Kef R300 vs Salk songtower - Page 3

Not in my current home, but I can take some later.

My setup is "aiight."

Just wanted to check what the OP ended up buying..
Was there a comparison done between the KEFs and the Salk STs?

Thanks.

Thanks. I saw some of your posts in the EMP thread. So, I thought you ended up getting the EMP Teks instead of the the Salks. I was waiting to hear from you on the Salk<->Kef R300 comparison.
Did you manage to get the Kefs home and do a A/B comparison?

Thank you!! Can you post you thoughts on how the emp teks compare with Salk songtowers?
I'm assuming it will be a no contest?
For the record, I was so close to ordering the emp teks. Then I auditioned a bunch of speakers before ordering the Salks!!

Thanks

I'm very happy you're liking the Salk's. Thanks for giving your honest thoughts on how they compare to the Kef R300's.

I would REALLY REALLY like it if you did a side by side comparison because i have heard all of the R series and i can tell you that it is one of the best speaker series i have EVER heard. The R series is so detailed that it performs better than most speakers of a higher range. Really. A lot of people don't realize that cheaper ( still expensive) speakers usually sound about the same in detail retrieval. There isn't a lot of it. Some companies will make up for that by having bigger fuller sound and a good soundstage with good alright imaging. The R series really is an audiophile speaker that brings out the best of my expensive high quality music files. It has the BIG full sound, it has instrument seperation and soundstage beyond belief all because of how AMAZINGLY detailed they are. The Bass has amazing body and while it doesn't pressurize the room the way a subwoofer will, it still hits hard. I have never heard the song towers but i have been to a lot of speaker shops and demo'd for extensive amounts of time a lot of speakers. The R series is the best bang for the buck i have heard yet. I just find it hard to believe that a speaker costing as little as the songtower's could compete in any way. Im sure they sound good and can probably sound good out of cheaper equipment but the R series with a good pre, power amps and a really good cd player or dac sounds ridiculous and the R900 competes, to me, with $10k or more speakers

I had those side by side at home for a while, actually, R300, R500, Q900, Song Towers and ST monitor version each auditioned for 2-4 months. R series and Salk are very different to say the least and both will find their fans.
I ended up with R500s although I think the Q900 is the most accurate from all the ones I listed.
I think that full and big sound on Rs are a bit of a lie (probably done on purpose to make them sound bigger) and I wouldn't call them detailed; very clean, tight, but not detailed as STs. But than again STs sound like their main goal is to provide the most details (toned down bass, forward midgrange and highs). So the real accuracy is probably somewhere in the middle.
My favorite part in the Rs is the tweeter, it just so delicate and realistic. With their snappy bass the overall result is very impressive. When I ask my guests to describe what they hear in Rs the first thing many say is that they play very clean.
To me the R series is kinda difficult to describe, I saw 1 review where the guy goes like "bass is a bit loose and this is wrong and that" and in the end he says that the R700s are the best overall speakers he had in his living room. I kinda think the same they are not perfect, but they just sound so good.
I agree that R series just puts many other speakers for the same price to shame.

I would like to hear the R900s as I think they might be better balanced than 500s, but I'm afraid the upgradeditis might strike if I hear those:)

p.s. There is a notable difference between the R300s and R500s, so the comparison should be R500s vs STs (same price), not R300s. Or something like R700s vs STs with RAAL would me even more appropriate. Don't mean to say bad things about stock tweeter on STs, it's probably good for the money, but KEFs Rs tweeter is just on another level.

I dont think salk song series has any problem competing with the kef r series, as long as price are competetive. I heard their flagship ls50, and i was really impressed with the expansive, cleann sound, but i thought the upper midrange needs some work, it sounded bump up making the female vocal a litle off.

I dont think salk song series has any problem competing with the kef r series, as long as price are competetive. I heard their flagship ls50, and i was really impressed with the expansive, cleann sound, but i thought the upper midrange needs some work, it sounded bump up making the female vocal a litle off.

Thanks for the information. I really like how you noticed that they were clean sounding and that the tweeter was exceptional. I too feel the same about them. I did get a very large imaging from them though and the instruments appeared to be large. That is the R900 anyways. The R500's did have a much smaller overall feel to them but still good. They however were paired with two 40w tube amps
The weird thing is i can tell that the speaker is CLEAN but i don't know what unclean would be lol. Do the Sierra Towers have a clean sound to them?

I'm using the Sierra Towers and find them to have an extremely clean sound. I haven't heard the Songtowers or that specific KEF model so I can't really compare them.

After i made the post about not knowing what an unclean sound was i took a second to think about it. I believe that what i hear out of the golden ear trittons to not be as clean sounding but that is not a bad thing. The Triton 2's soundstage and imaging is out of this world good but i had immediately turned to the kef R900's afterwards on the same track and realized that they had a tad more detail and sounded cleaner. Then i remember going back to the triton and the mids sound more full actually. Like they have more body to them. Very thick. I think i did like the thinner more crisper clean sound of the R series but then again i realized that the Kef's were being played out of a $6500 McIntosh CD player, $5000 MC preamp, $5000 MC Stereo class A amplifier while the tritons were being played out of a Peachtree audio all in one with class D amplification. I think when i go back i owe it to myself to play the Triton's out of the same thing the R's were hooked up too. I really think the Triton's might be the better deal. With home theater there is no question the triton's give yo way more.