Sweet and smooth mid's and highs, great bass extension. Awesome looking with grills off.

Ho hum looking with grills on

These are the new Q55.2's which have the same basic lay out as before; 6 1/2 inch bass unit and 6 1/2 inch Mid/tweeter unit. Mid is front ported and bass is rear ported. Bi-wirable speaker connections. The only difference that I can SEE is the mid driver is silver/white in color and the speaker cabinet has new colors which also wrap around to the front instead of the old black fronts. I purchased the Dark Apple color which is really sweet looking with the front grills off.
My previous speakers were Paradigm mini-monitors, I thought the highs were to harsh. The KEF's incorporate a 3/4" soft dome tweeter in their Mid bass driver which produce a sweet and satisfying high without the edge of some metallic tweeters I have listened to. The bass is Awesome. I hear subtle kick drums or bass riffs that I did not realize were in the recording with some of my old speakers. The mid range in this speaker is pure liquid silk, smooth and open.
I was listening at the Q 15.2's but once my wife heard and saw these, she told me to buy them. Gotta go with the Big WAF.
These speakers take up very little space; about 8"wide,10" deep and 34' tall. I use them for music only and they are a wonderful, open speaker that can fill the room with music.
I can pin point instruments within the music with ease and the sound stage is huge. If speakers do in fact sound better with some break in time, I know I'm in for a treat because they sound great to me.
I'm sure there are better speakers out there but for $699.00, I feel like I got a good deal and a great speaker.

NAD C340
NAD 515 Changer
DH Lab BL1 interconnects
NAD PP1
(table shopping)
Esotericaudio speaker cable

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm,Monitor Audio,Canton,Infinity,Polk.

Excellent clarity, very crisp and precise mids and highs; good bass at higher volumes

Lacking bass at lower volume levels

This is a fanatastic under-$1000 speaker. Excellent sound quality, particulary when coupled with other Q-series speakers in surround system. Performs much better with sub-woofer and good amp than standing alone. Can't expect much better than the Q55.2 at this price. I save the 5-star overall rating for the "any-price" category.

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm, B&W