Don't know how old you want to get, but at some point in the 90s I really liked a pair of KEF floorstanders a local audio shop was demoing and haven't heard the same sound from KEF since. Alas I went on to buy some Thiel speakers around that time, which was well before Jim Thiel died...
90s KEF are really different from 7-80s KEF tho. The usual bextrene mid/bass and dome tweeters were replaced by newer UniQ arrays (which I think they lost some of their magic there).
And yeah, Jim Thiels designs are REALLY good, especially the earlier generations like CS2, 2.2, 3.5 and 3.6. Newer models (2.4 and 3.7 onwards) are a bit too lean and bright to me, bordering harsh sometimes.
BTW, I have fond memories of Hales speakers (which was the primary rival of Thiel at that time, using the same time-aligned baffles and sealed cabinets). Their Transcendence series were nuts, fared well against speakers that several times more expensive. One of the best bargains in audio I believe.
Yeah, I had 1.2s and 2.2s. Still have the latter, which I'm probably going to sell in a spring cleaning. But they were not shabby at all. The KEFs I liked were definitely pre-UNI Q.
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