Κώστας Φ.
Truth hurts. Here's a teddy bear.
- Μηνύματα
- 8.978
- Reaction score
- 895
"The Reference 207/2
Other than the absence of the supertweeter pod, the 207/2 looks identical to its predecessor. A gloss-finished, cast-aluminum pod that carries the new Uni-Q drive-unit is mounted atop a wood-veneered cabinet with an elliptical plan section and complex internal bracing to minimize cabinet resonances. This handsome speaker manages to conceal its considerable bulk.
As before, a 10" pulp-cone lower-midrange driver, mounted in its own subenclosure, covers the one and a half octaves where instruments and voices have their fundamental energy (120–350Hz). It hands over below 120Hz to a pair of 10" fiber-reinforced paper-cone woofers, these individually reflex-loaded with two large, flared ports each more than 4" in diameter. One port is at the base of the front baffle; the other is on top, firing upward behind the Uni-Q pod. (With a radiating diameter so much smaller than the wavelengths of the sound it produces, the port is omnidirectional—it doesn't matter which way it points.) The lower-midrange unit has a stationary, chromium-plated phase plug on the end of its pole-piece; the woofers have conventional dustcaps. All three lower-frequency units use a pair of shorting Faraday rings on their voice-coil formers to reduce magnetically induced distortion; the woofers use a long coil mounted in a short gap to give constant drive force regardless of cone position, while the lower-midrange unit, with its reduced need for large cone excursions, has a short-coil/long-gap motor.
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The new 1" titanium-dome tweeter in the 207/2 uses a vented pole-piece and is said to operate pistonically to a much higher frequency than in the original 207, eliminating the need for a separate supertweeter.
As in the 207, the 207/2's crossover features symmetrical 24dB/octave slopes, and electrical connection is via three pairs of plastic-covered binding posts at the speaker's rear. Short heavy-gauge jumpers, terminated with a spade at one end and a 4mm plug at the other, are supplied; I used them for all my auditioning. Two shorting plugs are also supplied; these are used to fine-tune the speaker's bass and treble balances by plugging in none, one, two, or all three into three sockets above the binding posts. By removing the plug from the bass socket, the low-frequency level can be shelved down by a couple of dB, to compensate for boundary loading if the speakers must be used close to walls. I auditioned the 207/2s with the shorting plugs set for free-space operation; ie, maximum bass. Even so, the speakers didn't boom. The other two sockets/plugs allow the entire treble region to be adjusted up by 0.75dB, or down by 0.75dB or 1.5dB. I did most of my listening (and all the measuring) with the treble set to flat, which worked best with rock recordings, but found that raising the treble by 0.75dB added some air to the sound of naturally miked classical recordings. I used the speakers without their grilles, but found very little difference with them on.
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Summing Up
While spaces remain in my heart for the Sonus Faber Amati homage, the mbl 111B, the Dynaudio Confidence C4, the original Revel Ultima Studio, and the Wilson Audio Sophia, I must say that the Series 2 revision of KEF's Reference 207, the 207/2, is overall the best-sounding full-range speaker I have used in my current listening room. To all intents and purposes, it is without flaw. The lows are extended and well defined, the midrange is pure, the treble is free of grain and naturally balanced, the dynamics are awesome, and the stereo imaging is accurate and stable. The 207/2 simply defines neutrality, but without losing sight of the musical message. $20,000 is still a lot of money, but for a pair of speakers of this caliber, it's tempting to declare the big KEF a bargain, considering that you can pay five times as much for speakers that sound only as good." -- John Atkinson
"Taken overall, KEF's Reference 207/2 offers superb measured performance. This is a speaker for which no excuses need be made. That it sounds as good as it does is no mystery." -- John Atkinson
Full Review: Stereophile.com
