Within its elegant floorstanding cabinet the Q550 house no fewer than three additional bass woofers. One of these is powered and is dedicated entirely to bass below the mid-range unit. Working rather like a subwoofer, this enables the Q550 to offer consistent and reliable bass that's both deep and sustained. Improving this further, twin ABRs (Auxcillary Bass Radiators) utilise energy within the cabinet to further enhance and sustain the bass response. Initially I was biased against the KEF's because of how they look to be honest (shallow I know) but once I closed my eyes and heard them, it's that type of sound that puts a perma-smile on your face, and was sold I continued to run the speakers for a good while to warm them up a little and today I have been trying different sounds out to see what they can do. I´ve tried allsorts like, Carpenters, Jamiroquai, Limp Bizkit, Pink Floyd, Everything Everything, Muse, Oakenfold and some classical music. The KEF R500 has been in place for long enough to see use in a variety of situations and with a fair amount of other equipment. In that time that have stood in my listening room attracting nothing but positive comment for their design and aesthetics. This is a handsome and capable speaker and one that is going to work well in a variety of spaces.

In the higher price ranges, the differences were not so night and day, with the R500's having the edge there. It may help that the R500's have a different driver arrangement, helping to tighten the stereo image up. Also unfair there is that the CM8's where not placed on spikes etc so that could have improved the bass response.

A new damped loading system greatly reduces distortion, giving a smoother, more detailed top-end. The "tangerine" wave guide system helps the treble integrate more smoothly with the mid-range. Another improvement with the Q550 is the sealed top compartment - meaning that treble and mid-range aren't affected by the air movements from the bass units. The heart and soul of the loudspeaker series is the Uni-Q array, which provides the mid and high frequencies. The current version of the array resulted from engineering development during the company’s recent Concept Blade program. In brief, the Uni-Q array places both the midrange and tweeter drivers concentrically within the same mechanical structure to form a single acoustic source that’s coherent in position, directivity, and time. This is in contrast to the old “whizzer cone” drivers, which placed the tweeter in front of the lower-frequency driver, and not at the same acoustic point. Moreover, the manufacturer states that this alignment of the midrange (which provides many of the spatial clues in stereo listening) and the tweeter improves the tonal balance characteristics and broadens the listening area rather than limiting it to a sweet spot. But the real highlight of the Q500 speakers lies on it’s new Uni-Q array consisting of one 130mm (5.25in.) aluminium LF driver and two 130mm (5.25in.) aluminium ABRs for enhanced bass response while on top of them we find one 25mm (1in.) vented aluminium dome for the high frequencies and is based on the state-of-the-art HF driver developed for the Concept Blade. Drivers: Aluminum Uni-Q with 5.25″ midrange and 1″ teeter, one 5.25″ aluminum woofer, and two 5.23″ passive radiators The tweeter features a vented design with the dome assembly cleverly braced and with it’s ‘tangerine’ waveguide over the dome it ensures amazing dispersion in space which means that no more you need to sit in the “sweet” spot to get the best possible outcome and everyone in the room will enjoy the same sound quality no matter their position.

I own the Q100 for more than a year, and it has grown on me. Initially the sound was not that clean ,it seemed a bit muddled, but over time it has changed . I dont know if it is break in or such, but it took a preety long time to sound it best. The LF/MF drivers feature very light aluminium cones for better and faster response while KEF have used a unique surround that they call Z-Flex that allows for better sound dispersion from the tweeter as well as better power from the drivers. Oh, my… It’s always a treat to listen to KEF speakers and the Q550 is no different. First impression is how detailed and homogeneous they sound. This is clearly evident with string quartets; life-sized, dynamic and agile. Everything is placed where it’s supposed to be within the sound stage and the relative sizes between the instruments is preserved. Bass instruments are never overblown to the point where they overpower the other instruments while also being agile enough to start and stop on a dime. Lead instruments, like violin, flute and electric guitar, are reproduced with excellent dynamics and textures and also serves to demonstrate the high resolution of these speakers. And it can play surprisingly loud despite its relatively small size. The Uni-Q drivers array give the Q500 speakers a frequency response of 40Hz – 40kHz, a maximum output of 110dB with 87dB sensitivity and 8 Ohms impedance.I was just after a bit of advice, my system is quite old, although my amp is great. I have an Arcam Alpha 9 integrated amp, Kef Q35 compact floor standing speakers, a fairly recent Cambridge Audio CD player which is very good, and also I play music off my HTPC through the system. I only use the hifi for music. Hopefully I can help out a bit, decided to sign up because as I noticed most on here tend to be recommending to step up to the 700's, where as I actually prefer the sound of the 500/100's and budget was not a concern.

The speakers measure 36.1 x 11.6 x 12.3 in. (917 x 295 x 312 mm) with the included plinth and weight 33.1 lbs (15kg) showcasing a relatively compact and low profile which makes them really versatile when it comes to positioning them into your media or home theater room. At first look and with the grills on they don’t look much as they keep a very simple box-type design with sharp corners and with only the KEF logo on the front giving us an idea of what to expect. This impression is deepened by the Q700s’ driver-count. The 165mm aluminium Uni-Q driver with centre-mounted 25mm tweeter is taken from the class- leading Q300 standmounter. It’s joined by a 165mm low-frequency driver and two 165mm auxiliary bass radiators. Thinking that my perception of the Q500’s leanness in the upper bass might somehow have been due to listening to loudspeakers (such as the Sunfire CRM-2) that not only use but also require a subwoofer, I connected my Sunfire TS-EQ10 sub and made the appropriate adjustments. While the overall low-bass response was bolstered with the sub’s inclusion (as expected), the previously described accentuation of the midrange and treble regions was unchanged, confirming that the response characteristics I was hearing were “errors” of commission rather than omission. Using the KEF Q400b series subwoofer, which was designed and co-engineered for use as part of a total system with the Q Series speakers, will definitely improve the bottom end but will likely not change the overall tonal balance. In terms of dimensions, the speaker measures 180 x 272 x 870 millimeters (WxDxH). It is crafted with precision, providing an optimal listening experience. The KEF Q500 is designed to bring out the best in your audio, delivering high-quality sound with accuracy and clarity. The KEF Q550 floorstanding speaker has limited connectivity options because of its passive design. This means that there is no built-in amplifier, and it is impossible for you to have a Bluetooth or wi-fi connectivity setup with this speaker.

Specifications

Utilizing the Link facility to bi-wire the speakers was easy—merely rotating the dedicated knobs a few turns on each speaker to connect/disconnect the internal shorting mechanism instead of dealing with or, worse, losing pesky external shorting bars. While bi-wiring the Q500s, I experimentally (using resistors on hand, and don’t try this at home) connected my Sunfire 300~two current-source outputs, first through a 1.9-ohm resistor, subsequently replacing it with a 3.3-ohm resistor, in series with each tweeter input. (The amplifier’s voltage-source outputs were connected directly to the speaker LF inputs at all times.) The upper-octave response diminished substantially with 1.9 ohms in series, and continued to do so with 3.3 ohms. Indeed the experiment reinforced my thinking about the value of a proper adjustment control. I did numerous auditions with the 500's/700's side by side, and while there are gains to stepping up to the 700's, you definitely do losing something as well, and most on here are not disusing that fact.