Hi everyone my first post in the kef lounge.
I currently am using a pair of q900's with a txnr 1030 and In my smaller room I'm very happy. But I got the green light from the wife to remove a room in the basement and get a dedicated theater room. this room will be alot bigger than what i have atm. it will be 14 ft by 35 ft.
So I brought my amp and mains upstairs to see how they would sound in the larger family room. They actually sounded better (probably because there is no wall 3ft behind my head upstairs) but there was not enough sound for my liking. (if that makes sense) I had to turn my amp up a bit more than usual and could here it struggling.

So my first step is to try a dedicated amp, the first one I'm going to demo is a nuprime mch-k38, I have no idea what to expect out of this amp but a friend I trust says I will not want to give it back.

So to get to my point if I like the amp and lets say it lives up to its over the top review on audiocircle.com how would the q900s compare to the r900s if both had enough power to drive and control them well?

The R900 is much more refined, more detail and far deeper bass than Q900. It's also nicer finishes, a true 3-way crossover of better-quality components and rear ported rather than the passive radiators (Acoustic Bass Resonators) of the Q900. The R900 is really good if your system ever does "dual duty" for music as well as movies. You'd hear things in both that you never heard before.

The R900 is also on sale with US KEF retailers right now, which makes them a terrific bargain.

I finally found a like new "used pair", these speakers are a huge step up from my q900's in pretty much every way.

Congratulations!

Which finish did you have in the Q900 and which do you have with your new-to-you R900?

Do tell, what are the things that hit you first about the R900? Which amp/receiver and sources have you tried them with?


I have found with the R series that the better your "upstream" equipment, the better the speaker sound.

My q900's were black and the R-900 are piano black.

Currently I am using a sony ubpx800 connected to a onkyo tx-nr838 via hdmi cable. I am using the onkyo as a pre-amp to a Nuprime mch-k38 which is bridged. (I am the middle of researching for a dedicated pre-amp)

There were many things that jumped out at me with the speakers.

First the bass, there is more of it, Its deeper, its more accurate, it has more kick and way less boomy when pushed.

The r-900's more accurately do all vocals, the q900's would do deeper male vocals well but there always seemed to be somthing missing with a lot of voices, for example they never did Lindsey Buckingham's voice very well, it seemed buried in the music.

Another big thing that hit me was how the r-900's highs don't get piercing as easy like the they do with the q900's.

It was funny I was able to put more power into the r-900's and to me they sounded quieter but my spl meter said they were 4-5db louder.

I did try both speakers with my emotiva xpa2 gen 2 but compared to the nuprime it sounds like crap.

This is just what jumped out at me in the first hour.

You did find that the R series is more revealing of less-then-ideal recordings too, I'll bet.


Congratulations, and welcome to the R series family!

I have not posted in this thread for awhile.

I have built a dedicated theater / listening room, I treated the room with absorption and diffusion panels. And now I have the itch to bring my r900's upstairs and upgrade. I have it narrowed down to dynaudio contour 60s, b&w 802 d3 and the kef reference 5's. I was wondering if anyone has compared the r series to the reference series. I also have a kef r600c center channel, would the reference 5's be a close match