The MAT is a small disc, about 3″ in diameter and not quite 0.5″ thick, attached to the back of the Uni-Q’s motor structure. The video describes MAT in great detail, so Doug just summarizes the technology in his review: are made from assemblies of multiple elements fashioned from composite materials such as metals and plastics.’” When Doug visited KEF in March, he was with the SoundStage! video team, who produced a YouTube video about KEF’s Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT). One improvement is what KEF calls a tweeter gap damper, that Doug said “solves a problem KEF had in previous versions of the Uni-Q: the tweeter’s placement in the belly of the midrange-woofer caused changes in air pressure and thus turbulence between the two drivers that interfered with the motion of the tweeter’s dome.”īut the biggest change involves the tweeter, which, as Doug explained, uses “what the new model is named for: metamaterial, which Wikipedia defines as ‘any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring materials. However, there have been changes made to portions that you can’t see, mostly to address distortion. The 1″ dome tweeter and the 5.25″ midrange-woofer, which are assembled in a coaxial configuration that KEF calls Uni-Q, also look similar to the original model’s components. Jack Oclee-Brown, the head of KEF’s R&D department, told him that when the design team examined the cabinet, they found nothing about it that they could significantly improve, so they pretty much left it alone. Doug explained in the review that when visiting KEF’s Maidstone, Kent, headquarters in March 2020, Dr. The LS50 Meta is priced the same as the original LS50 was in 2012 ($1499.99 per pair, all prices USD), and, according to Doug’s review, deserves similar praise.Įxcept for the new matte finishes - Royal Blue Special Edition, Mineral White, Titanium Grey, and Carbon Black - and its rear-mounted port opening now being “racetrack” shaped instead of a true oval, the LS50 Meta’s cabinet, which measures 12″H × 7.9″W × 12.2″D, is essentially the same as the LS50’s. Doug reviewed it last month, and it too received a Reviewers’ Choice award. In October 2020, KEF released the LS50’s successor, the LS50 Meta. The LS50 received a Reviewers’ Choice award at the time of the review, was further recognized as a Recommended Reference Component in August 2013, and was one of 2013’s Products of the Year.

In 2012, UK loudspeaker manufacturer KEF released the LS50 loudspeaker, which Doug Schneider reviewed for this site in April 2013.

Kef ls50 meta amplifier