Since my budget got slashed this fall for my loudspeaker purchase, I was looking at a set of KEF Q950s to act as a stop gap before buying something I really liked. And the day I was going to pull the trigger on them, I saw the R500s come on sale for a song ($1240 Cdn a pair). Their size suited my tastes, and the Q950s were going to be on sale for another month, so I decided to pull the trigger and pick up a pair.
And I'm glad I did. When I first hooked them up, and started playing Healey, my first thought was "Nope, these are headed back". The bass was poor, undefined. Even though the drivers are only 5 1/4", I expected more. Even my Paradigm Atoms had better bass. And the highs/mid range were shrill, not laid back as I expected from a Polk speaker. But after about 2 hours of listening, the bass tightened up to what I expected and the mids/highs smoothed out considerably. My first thought was that my ears had just grown accustomed, but with each fresh listening session, things are improving more and more.
After about 20 hrs of listening, I have a pair of speakers whose mids and highs are very accurate, musical, laid back without losing resolution. And the bass drivers are outperforming what I expected a 5 1/4 driver to be able to do. I'm sure those with a more discerning ear will be able to hear certain shortcomings, but for an average guy with midline equipment (Rega Brio, P3, Fono MM) I am exceedingly happy with these speakers. I would definitely recommend them to anyone putting together a modest stereo set up.
Rod
