Thought I'd chime in in this thread since I just picked up a pair of these and a Marantz6005 the other day. Thanks go to GranteedEV for his expert advice in helping me (total n00b) pick out some speakers for my place.
So here are my thoughts (amateur impressions) on the speakers:
Initial impression ~ "WOW", when I first set them up I started watching the shootout scene in "Heat". I was blissfully unaware for a good 30 seconds that the right speaker wasn't even on! They're that good. The atmospheric power of these speakers is very strong. However, if you are sitting directly in front of one of them you'll feel they are very strongly directional - sitting right in front of one you'll be overwhelmed by it and won't be able to distinctly appreciate the other - so there definitely is a sweet spot position you'll want to find when listening. As with any home theatre though I assume.
After the first few moments of listening to the KEFs words like "crisp" and "clean" and "detail" started popping up in my brain; not even trying to come up with adjectives or trying to describe what I heard - these words just popped up in my brain instinctively, so yes I would describe them as very rich in detail and crisp.
The bass is quite good, I played some dubstep on the speakers and not only were they able to handle the powerful lows, they did not reverberate or feel like they were running out of fumes - they simply ran the deeps exceptionally well. Unless you are willing to shell out +$500 or so on a decent subwoofer I feel like anything else would be absolutely drowned out by the bass on the 900's. In short, you really don't *need* a subwoofer: although I'm sure a nice one would definitely make things simply astounding (at this point however you need to live in a home tucked away in the countryside as living in an apartment will become dangerous due to your neighbors extreme hatred for you.)
The speakers handle films exceedingly well - especially blu-rays with losless audio, I was hearing ambient effects that I had honestly not ever heard before, conversations are crisp and explosions are LOUD and atmospheric.
Battlefield 3 was STUPENDOUS, the game features groundbreaking sound design (I have since realized) and I was shocked at how realistic the game became. I have NEVER been so engrossed in the reality of a game before. Every time I fired a bullet it was like....really firing a bullet.
John Coltrane never felt so close before - it was like he was in the room. Electronica holds up exceedingly well, I couldn't help but smile during climaxes of certain techno tracks. I felt like the weakest genre were rock and pop, while the strongest were electronica, rap, jazz and soundtracks. I'm not sure if I'll need to keep adding speakers to make the aforementioned better, but I just didn't feel like they shined like everything else did. Subjective opinion aside though, rock and pops sound quality I thought were still stellar.
Beyond that, I think a full 5.1 or greater system would make this setup heavenly good. I've listened to a $50,000 home theatre before and these two KEF's almost gave it a run for it's money.
