference 3 from many other three way designs. This driver covers 140Hz to 400Hz, which is from about the C# below middle C to the G above middle C. That is a critical area, and the home of a lot of the SPL in most music. It is my opinion that the Uni-Q driver comes into its own because it doesn’t have to play anything lower than 400Hz – the midrange can really do its thing properly without all that excursion.
(2) At least in our 5000 cubic foot room, the bass is quite extended and smooth. The ever handy Radio Shack SPL meter showed virtually flat response down to the 32Hz warble tone, and then nothing at all below that. An actual 40Hz flat response is quite low. Thirty-two Hertz is /really/ low. Pitch defi-nition is quite good, and distortion is low as well. While we might add a Meridian sub-woofer at some point, I can’t say that there is any sense of urgency on the matter.
(3) We detect no brightness whatever. Brightness is something I associate with being most detectable in vocal recordings – there is that sense that no one’s voice ever sounds that shrill except for distant memories of my mother calling me in for dinner when I was a child. None of that sound has intruded into our listening experience with the KEF Reference 3.

See Part 2.

I've had my Kef's about 9 months and I love them. I bought them on reputationonly because my old speakers were Rogers Studio 1's and they had Kef drivers in
them too. I got to hear the Four's in Atlanta and I didn't think they were that much better. The One and the Two weren't nearly as good as the Three.
The dealer said he sells way more Four's than Three's but I'm glad I got the
three's

These speakers dont work in medium size rooms. They require a lot of spaceand are very hard to set up. Bigger rooms are a must for these puppies.
Due to the ported nature the bass is not tight.
Buye them for the finish not the sound.

I owned the Ref 3 for 20 months and found them to be good speakers, but not for me.
I bought the speakers after a very impressive demo on ARC cd and preamp
and a classé CA200 amp. The bass alone could sell them but they have
a good mid section (maybe a little recess) and smooth highs.
But in my 12X16 livingroom and with ARC CDT1, DAC1-20, SP14 and
Classic 120 the sound was only average.
They need a big room, much bigger then mine, to realy sing.
The Classic 120 (Tubes 110 watt monobloc) could not control the amasing
bass capability of this speaker and they were too gentle in the highs
to make the music get out and be dramatic.
After a time, i upgrated to a pair of Classé M700 amp (SS 700 watt monobloc)
The bass was much improuved and tighter, the mid more forward and the highs
more open and airy, but in the end, it was not totally satisfying.
I've found a speaker that is everything that i could ask.
The Sonus Faber Concerto Grand Piano are now well run-in (4 mounths)
and are giving me maybe less bass but a very open mid and clear treble.
The SF are more detail but not analitical, the mids are so natural that
voices are realy there.
All in all, a very MUSICAL speaker for a little less money than the Kef.
Conclusion: The Kef are good, but not for everyone, listen carefully to alternative before buying.

I own the Kef 2's and the Kef 3's. I bought the pair new for a great price on Ebay as a company was closing out of existing stock in the US.The 2's are the front of my AV system. The 3's sit in my listening room connected with quality cabling to an Adcom preamp and amp, and a single play Adcom CD player. It's not a lot of money for the incredible experieince the Kef's offer.
As an enthusiast,not an audiophile, I wanted clarity and fidelity and all of the things audiophiles argue over. But - for me - the key thing I wanted was full and highly imaged sound.I wanted to have the drumkit sound off in a corner of the room, the voice float in the middle of the speaker pair and out about three feet cloer to me, and the strings layer back two and three distinct layers as I listened.

ONLY the KEF's do this. ONLY the KEFs.

I listened to a lot of more expensive speakers and legendary speakers, but none image like this wonderful set (the 3's) image. I have listened for countless hours over nearly 2 years.

What this experieince has done is simply re-open my music collection to a new depth and a new sound that was not evident before. This is incredible for the pop, folk, rock, jazz and classical recordings I own.

MY hats off to KEF and I continualy feel a lucky man to have these. Absolute pleasure.

Imaging, mid range

None

I've had the KEF REference 3s as the front speakers in my home theater ystem for 6 months, and like a great wine, they have just gone on geting better with age. I power them using the Sony TA-N9000ES/E9000ES amp/preamp combination, which works well in both 5.1 and 2 channel modes. My source is a Sony S7700 DVD player, and I use MITerminator 6 cables, which bring additional life to the upper ranges.

They are able to handle all types of movies, but are especially good with action/adventure.

I also use them a lot to listen to CDs. From the beginning, the thing that was most impressive was their imaging and staging of the music, especially vocals - they appear to hang in space directly in front of you. Upper and mid range rendition is first rate.

Similar Products Used:

EPOS ES-14

Speakers have very well defined Mid range. Precise highs, and well controlled LF. Good imaging, solid build, natural sound nothing added.

Bass is limited to 35 Hz So I find that a sub is required for home theater. Other than that I cannot complain.

For the dough I couldn't recommend a better speaker. Of course there are better out there, but at a larger price tag. The brits really can build a speaker. They're 104/2 have a cult like following, and anyone that has had the pleasure of listening to these speakers when connected to good gear will admit that they sound pretty good.

