Loudspeakers

The R11 Meta design may lack the obvious style of the company's Blades, or the luxury of the Reference series, but there's a lot more going on here than immediately meets the eye. The Uni-Q driver, with its tweeter nestled at the acoustic centre of the midrange unit, benefits from the appliance of KEF's MAT – this acoustic absorber is the key upgrade across the new R series speakers.

This version of KEF's Uni-Q features the familiar Tangerine Waveguide and phase plug above the treble dome, together with the continuous curve of the midrange cone and 'Shadow Flare' terminating the waveguide smoothly with the baffle and baffle edges. Attaching the MAT disc to the rear of the Uni-Q driver has also required a redesign of the 'back end'. This now has a large channel running through the middle of the midrange motor, aiming the rear output of the treble dome into the MAT disc.

On a more 'macro' level, each R11 driver is mounted in its own enclosure within the cabinet. The Uni-Q unit is completely isolated from the bass drivers, which are arranged in two pairs with interlinked enclosures, and separate reflex loading. The port tubes use KEF's flexible rubber construction, allowing them to dissipate resonances within the port structure without impeding the output. Moreover, the cabinet is not only heavy and stiff to resist resonances, but also braced by dividers – used to create the various internal volumes – which are coupled to the main enclosure using a viscoelastic material. Finally, strategic damping is also used throughout to tackle standing waves.