More details for KEF Audio

[frazzer]

I fitted some HID lights into my Elise 111R and the DAB radio went off altogether when you put the lights on in some reception areas!

safety feature

 

[benjh1028]

I'm comparing to the premium audio upgrades in my RS3 (BANG&OLUFSEN)and the JBL upgrade in my RAV4 hybrid and it sounded better than the RS3, on par with the JBL in the RAV4 as far as sound quality and bass extension.

I was expecting out of phase or horrible and only lower volume, we had it about half way to max volume and it was fine for 30-40mph driving

I'm honestly disappointed that you plan on 30-40mph driving..............................

 

[Davebeats]

I'm honestly disappointed that you plan on 30-40mph driving..............................

Anything faster and the radio gets turned down

 

[hml_xy]

I am also more satisfied with the system than I was in the beginning. Maybe the speakers start being more run in (yes, it's a thing for speakers to) or I'm getting used to it.

We should also not forget that hifi in small cabin cars like 2 seater sports cars always sound less powerful than systems in bigger cars. Go and try Ferrari as a really bad example. Or McLaren. And the worst contender: the expensive premium option Meridian in the cabrio F-Type. But thats even more harmed due to the soft top.

 

[PaulP]

Yep - in this case the big difference wasn't the performance of the DAC, but the voltage level of the signal. Crazy how much of a difference it made.

The first thing you do in audio is get your levels right. Setting up a sound board for a live event - that’s job 1. Nothing else will be right unless you get the dynamics right and input levels are the first step

 

[Captain.Kirk]

I fitted some HID lights into my Elise 111R and the DAB radio went off altogether when you put the lights on in some reception areas!

I believe Lotus called that their “Incognito feature”.

 

[dgrace]

I’m very curious how Lotus will price the Kef “upgrade”.

 

[TomE]

£2-3k I suspect

 

[emiraspain]

I’m very curious how Lotus will price the Kef “upgrade”.

If you click it they may give a discount off the car price at this rate........

 

[TomAce]

I am also more satisfied with the system than I was in the beginning. Maybe the speakers start being more run in (yes, it's a thing for speakers to) or I'm getting used to it.

We should also not forget that hifi in small cabin cars like 2 seater sports cars always sound less powerful than systems in bigger cars. Go and try Ferrari as a really bad example. Or McLaren. And the worst contender: the expensive premium option Meridian in the cabrio F-Type. But thats even more harmed due to the soft top.

I think it may also be a sign of our times that a lot of people judge too fast and come up with a verdict like: "Listened 10 seconds to it, it's crap."

 

[emiraspain]

I, as with all subjects on here, am NO expert, and dont pretend to be at all. There are some experts on here and some who seem to know a great deal about everything, Stephen Fry makes me feel humble, but I didnt expect the same on here.. haha
However, I do try to use my common sense and my common sense, for what it's worth, tells me that a car audio speaker is NOT the same as a home speaker in many aspects, least of all in their respective sizes. A car audio speaker is a fraction of the size of a home system, many of which are almost the height of the entire car! And so drawing any conclusions from the experience from one to the other I feel is dangerous and incorrect. The mechanics of the stretching of a large piece of material is very different to that of a small piece for various reasons.....

I can understand that the material in the speaker has to stretch over the much larger cones in peoples VERY expensive home hifi systems and that this may have an affect over a few hours, once this material has loosened off. Once settled in, maybe the change in tension in the material improves sound, although its not guaranteed and if anything it may just prevent a decrease in sound quality later on. However, this change in tension will be totally different on a much smaller amount of material. Imagine Barbie's underwear, compared to a grown woman.... surely we can work that analogy in there somewhere... ok maybe not.

In any case, a bit of research with the "real experts", ie those who make their living testing and researching such things leads to the following conclusion..... It would seem very dubious and basically incorrect that a car stereo audio system needs to be run in..or that there will be any discernible difference after several hours, or weeks of running in etc.

My source is below and after far more tests than any of us on here will ever run, they show that we cant compare a car system to a home system and that if the Emira's Kef sound is not great to start with, it is highly unlikely to improve, but you are more than likely to simply get used to it. Any arguments can be directed at the experts at bestcaraudio... not to me, and again, I know nothing.

