KEF
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| Industry | Electronics |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1961 |
| Founder(s) | Raymond Cooke |
| Headquarters | Maidstone, England |
| Products | Muon, Reference Series, XQ Series, iQ Series, C Series, Ci Series, KEF Home Theatre (KHT Series), Subwoofer, iPod Speakers, Concept Blade |
| Website | http://www.kef.com |
KEF is a British-based loudspeaker manufacturer with international distribution. It was founded in Tovil, Maidstone, Kent in 1961 by electrical engineer Raymond Cooke and named after Kent Engineering & Foundry which previously occupied the site. KEF is now owned by GP Acoustics, which is itself a member of the Hong Kong based Gold Peak Group. Product development, acoustical technology research and the manufacture of flagship products still occurs on the original Tovil site. In 1991, the New York Times characterized it as a "leading" audio company in Europe, also "well known to American audiophiles".[1]
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[edit] History
Raymond Cooke left Wharfedale where he was Technical Director and, with his business colleagues, founded KEF Electronics Ltd with a view to creating innovative loudspeakers using the latest in materials technology. The first loudspeaker manufactured was the K1 Slimline for which the drive units used diaphragms made of polystyrene and melinex. Soon after, in 1962, came the famous B139 'racetrack' shaped woofer which allowed the design of the Celeste - one of the first truly high performance bookshelf loudspeakers. As Laurie Fincham, Cooke's successor as chief engineer, later revealed, the only reason the B139 was vertically mounted ovoid-shaped was that the British tax code at the time penalised products above a certain arbitrary width.
[edit] Cooperation with the BBC
From the mid 1960s, KEF manufactured BBC-designed monitor loudspeakers such as the LS5/1A for the Corporation and for wider distribution. Cooke had previously worked in the Engineering Designs Department at the BBC in the 1950s and this relationship continued as KEF developed through the 1960s and 70s. In the mid 1960s KEF introduced the bextrene-coned B110 bass/midrange unit and the melinex-domed T27 tweeter which were later used in the diminutive BBC-designed LS3/5A broadcast monitor, of which over 50,000 pairs were sold worldwide and whose initial specification was for use in cramped broadcast vans. The close cooperation between KEF and the BBC Research department was fruitful for both, as BBC provided stringent performance and production standards with ample capacity for field testing, with KEF being a pioneer in the use of polymers and computerised quality control.
[edit] Technology
In the early 1970s KEF was the first company to adopt computers for the testing and design of loudspeakers [2] leading to the 'Total System Design' methodology and more sophisticated production techniques such as driver 'pair matching'. The radical Model 105 system, released in 1977, embodied this new philosophy and was one of the most highly regarded loudspeakers of its time. KEF, Bowers & Wilkins and Celestion were the "big three" British loudspeaker makers of the seventies and eighties, and pioneered the use of advanced materials and techniques in audio.
Other technologies developed and brought to the market by KEF have included:
- driver decoupling (Model 105.2, 1979), a technique of reducing cabinet coloration by mounting drivers via controlled lossy coupling
- coupled-cavity bass loading (Model 104/2, 1984), a technique of double porting
- conjugate load matching (Model 104/2, 1984), a crossover optimisation technique that presents a constant (albeit low) ohmic load to the amplifier
- the "KEF Universal Bass Equaliser" (Model 107, 1986), a technique to overcome the unavoidable phase lag present at low frequencies
- Uni-Q (C-Series, 1988), an implementation of concentric midrange and tweeter drivers that strives to preserve phase integrity and match dispersion between the drivers
[edit] References
- ^ Fantel, Hans (1991-02-03). "Said a Speaker To a Living Room: 'Speak to Me'". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/03/arts/sound-said-a-speaker-to-a-living-room-speak-to-me.html. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
- ^ L.R.Fincham and R.V.Leedham. 'Loudspeaker evaluation using digital fourier analysis'. Presented to the British section of the Audio Engineering Society, London, February 1973
[edit] Products
- KEF Muon
- KEF Concept Blade
- HTB2SE-W wireless subwoofer
- Uni-Q Technology
- Wireless Speaker Technology
