kef kc62. kef say it has a frequency response down to 11hz hi guys you've arrived at man discovers tech welcome to the channel i do product reviews and if you haven't seen my channel so far i pride myself on honesty above all else and that's why i'm making this video a few of my subscribers have recently asked my opinion of the kef kc62 mini subwoofer that features unicore technology if you haven't seen the kc62 yet here it is. so what's the point of this subwoofer well reading from the kef website they say the kc62 is the ultra compact subwoofer that maximizes bass from minimum space the cabinet volume is 63% smaller than the kf92 so basically they're trying to make a big sound biggest possible from a small box so there you go kef say they've made a new technology patent pending called unicore and what it does it allows them to fit basically more speaker inside a smaller enclosure the kc62 has two 6.5 inch drivers that is puny and what more inches than that but they are acting as one driver because of this unicore technology rather than each driver having two separate magnets both drivers are integrated into a single magnet system which is quite clever to be fair and that allows you to get decent amount of bass whilst shrinking the cabinet by a third fine sounds good but here is where i get a little bit mad so basically my subscribers are asking me does this really go down to 11hz should i buy it these are the same subscribers that are asking me which subwoofer should i buy for movies right so personally i feel that the marketing smoke screen as you might say that kef has put out has kind of tricked a lot of people and if you don't believe me i'm going to read this from kef's very own website i'm going to read it for you now and powerful bass is no longer solely the domain of big shouldered massive subwoofers kc62 is david to their goliath an ultra compact subwoofer capable of delivering accurate deep bass for an immersive music movie and gaming experience at complete odds with its modest dimensions and just as david beat goliath so kc62's performance renders these these subwoofer behemoths obsolete what is that all about seriously that tells me if i'm reading that that says to me that this subwoofer is david to goliath david beat goliath in the bible not that i'm a biblical person or anything i'm not a religious person but even i know david beat goliath in the bible so the kc62 they're saying with that i'm not making it up i'm reading it from their website the kc 62 the kc 62's performance renders these subwoofer behemoths obsolete another thing they say is it has five presets right and they say it has the same performance everywhere right kc62 slips effortlessly into any environment or listening room with the five preset room placement equalization feature ensuring the same performance no matter where you decide to place it in free space next to the wall in a corner nestled within a cabinet or using the dedicated apartment mode another thing they say the p-flex driver surround has a unique pleated design inspired by origami the japanese art of paper folding engineered to better resist the acoustic pressure in the cabinet to allow the driver to move more precisely compared to traditional surround designs the result is deeper bass extension and a more accurate and detailed bass reproduction what does that even mean like seriously guys what what does that even mean this is just more examples of pulling the wall over people's eyes you know what what is the thing about the origami inspired by origami seriously you know it sounds cool but there's no substance to it honestly it feels like you don't get any solid data out of them anyway to answer you guys question right people who i'm making this video for you've asked me does this subwoofer go down to 11hz so let's get this straight then what is 11hz. 11hz it's a note okay it's a frequency just like any instrument has a frequency i'm speaking to you now frequency okay it's a very low frequency it's defined as infrasound it's below what the human ear can even hear so it's kind of a pointless frequency in all honesty but that sounds good right this thing can play lower than what we're even able to hear right does that mean anything no it doesn't it's a bit of marketing and i'm going to tell you why you see i'm going to sing to you now as you can see my voice box is rolling off right it's rolling off the deeper i go when i sing i know it's not very good but the harder it is for my voice box to output those lower frequencies okay i can't output those lower frequencies with a lot of volume and it's the same thing with the subwoofer the lower you go the more power you need or bigger enclosure bigger driver you need these things to be able to output those lower frequencies with volume okay that's what we need now thx set their in room reference uh sound pressure levels okay we're gonna measure in decibels their reference is 85 decibels okay and that's the average in room they also say all speakers within the system should be able to play peaks at least 20 decibels higher than that 85 right and why do we need peaks because when you listen to a piece of music when you listen to movies you're not listening at one volume there's peaks and troughs in there in terms of the volume and this is what gives us dynamic range if you have no dynamic range it sounds rubbish movies sound rubbish music sounds rubbish everything sounds rubbish you need very loud very quiet very loud very quiet that's what you're going to get in movies okay if you want a subwoofer to play music and especially movies with authority you're going to need a big box big cone quality driver quality amplification these are the broadly accepted foundations you can't really overcome that i don't believe you can overcome that now kef say that this thing goes down to 11 hertz but they're not telling us at what volume right at what volume does this subwoofer output that 11 hertz or even 20 hertz let's say i can't find anything that they've made that tells us about the volume right the frequency response with the actual volume that tells us exactly how this thing works it says i think on the website it says 105 decibels is the maximum volume right that the output that the subwoofer can output but at what frequency maybe it does this at 100 hertz or 80 hertz that's not really that low what about sub bass frequencies 20 hertz 30 hertz what can it really output those frequencies at tell us how many decibels they won't tell us because it's not going to be very good otherwise you would wouldn't you you would simple as that now you guys