Have you listened to various KEF and B&W speakers in person and found their sound to be particularly pleasing? Or are you just going by reviews and opinions expressed on message boards?
I ask, simply because unlike video, where there are very well defined industry standards and specifications that can be measured, calibrated and matched, in audio, there are no such standards. There are some sort of widely held "best practices" of generally "flat" frequency response and freedom from obvious distortion in all the many various forms that distortion can come in, but no specific measurements or calibrations to aim for and match, industry wide.
You mention dispersion, which is a great example of a metric in sound reproduction that has absolutely no definition of "right" or "wrong". Some speakers have extremely narrow dispersion, where you basically have to sit with your head in a vice in the ONE sweet spot in order to enjoy good sound, and such speakers will basically sound like headphones, but they will be remarkably free from any room effects since the direct sound is so much stronger than any reflected sound.
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum are speakers that basically cast out a cylinder or sphere of nearly uniform sound. These will produce a ton of room reflections.
Somewhere in between is where most speakers fall. In general, it's thought of as a "good" thing when a speaker's dispersion is even and uniform over a fairly wide field in front of the speaker of about 30-60 degrees or so. The research that was done at the NRC in Canada suggested that most people prefer this fairly wide, uniform dispersion, but then prefer that beyond this fairly wide "window", the sound gradually rolls off so that there are fewer strong reflections off of the side walls, ceiling and floor.
So much of sound reproduction has to do with the room in which you are sitting. Every sound system is a combination of the sound coming from the speakers themselves, plus the sound that is reflecting off of all the surfaces in the room before it reaches your ears. Our brains combine the direct sound with the reflected sound that arrives at our ears a few milliseconds later to create a sense of the space we're in. But if the reflections are very strong or arrive extremely soon after the direct sound, our hearing can get confused and can start to "smear" details. And in a very large room, the reflections can arrive so late after the direct sound that we hear a very obvious echo, which is certainly not ideal when we want to hear clear, accurate sound reproduction.
Going back to dispersion, there's this balance between bringing the instruments "into the room" with you vs. "transporting" you out of the room and into a virtually created auditory space. We use the reflections as audio cues to tell us about our surroundings. So a speaker that casts out a sphere of uniform sound will give us a ton of audio cues. This can help to "bring the instruments into the room" so that it seems as though singers and musicians are now in the room, right in front of you. On the other hand, a speaker with very narrow dispersion will create very few audio cues, so it won't create the illusion so much that instruments are being brought into the room, but on the other hand, if audio cues are mixed into the recording itself, now it can create the illusion of "transporting" you into a different audio space, while the speaker that creates the sphere of uniform sound will bounce the audio cues that are in the recording itself all around the room, creating a confusing scenario where the reflections are telling you you are in your listening room, while the audio cues that are in the recording are trying to tell you that you are some place else.
So, yet again, having dispersion that is somewhere in between ends up typically being the most pleasing, as you can get a good balance between direct and reflected sound.
Then there's just linear frequency and accuracy to consider. One would think that, ideally, a speaker would simply reproduce the signal in any recording exactly as the signal tells the speaker to do. This would be considered accuracy. But accuracy isn't always pleasing! Some speakers are designed to "play nice", pretty much regardless of the recording quality. They will "hide" bad, annoying sounds and amplify parts of the audio spectrum that we find more pleasing. And there's also the issue of loudness to consider. Human hearing is not linear. At 85dB, pretty much any audible frequency from 20Hz up to 20kHz sounds about equally as loud to our human ears. But at quieter volumes, even though the notes might technically be equally loud, we don't perceive them that way. Quieter than 85dB, we perceive midrange frequencies (the range of the human voice from about 200Hz up to about 2500Hz) as being much louder than bass or very high frequencies. And we kinda suck at hearing bass. Below about 60dB, we have trouble hearing low bass at all! While a 60dB midrange frequency is easily heard by our human ears.
So some speakers take into account the fact that most people do not listen at "reference volume", which calls for an average of 85dB loudness with 105dB peaks. That's "movie theater" loudness, which most people find too loud when they're listening at home. So most people turn the volume down below this "reference volume", and as a result, sounds in the bass or very high treble now sound much quieter or are even completely lost, whereas we would hear them clearly if we turned the volume up to "reference" level.
Bottom line, sound quality is subjective. What you prefer isn't necessarily what someone else will like. And that's ok! There's no well defined "right" or "wrong". But it also makes it very tough to answer your question. If you're asking if there are "good" speakers that people like just as much as KEF and B&W brand speakers, but at lower price points, then the answer is absolutely yes! But if you're asking if there are speakers that sound identical, then that's a lot harder to answer. For one thing, KEF speakers and B&W speakers do not sound identical, so that brings me back to my original question of whether you've heard these speakers and liked them, or whether you're just taking it on good authority that these brands represent "good" sound quality and you're wondering if something
similar is available for less money.
I can tell you, there are speakers like the Ascend CBM-170SE bookshelf speakers that are very, very accurate and only cost $350/pair. There are speakers like the EMP Tek Impression Series that are very pleasing to listen to (and to look at), and can play loud and clear with excellent dynamics and superb midrange clarity for very affordable prices. There are speakers like the GoldenEar SuperSats that are very good at making even low quality recordings sound pleasing while working really well in highly compromised placements, like inside an entertainment cabinet or mounted on a wall.
So there are lots and lots and lots of options out there. These are just a few that come to mind right away as good examples of various strengths, all at very affordable prices. But most of all, the best choice of speakers for YOU is going to depend on your room, your positioning of the speakers, seats and other furniture within that room, your associated equipment, the types of recordings you listen to, and your personal preference.
Hope that helps