In terms of FM radio ect, it seems incredible Lotus have not overcome a good contact for the antenna, they are not the only auto maker to use these types of materials in their cars and as in most problems they experience, boots closing, door seals etc, its not rocket science and you would have thought someone there who knew the Evora had an issue would have said "lets get the radio reception right on this car"..... No excuses in the 2020's for this crap, FM has been around for a while......not a new tech, not a new problem

Do You Need to Break Car Audio Speakers In Slowly?

We’ve seen it said many times that you have to slowly ramp up the power to new speakers to break them in. Maybe? Maybe not.

www.bestcaraudio.com

 

[Tonyshepp]

You can only compare against solutions from other manufacturers in cars similar to the Emira, such as Z4 HK system or Bose in Porsche or B&O in Audi. The KEF is meant to compete with these systems. My own comparison against my multi speaker BMW isn't very fair - I haven't heard the systems in two seater cars, does the KEF compare favourably against those systems or is it still pants.

 

[xen]

I am also more satisfied with the system than I was in the beginning. Maybe the speakers start being more run in (yes, it's a thing for speakers to) or I'm getting used to it.

We should also not forget that hifi in small cabin cars like 2 seater sports cars always sound less powerful than systems in bigger cars. Go and try Ferrari as a really bad example. Or McLaren. And the worst contender: the expensive premium option Meridian in the cabrio F-Type. But thats even more harmed due to the soft top.

That’s not necessarily true. It’s fairly easy to make a sound system powerful (bassy) in a smaller car, what you often sacrifice is clarity (P.S. they are not always mutually exclusive).

The JBL and B&W systems in the F8 and 720 sound plenty powerful. The system in the F-Type is rubbish yes but not because it isn’t powerful.

 

[xen]

A car listening environment does not play to KEF’s strengths. I always thought this a cheap marketing exercise.

You could argue the well behaved off-axis response would be amenable to EQ but it’s a relatively short distance and pretty much near-field

 

[Nova]

A car listening environment does not play to KEF’s strengths. I always thought this a cheap marketing exercise.

You could argue the well behaved off-axis response would be amenable to EQ but it’s a relatively short distance and pretty much near-field

I don't see how being near field negates the benefit of good directivity characteristics. Can you expand on that?

The other key benefit of the Uni Q is significantly reduced phase alignment issues. Although modern DSP makes this a much smaller problem than in the past, having a point source is still a superior design.

 

[Eagle7]

I, as with all subjects on here, am NO expert, and dont pretend to be at all. There are some experts on here and some who seem to know a great deal about everything, Stephen Fry makes me feel humble, but I didnt expect the same on here.. haha
However, I do try to use my common sense and my common sense, for what it's worth, tells me that a car audio speaker is NOT the same as a home speaker in many aspects, least of all in their respective sizes. A car audio speaker is a fraction of the size of a home system, many of which are almost the height of the entire car! And so drawing any conclusions from the experience from one to the other I feel is dangerous and incorrect. The mechanics of the stretching of a large piece of material is very different to that of a small piece for various reasons.....

I can understand that the material in the speaker has to stretch over the much larger cones in peoples VERY expensive home hifi systems and that this may have an affect over a few hours, once this material has loosened off. Once settled in, maybe the change in tension in the material improves sound, although its not guaranteed and if anything it may just prevent a decrease in sound quality later on. However, this change in tension will be totally different on a much smaller amount of material. Imagine Barbie's underwear, compared to a grown woman.... surely we can work that analogy in there somewhere... ok maybe not.

In any case, a bit of research with the "real experts", ie those who make their living testing and researching such things leads to the following conclusion..... It would seem very dubious and basically incorrect that a car stereo audio system needs to be run in..or that there will be any discernible difference after several hours, or weeks of running in etc.

My source is below and after far more tests than any of us on here will ever run, they show that we cant compare a car system to a home system and that if the Emira's Kef sound is not great to start with, it is highly unlikely to improve, but you are more than likely to simply get used to it. Any arguments can be directed at the experts at bestcaraudio... not to me, and again, I know nothing.

In terms of FM radio ect, it seems incredible Lotus have not overcome a good contact for the antenna, they are not the only auto maker to use these types of materials in their cars and as in most problems they experience, boots closing, door seals etc, its not rocket science and you would have thought someone there who knew the Evora had an issue would have said "lets get the radio reception right on this car"..... No excuses in the 2020's for this crap, FM has been around for a while......not a new tech, not a new problem

Do You Need to Break Car Audio Speakers In Slowly?