Now I am not going to blow smoke up anyones ass and say they are the best speaker in the world and that they have no weaknesses. But what I will say is if your looking for a speaker to replicate music in a pure imn altered fashion with no distortion, and solid mid range. buy a pair of the reference 3 or 4.

Similar Products Used:

Kef 104/2
Energy Veritas
2 Bryston 4B's ( MonoBlock Setup )

Transparency, detail, soundstaging, incredible depth

Sound image is deeper that it's wide. Focus more between speakers than outside speakers. Kef does not care about customers, whether they are from London, Amsterdam or the Moon, they just don't bother replying to e-mail, regardless of what speaker you buy, or what problem you have with them. They should take a lesson from their distributors, such as Transtec in Holland. These guys know what they're doing, and do it well.

Difficult to review, these babies. My descision to go for these was less based on first impression than with the RDM-3's. I also found these speakers a lot more difficult to position than any other. It was in part also a puchase based on anticipation, the anticipation of moving to a new and bigger appartment shortly. The RDM's, although a lot more neutral than the B&W's, and so much easier on the ears for long-term listening, fantastic speakers, enjoyed them tremendously during their 2 month stay, just did not convince in complex music passages. At higher levels, or with richer instrumentation, they seemed to lose a bit control. Also, although having a very tight, very controlled, but not so low bass range, made them less punchy. So, I started looking at the next level. In came Dali and Revel, and in came the KEF Ref3 mk2. My musical taste is easier to define by the things I do not like, and goes anywhere from Classical music to Rock, via blues, funk, pop, roots, etno, trad, dance, amerciana, salsa, samba, fado, mariachi, merengue etc etc. Hence the need for speakers that provide a neutral sound, accomodating all kinds. After long intense listening sessions, at home and at the dealer's, it came down to Dali Grand and Kef 3-2. This is where exact opposites met. The Dali provided an immensely wide stage, magnificent detail, but no relative depth at all, a bit two-dimensional. The Kef 3-2 did the opposite. Sparkling clear highs, the mids providing an immense depth, the sensation of sitting in a room together with the musicians, but nothing extraordinary on the width. And, also very important, thight, powerful and full-bodied lows. But, on the width and depth side, this is where the placement of the speakers became important. I found the Dali to be less critical in regard to their position, but this also meant that basically what you hear is what you get, changing their position not giving much improvement. With the KEF 3-2's, slightly changing alignment and position did wonders to their soundstageing.

All in all, the higher one goes, the more difficult it becomes. So many variables come into play. Not every amp makes a good match with not every speaker. There's nothing wrong with any of the speakers mentioned above. It's just a matter of taste, and at this level, it comes down to subtleties rather than immense differences. (Sorry if I have made it appear to be so though). One thing's for sure. The Revels, the Dali's and the Kef's are not speakers for small listening rooms. All three auditioned speakers need room to breathe. Give them that, and they will each and everyone repay you with a fantastic listening experience. Just simply auditioning these speakers is a sheer joy.(even the Revel's, although I have not really said anything about them in this review)

I have decided to go for the KEF 3-2's (for now), and will eagerly await the specialist from my dealer to come over to my new appartment and help me find the best position for my 3-2's ....

Value motivation:
I give it four stars on either side, again for now, because I have not heard them in their ideal environment yet. My purchase still is partly based upon their future potential. (I am so happy to have a good and patient dealer that holds the client's satisfaction as their primary target)
If and when this improves, I will let you know so on this review page.


Equipment used:
Musical Fidelity A3CD
Marantz CD7
Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista M3
Sony JA50ES Minidisc
Nakamichi ZX-7
Musical Fidelity X-CANv2 & Sennheiser HD600

Cabling used:
Harmonic Technology Pro-Silway MKII interlinks
Harmonic Technology Truth-link interlinks
Harmonic Technology Pro-AC11 power chords

Harmonic Technology Cyber-Link Platinum digicable

Audioquest Opal interlinks
Audioquest Emerald interlinks
Harmonic Technology Pro-9 plus bi-wire speaker cable
Nordost Red Dawn speaker cable
Nordost SPM Reference bi-wire speaker cable

Various MIT and Siltech cabling

Similar Products Used:

Revel Performa F30, Dali Grand, B&W 604-S2, B&W 603-S2, Kef RDM-3

smooth,sweet,neutral,involving,non-fatiguing

bass not always in control

i bought the ref-3 after 5 years i had the kef 1034.i loved the mids and highs of the 1034,but the bass lacked punch and dynamics.the ref-3 has the same beautiful mids and highs but also has very good dynamics and punch.i think it"s the best loudspeaker in the refernce range.it"s better than the ref-2,and in most of the rooms(except very large ones maybe)its better than the ref-4(the ref-3 has boundary compensation which helps in smaller rooms,the ref-4 doesnt).
the speaker tend to have too much midbass sometimes.you have two solutions for that,buying a high quality powerful amp(that cost a lot),or using a great cables with low indusctance with a high quality,small amp.i got terrific result with ensemble tiger(50w integrated) and xlo signature 5.1 loudspeaker cable(i also have the outstanding xlo limited interconnects)

Similar Products Used:

kef ref 1034 , proac response 2.5 ,