I have some KEF q60s from 1991 which I'm using with a Marantz 1060 amp. I love the setup BUT there are flaws. 1). Vocal performance is a bit recessed, chesty with male voices and there is too much sibiliance. When I watch movies or other shows, the vocals are recessed and unclear so I have to turn it up really loud. Ambient sounds dominate and its annoying.
2). Detail could be better
3). Emotion and realisim of instruments could be more, especially at lower volumes.
I have never had any major complaints about Acoustic Energy in the past having owned the Linear 3 (awesome but was too big for room) and the Aegis Neo 1 (fantastic, but slightly peaky and not enough bass) which is because they're small speakers.
Now I was thinking about the Aelite 2, although discontinued and therefore can't audition I can get them for new. But I have a couple of concerns, they're rear ported but I will be able to get abour 9" clearance, and secondly will dual 4.3" woofers have sufficient bass compared to my current 8" drivers (actually 7" in cone diameter)?
While the basic rules and theories of physics cannot be defeated the size of the driver has little bearing on either the extension of the system nor its apparent "speed".
Of all the things you might be concerned with, I would make a 9" clearance (I assume that means from the closest intervening surface and not just getting the speaker through the doorway) one of my first priorities. This has nothing really to do with rear porting and everything to do with the bass lift affected in the mid to upperbass that gives all things a similar one note boom. I believe we've been through this before with your system set up.
The Q60's are worth replacing. They were the better of many not very interesting speakers of the time.
"The Q60's are worth replacing. They were the better of many not very interesting speakers of the time."
Now that is interesting!
You'd be right in saying the clearance is not relative to the doorway! But 9" clearance is from the backwall, its maybe 2-3" from the sidewall unfortunately but current room setup means this can't be helped. We have been through something similiar I just wanted to see if dual drivers would at all make a difference to a rear port design if not enough room is left.
The port merely relieves internal pressure from within the enclosure, it doesn't care how the pressure was put there.
What didn't I like about the Q60's? They were uninteresting reproducers. As I said, they were better at some things than many other speakers in a similar price range during the same time period of mid 1990's could manage but ultimately music was not interesting when listening through the early "Q" series speakers. If the music itself isn't interesting, I don't care what else the speaker does well. If the music is interesting, I can forgive many other faults. The Q60's had enough faults while not producing enough interesting music to make me not care about it, particularly after knowing KEF at the top of their game. You could have done worse but you could still do better - unless you insist on buying stuff without listening beforehand.
To my knowledge there are no KEF dealers presently located in my area.
KEF has made steady gains in performance with the Q series of speakers and they will always have their heritage of building superior quality systems to guide their decisions in the future. The last time I heard a Q series speaker it was clearly the best available at that dealer - though that placed the line in competition with Bose at this particular dealer. Serious independent dealers aren't finding the KEF line up enticing enough to add to their limited resources. Unfortunately for KEF they are fighting tough odds; there are numerous speaker companies putting out highly competitve models and the Q technology, while effective and laudable, is a more difficult sell to the close minded buyer seeking multi-way speaker systems.
I've listened to the IQ1s and I thought they were overly bright, althought it could have been the q1s I heard. I've heard the xq and thought they were fabulous in 5.1 with 'I am Legend'. Out of my price range though, I'm still in the budget sector of speakers until I graduate and a few years into a career (once I find one)!!
"The last time I heard a Q series speaker it was clearly the best available at that dealer - though that placed the line in competition with Bose at this particular dealer."
Aww c'mon Jan! Sounds like someone needs to visit an audiologist. Everyone knows that better sound REALLY comes from marketing.