Blade Brochure
19Pages

BLADE IS AN ATTITUDE. IT’S ABOUT EXPLORING THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE, WITHOUT PRECONCEPTIONS. PUSHING BOUNDARIES.

For audiophiles all overthe world, KEF has for more than half a century stood for innovative acoustic engineering in pursuit of outstanding sound purity. We have the awards and reputation to prove it: no other manufacturer has done more to advance the state of the art. “Of all the arts, music is the most expressive, the most insubstantial and the most immediate.Transformed to a dance of electrons along a wire, its ghost lives on. When KEF returns music to your ears and mind, we aim to do so in the most natural way - without drama, without exaggeration, without artifice.” — Raymond Cooke,...

SNOW WHITE Cool, clean and glowing serenely like the marble of the Brancusi masterpiece that inspired their form, the crisp Snow White finish gives Blade and Blade Two a distinctive sculptural presence that looks stunning in modern interiors.

FROM CONCEPT... ...TO REAL WORLD ENJOYMENT The result of three years of research -Concept Blade realised 2009 Blade is an attitude. It’s about exploring the art of the possible, without preconceptions. Pushing boundaries. So we gave our most talented engineers carte blanche to create the best speaker they can, with no design or cost restrictions. After years of research and testing, what they came up with looked and sounded like no other speaker: Concept Blade. Its startling acoustic precision was so acclaimed when it first broke cover that we spent two more years refining the concept to...

KEF has always been obsessed with perfecting the reproduction of recorded sound, with a continuous stream of technical innovations that have shaped the evolution of loudspeaker design. KEF was the first to apply computer analysis to optimising sonic performance, using aerospace-derived modelling techniques such as finite element analysis. We pioneered driver decoupling. Pair matching. Coupled cavity bass loading. Conjugate load matching. Acoustic compliance enhancement. But of all these breakthroughs, the most influential is KEF’s signature Uni-Q ‘point source’ driver array. Uni-Q's...

When the visionary electrical engineer Raymond Cooke set out to perfect the reproduction of recorded sound in 1961, he set up his first research lab on the banks of the river Medway in the Garden of England, in a wartime Nissen hut formerly occupied by Kent Engineering and Foundry. Hence the name: KEF. To celebrate KEF’s unrivalled heritage of continuous innovation in the half century since, and the part that the iconic Blade loudspeakers have played in consolidating KEF's reputation among serious audiophiles, we've commissioned two bespoke editions. With two striking special finishes...

FROSTED COPPER BLACK To celebrate over five decades of KEF innovation, we've created a special Frosted Copper Black finish for Blade and Blade Two that pays homage to the iconic LS50, World class acoustic integrity, then as now.

KENT ENGINEERING AND FOUNDRY EDITION FROSTED BLUE From lapis lazuli artefacts of antiquity to blue anodised aerospace components, ultramarine has always been prized for its purity. No wonder the Frosted Blue finish works so well on Blade and Blade Two, its seductive sheen emphasising the taut contours of the cabinet while hinting at the sophistication of the engineering within.

Like listening to one voice ratherthan many, sound from a single source is inherently clearer. In Blade, not only do the HF and MF drivers in the Uni-Q array share an identical axis, but the four superlative LF drivers are mounted symmetrically equidistant on either side, so that their acoustic centres occupy exactly the same point in space.This single apparent source configuration is what makes Blade speakers so coherent right across the frequency range, with noticeably more precise imaging than is possible from any conventional speaker. What you hear sounds as if it's being performed live...

Unique technologies configured in a radical new single apparent source architecture. Midrange I HYBRID CONE So light and rigid that it never reaches its natural break-up point, Blade and Blade Two's hybrid MF cone has a lithium/magnesium/aluminium alloy outer skin braced at the back by a precision-engineered skeleton of liquid crystal polymer, which increases rigidity while venting the space behind to eliminate distortion effects from compression. By optimising sensitivity and transient response, this unique combination reproduces upper midrange frequencies with an accuracy that allows you...

PIANO BLACK As curvaceous and as effortlessly authoritative as a concert grand, Blade and Blade Two look spectacularly elegant in classic Piano Black, with sinuous highlights reflected in the deep, ultra-high gloss lacquer finish. More than mere speakers, these are objects of desire.

The challenge was to design an acoustically efficient enclosure for a speaker whose unique driver configuration demanded large capacity at the upper portion, without looking remotely bulky. Initially, KEF engineers worked with Eric Chan of New York-based ECCO Design to create a distinctive look to match Blade's towering performance capabilities. As functional as they are beautiful, the resulting cabinets are like works of art in their own right - indeed, their form was inspired by the great sculptor Brancusi’s Modernist masterpiece, Bird in Space. Tapering gracefully from top to bottom and...

PERFECTION NEVER ENDS Today’s models are even better. Purer. Closer to the acoustic ideal, subjectively as well as objectively. How perfect is perfect? The quest for perfect sound reproduction goes on, of course. As new materials and technologies emerge, KEF research engineers are constantly pioneering new ways of achieving the ultimate in acoustic response. Compromise is not a KEF word - and given the freedom to ignore the limitations that others accept, they create loudspeakers acknowledged to be among the best anywhere, at any price. The Ross Lovegrove-designed Muon, for example, whose...