REVIEWS / / KINGSTON

KEF IQ9 Floorstanding Speakers

05 Oct, 2007, 3:35 pm IST | Siddharth Bhatia |

Performance

I like to cut to the chase, so after a brief look at the features and specs, I turned on the amps and let the IQ9s break in for a while. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally had the chance to listen to them in perfect silence. So I started off with Bach’s Concerto for two violins, a workout for every aspect of a loudspeaker.

The sound I heard was clear; it was open and very large. The imaging was wide from left to right, and in matters of depth the speaker was above average. Extremely detailed nuances that I’ve heard elsewhere were present on these too, detail-wise they are astounding.

I put in some percussion oriented music, and the juxtaposed complex rhythms were very clear to me. Response-wise the sound had very sweet-sounding highs and distinct mids. Vocals and string instruments sounded satisfactorily clear.

Now we get to bass, which was round and warm; no irritating 'muddiness' or boominess in the lows. One thing I did notice was lack of timing brilliance in the transient response (beats and drums, sounds with quick attacks and decays).

Kickdrums and bass notes sounded good all right but had a longer tail than usual. Even the reverb on vocals sounded slightly unnatural, though just a bit. My amp is very tight, so it had to be the speaker. This is a nitpick perhaps, but nonetheless attention to detail is what we get paid for!

Conclusion
A beautiful sounding speaker, with its highs and detail as the main USP. The bass also was well extended till the lows, I guess the double woofer port system actually helped in this department. Almost all types of music sounded killer.

Definitely good stuff; audiophiles and enthusiasts take a look. It's a little expensive at Rs. 79,900, but then quality doesn't come cheap. And as I said earlier, this is definitely a high-end piece of audio gear.

Tags: KEF , Speakers

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