It looks good, sounds even better, very crisp and clean sound, Speakers You will ever need, Shahedun amin

not at all

So I was searching for a floostanding speaker and auditioned in various stores at least the following: Monitor Audio BX5, RX6. Dali Zensor 5/7, Icon6 mk2, Rega rs3, Epos epic?, some Dynaudio, some Elac, some cheap Boston Acoustics, some System Audio and some Amphion and finally Kef Q500. All around or under 1000€.

Initially i was set out buying Monitor Audio RX6 because i think it's built very nicely and i have their BR2 standmount which i was pretty happy with. But i thought i'll try the competition while i'm at it. Pretty fast it came clear that the MA's wouldn't work for me since they sounded boomy on the bass section even in store conditions and my living room is quite small (~4x5 meters) and have smoothed out and painted brick walls with hardwood floor (parquette). So acoustically not the best. Rega sounded nice and i probably would've gone with it but then i happened to listen to the Kef Q500. It was the only one to really stand out of the competition. More definition, more coherent and not boomy at all.

So i took them home. As always, they needed quite a lot of positioning to get them to sing properly when put to a non-treated room. I find that they have to be out of the back wall at least 1m, which is quite much more than i expected and hoped. They pose a little bit of challenge in my smallish living room, but once they get the air around them, they become very detailed and nice to listen to. Bass is there but not in excess, highs are good and with nice imaging. I'm used to bit more prominent mids, but i find that the improved details and the bass produced by a floorstander make up for that. I think i prefer it this way around :)

So they are way better than my previous Monitor Audio BR2's, but they also should be since they are floorstanders (which i prefer) and more expensive.

Pros:
- quite detailed
- flat frequency response, ie doesn't accentuate bass mids or highs
- good bass: not boomy, rather detailed
- nice highs
- good recordings sound really good with them

cons:
- picky about distance to back wall (but what speaker isn't?)
- maybe lacks a certain warmth to it, but that might also be my electronics fault

My system is Onkyo C-7030 cd player -> Vintage Yamaha CR-800 (recapped&restored) -> Kef Q500