If ever there was a reason not to buy something...........£70K, limited production to 100 pairs, enclosures made from super-formed aluminium and Robbie Williams has apparently ordered a pair. Aesthetics by Ross Lovegrove (also Sony Walkman and iMac).
I doubt Robbie will pay for his speakers will get his for free, most he will have to do is stand next to a pairSeems a bit odd to say, but 70K seems pretty 'reasonable' to me considering the target audience.
I like ‘em – not that I’m ever going to own a pair without a radical injection of serious money into my bank account. There’s some comments from KEF acoustics engineer Dr Andrew Watson which explain the motivation behind the manufacture of these loudspeakers:“It's an enhancement of the brand, an off-the-wall design that will attract people who may not have considered KEF before. Our aim is to get ourselves in touch with that market so they can see who we are and what we can do. They're not necessarily audiophiles, but they are lovers of music and they want the best in technology and design.â€
I think that Kef were one of the better producers of high quality speakers in the past, with very competitive speakers usualy costing less than the other quality brand flagships. Plenty of their Reference ranges were a lot more coherent from top to bottom than some of the overpriced US competition.So Robbie Williams has dropped his exclusive PMC endorsement then?An even better reason not to buy would be if Wayney boy ordered some. Or perhaps the fact that they cost £70k.The looks don't do anything for me. At least other hideously expensive speakers take more of a strict form follows functionapproach to their particularphilosophies (think B&W Nautilus, Wilson X-2, SF Guarneri, Gryphon Poseidon,massive custom horn jobs etc). This is just a big blinging chromed monstrosity, which would look out of place anywhere but a huge minimalist open plan trendy warehouse apartment.
I remember a while back reading an article about the rise in price of top end speakers. Starting with the Infinity IRS and Wilson, manufacturers more recently have followed suit just for the sake of taking a piece of the market, regardless of whether they're actually capable of producing a speaker that's good enoughto merit such an inflated price tag. From all my experienceI can't imagine KEF seriously competing with the traditional esoteric big boys. Sure it's an impressive engineering feat with that cabinet. In go a load of pretty ordinary looking KEF drivers. So what is it then? A lifestyle product for the insanely rich.*
*NB. Having not heard these, obviously, don't take my remarks at all seriously. Purely my impression.
Note
That's fair enough, I think.Just taking advantage of the city boys.