KEF META DRIVERS
KEF META DRIVER

LS50 Meta ($1,500/pair), and the all-in-one active streaming version, the LS50 The first speakers to feature its Metamaterial tech would in fact be the new So I was very surprised when KEF announced that That a new version of KEF’s flagship Blade speakers ($32,000/pair) would beĪnnounced first, and that maybe the MAT tech would trickle down into moreĪffordable speakers over time. When I read the announcement about MAT, I expected Groundbreaking new technology, the first products to reap the benefits are its Usually when a company like KEF spends years developing a To KEF, Metamaterial Absorption Technology is a major breakthrough in Jack Oclee-Brown, Head of R&D at KEF Metamaterial the Next Breakthrough in Loudspeaker Development? The idea of a metamaterial is that, rather than trying toįind a natural material that does what you want, you create an object thatīehaves like the material that you really need.ĭr. foams or wadding - so we can’t have a lot of control over what they do. In acoustics we use a lot of natural materials to absorb sound Metamaterial is a material that we synthesize that has properties that we can’tįind in nature. Sound goes in, and virtually nothing comes back out. Where the 30 different tubes act as sound absorbers for different frequencies. To put it simply, the sound coming from the back of theĭriver (the tweeter, in this case) is funneled into the maze-like structure,

Metamaterial absorbs everything from 620Hz to well beyond the limits of human Hole, absorbing 99% of the unwanted sound, eliminating the resulting distortionĪnd providing a purer, more natural acoustic performance.” While mostĪcoustic absorbers can only address a narrow band of frequencies, this When combined, the channels act as an acoustic black

Structure, where each of the intricate channels efficiently absorbs a range of KEF describes the Metamaterial Absorption Technology as “ a highly complex maze-like Structure - that can absorb nearly all of the unwanted sound radiating from the Perhaps more accurate to describe it as a carefully-designed acoustical Together with AMG, KEF hasĭeveloped what they call a synthetic material or “metamaterial” - though it’s The use of sound absorption material can mitigate these negativeĮffects, but existing fibers and foams only absorb around 60% of the energy in The cabinet and wreak havoc on both the driver’s motion and the cabinet’s vibrational Internal standing waves can build up inside It can excite the cabinet,Ĭausing coloration that can affect imaging and limit the speaker’s ability to Itself, causing audible and measurable distortion. This sound can create all sorts of problemsĪs it bounces around inside the cabinet. Move backward, and this backward motion launches sound from the back of theĭriver into the speaker’s cabinet.

KEF META DRIVER

But every time the driver moves forward, it must then Sound waves that we want to hear - the sound that’s launched into the room from

KEF META DRIVERS

The forward motion of the drivers is what creates the Many loudspeakers use materials like wool orįoam inside their cabinets to absorb some of the sound created by the rearward (MAT), creating an intricately-designed acoustical device to work as a soundĪbsorber inside a speaker cabinet. The two firms developed a world-first application of Metamaterial That the fruits of this endeavor would soon be revealed as part of a new Metamaterials Group (AMG) had been buzzing along behind the scenes, and Research and development collaboration with a company called Acoustic Early September of 2020, the British speaker manufacturer KEF announced that a 2-year

Kef meta