We’ve seen it said many times that you have to slowly ramp up the power to new speakers to break them in. Maybe? Maybe not.

www.bestcaraudio.com

Did you actually read the article you posted a link to? What they reported was in fact a speaker DOES change its performance as it's broken in. Their test was specifically the difference between breaking in at low volume versus high volume, and they ran a single tone through the speakers for hours. None of this is particularly relevant to our situation with the KEF, other than there is in fact a break-in period to take into account. I don't believe (I know I certainly haven't) anyone here has said break it in at low volume running a low tone for hours.

Speaker size doesn't matter. Headphones have smaller speakers than car speakers, yet they too have a break-in period.

As I've stated previously in other posts, just listen to the KEF system as you normally do. There's no special process for them to break-in properly. In my personal experience, the point at which I've begun to notice an improvement in new quality speakers is around the 25 hour mark of usage. The sound will begin to sound richer, warmer, with the lower mid-tones and bass seeing the biggest difference. It won't get louder, just better in sound quality. Maybe that won't apply to the KEF speakers in the Emira, but I expect it probably does.

The issue with DAB is the same as it is with any system processing digital. The quality of the conversion from analog to digital (ADC) and then back to analog through the DAC (digital to analog) plays a huge part in the quality of the sound. For those that don't know, Digital Audio Broadcast sends a digital stream of ones and zeroes to your receiver, which then process that through a DAC to convert that to an analog signal which is sent to the speakers. The quality is determined by the resolution (bit depth) and sample rate, both from the source and the DAC. If you've seen the difference in video between regular high definition 1080p, and a 4k tv, that's the benefits of higher resolution. Not only is the image detail better, but the color fidelity and quality is better too, and just as in audio, the quality depends on the source.

For higher quality audio you need at least 24 bit resolution, and a sample rate of 96 khz or higher, with 192 khz or higher for really high-end sound quality. However, those higher rates result in MUCH bigger file sizes which is why you won't see those in a digital broadcast. DAB is literally going to be the lowest quality, because it's compressed to compensate for broadcasting bandwidth limitations. Compression usually throws away some amount of data that the algorithm deems 'unnecessary', so you won't be getting even CD quality from a DAB source. That can make people think their system is poor, when in fact it's the source that's making it sound like that.

This is why people are noticing a difference in the performance of the KEF system depending on if they use a DAB (low quality source) compared to a thumb drive or wireless source like their phone.

The KEF system should have a fairly decent DAC in it, so you should notice a difference based on the sources you put through it. (I say "should" because I don't have my car yet and haven't been able to do any testing myself with sources I'm familiar with).

None of this is to say that there couldn't be a speaker mistakenly wired out of phase on some cars, which is something that's entirely possible with a new factory and crew assembling cars. That should be the exception rather than the rule however, since the wire connectors and speaker terminals are color coded, so it would be relatively easy to check once you have visual access to the backs of the speakers.

 

[emiraspain]

Did you actually read the article you posted a link to? What they reported was in fact a speaker DOES change its performance as it's broken in. Their test was specifically the difference between breaking in at low volume versus high volume, and they ran a single tone through the speakers for hours. None of this is particularly relevant to our situation with the KEF, other than there is in fact a break-in period to take into account. I don't believe (I know I certainly haven't) anyone here has said break it in at low volume running a low tone for hours.

Speaker size doesn't matter. Headphones have smaller speakers than car speakers, yet they too have a break-in period.

As I've stated previously in other posts, just listen to the KEF system as you normally do. There's no special process for them to break-in properly. In my personal experience, the point at which I've begun to notice an improvement in new quality speakers is around the 25 hour mark of usage. The sound will begin to sound richer, warmer, with the lower mid-tones and bass seeing the biggest difference. It won't get louder, just better in sound quality. Maybe that won't apply to the KEF speakers in the Emira, but I expect it probably does.

The issue with DAB is the same as it is with any system processing digital. The quality of the conversion from analog to digital (ADC) and then back to analog through the DAC (digital to analog) plays a huge part in the quality of the sound. For those that don't know, Digital Audio Broadcast sends a digital stream of ones and zeroes to your receiver, which then process that through a DAC to convert that to an analog signal which is sent to the speakers. The quality is determined by the resolution (bit depth) and sample rate, both from the source and the DAC. If you've seen the difference in video between regular high definition 1080p, and a 4k tv, that's the benefits of higher resolution. Not only is the image detail better, but the color fidelity and quality is better too, and just as in audio, the quality depends on the source.

For higher quality audio you need at least 24 bit resolution, and a sample rate of 96 khz or higher, with 192 khz or higher for really high-end sound quality. However, those higher rates result in MUCH bigger file sizes which is why you won't see those in a digital broadcast. DAB is literally going to be the lowest quality, because it's compressed to compensate for broadcasting bandwidth limitations. Compression usually throws away some amount of data that the algorithm deems 'unnecessary', so you won't be getting even CD quality from a DAB source. That can make people think their system is poor, when in fact it's the source that's making it sound like that.

This is why people are noticing a difference in the performance of the KEF system depending on if they use a DAB (low quality source) compared to a thumb drive or wireless source like their phone.

The KEF system should have a fairly decent DAC in it, so you should notice a difference based on the sources you put through it. (I say "should" because I don't have my car yet and haven't been able to do any testing myself with sources I'm familiar with).

None of this is to say that there couldn't be a speaker mistakenly wired out of phase on some cars, which is something that's entirely possible with a new factory and crew assembling cars. That should be the exception rather than the rule however, since the wire connectors and speaker terminals are color coded, so it would be relatively easy to check once you have visual access to the backs of the speakers.

Yes I read it and the overall message I took was there is no need for a break in procedure..... no noticeable difference.... a couple of hours at best and thats it. Enjoy it...I believe thats what they said..

"breaking it in for eight or so hours resulted in an increase in output of just about 1 dB at 30 Hz. That’s not significant. We like that the system Q dropped from 0.707 to 0.69, but again, that’s not something to write home about. Likely, you’d never notice these changes."

It does seem a big problem the radio reception/sound quality, but this is not going to be solved by running in... more by avoidance hah.

 

[Nova]

In general, unless the speaker driver design or construction is defective, there should be no significant audible difference in the sound of a speaker before/after a break-in period. A significant audible difference would be a difference that someone can notice without a direct A/B/X controlled test.

As the posted article indicates, most of the effect of break-in is somewhat increased compliance in the driver suspension, leading to a slightly lowered Fs. These changes are well within the normal tolerance of speaker drivers.

 

[Eagle7]

Yes I read it and the overall message I took was there is no need for a break in procedure..... no noticeable difference.... a couple of hours at best and thats it. Enjoy it...I believe thats what they said..

"breaking it in for eight or so hours resulted in an increase in output of just about 1 dB at 30 Hz. That’s not significant. We like that the system Q dropped from 0.707 to 0.69, but again, that’s not something to write home about. Likely, you’d never notice these changes."

It does seem a big problem the radio reception/sound quality, but this is not going to be solved by running in... more by avoidance hah.

dB is volume, not sound quality. Breaking in a speaker does not appreciably increase its volume, it does however improve its ability to reproduce sound. The stretching of the speaker cone helps it to gain resilience and response speed, which enables it to respond fast enough to respond to the demands of the analog signal.

 

[Nova]

None of this is to say that there couldn't be a speaker mistakenly wired out of phase on some cars, which is something that's entirely possible with a new factory and crew assembling cars. That should be the exception rather than the rule however, since the wire connectors and speaker terminals are color coded, so it would be relatively easy to check once you have visual access to the backs of the speakers.

I don't know what specifically is going on in Lotus' factory, however...

In general, vehicle wiring harnesses are mass-produced by a vendor and a part of their job is to confirm the correct polarity of all pins in all connectors on all harnesses produced using an electronic testing jig. Some wiring harnesses may have single-wire termination rings or spades, but these are for specific connections such as power or ground. All multi-wire terminations are generally done with polarized plugs that cannot be incorrectly connected. A polarity testing jig cannot test for things like durability over time, but it is very reliable for confirming that the wiring is correct.

At assembly time, the factory guys at Lotus are simply making plug connections. They are not wiring up individual wires to the speaker terminals. If we look at the back of a speaker driver for the Evora, we see that it, too, has a polarized plug for mating with the wiring harness.

That said, it's entirely possible that the speaker was incorrectly assembled by the speaker assembly vendor. There is a way to test for this, but the speaker factory may not have performed the test 100% on all units as part of their quality assurance. The wiring pigtail could have been incorrectly soldered/welded/crimped onto the wrong speaker driver terminals, resulting in an out-of-phase driver.