might be thinking how can you make a review of the kc62 if you haven't even heard it now i'm going to give you three reasons why i can do that first of all it's not really a review it's just some friendly advice because people ask me my subscribers ask me you know what do you think of this subwoofer give me advice right this is the advice that i'm giving to you and it's acquired from my 15 plus years of knowledge and spending money and being an idiot for 15 years or more right kef have not published any data any real data if you look at their website right have a look for like i said earlier on frequency response with a decibel level have a look look at kef's white paper pdf document and you'll see it's a bit cloak and dagger again there's not really concrete data there for us to see is this subwoofer good for me it's kind of like it all the figures look good but there's certain things that have been concealed the other reason why i think i can give you this advice without even seeing the subwoofer is because i've been looking on the forums this guy from avsforum he asked kef for more specifics about the frequency extension of the kef uh kc62 and they said to him in a private message it hits 20 hertz at roughly 80 decibels under anechoic conditions which is already fairly loud okay so two things now you're saying it's fairly loud earlier on you were saying that david's laid goliath and now you're saying it's fairly loud seriously guys don't fall for it okay don't fall for it i'm reading it here i have not made this up this is this comes from someone who's emailed kef they have got back to him and said they're now saying he can do 20 her at 80 decibels who's listening to a movie at 80 decibels i've already told you thx want you to be able to have a subwoofer that plays over 100 decibels right 100 decibels in your room down to 20 hertz so there you go right and decibels decibels are very you know what a hundred compared to 80 decibels there's a lot more okay i think it's every six decibels the volume doubles perceived volume so 80 decibels is quiet for a sub the third reason why i can make a video without even seeing the subwoofer is because this guy made a video without seeing the subwoofer and so did this guy if they can make a review about the kc62 then why can't i i didn't see the kc62 in their videos and the second guy a lot of us know who he is we know he's quite a famous guy he pretended watch his video he pretended like he reviewed it watch it and you'll see for yourself seriously i'm not sure if he's actually pretended or not because it sounds to me when you watch his video it's like he he has seen the subwoofer he has heard this subwoofer if you look at it you read the description everything but he's got no picture of it he keeps showing pictures like stock photos from kef's website why didn't you take a photo yourself that just doesn't sound right to me i don't my opinion is he probably hasn't seen it and you know what makes me think seriously what has hifi come to it you know it used to be an industry where there was evidence i think about you know this one versus this one you know and i think it's got to a point now where these speakers they're not really getting that much better every single five years or ten years and it's turning into an industry now with a lot of wishy-washy facts you know what's what's with all the lying seriously i don't know what it is what's with all the lying what's with all the cloak and dagger action what's with all the storytelling you know what's with all the storytelling i understand you want to sell more units you want to create value but it's just got out of control honestly is it hi-fi or lie-fi one thing i can tell you guys if you subscribe to this channel i'm always gonna give you my honest opinion about the products i review here i don't care if people send me free stuff i don't care if companies want me to review their stuff if you expect me to lie for you don't send me your products i'd rather buy it myself and say what i want to say about it okay so that's just one thing about me let's also look at some comments from the forums about this subwoofer 80 decibels at 20 hertz is lower output than every single subwoofer listed on database.com
the 120 dayton sub 1000 will do 80 decibels at 20 hertz dayton better raise their prices pretty impressive for a shoebox size subwoofer heard they go down to 11 hertz at -3 db with 75 less total harmonic distortion short at 40 decibels sure sure at 40 decibels in a space vacuum is that a typo or magic goes down to 11 hertz kef are a bunch of jokesters with that 11 hertz spec not sure why kef would resort to those alibaba specs it's not like they need to compete with kinta or other very optimistic companies on wish.com yes when i specced out my wife i made sure she was compatible with large subwoofers that probably explains why we've been together for almost three decades we know what her name is and it is inappropriate and frankly sexist to speak in those terms i'm not having it in this chamber that is the end of the matter so is it good value for money now it depends what you're looking for can a normal subwoofer not fit in your room if the answer is no it can't then yes the kc62 is probably a good option if not one of the best options for you but you can also get a sun fire subwoofer if you want good performance in a small box they've been making small subwoofers for very very long time probably longer than kef so i'm sure they know what they're doing as well do you have a medium to large size room and you want a decent performance for music and especially movies in this case i think the kc62 is not for you i don't think it's very good value it costs 1400 quid for 400 pounds don't know what it is in the us exactly you can buy the svs sb 3000 which is a 13 and a half 14 inch sealed uh subwoofer i believe it has seven or 800 watts class d bigger box okay that's about 1200 quid 1300 quid in the uk so cheaper than the kef and it's also much cheaper in the usa because that's i believe where they're made that i would prefer over this kef in the usa you have your lucky guys you have the dr hsu subwoofers people call it hsu those subwoofers will be way better i'm 100 sure because they receive nothing but good reviews from people who are home theater enthusiasts and uh hi-fi enthusiasts in the uk in europe if you want a very good value director manufacturer subwoofer which will beat this kef check out xdz have a look at their 12.17 edge range 700 watts bigger box 12 inch you know ported for me that's more of a real subwoofer for movies and it's a lot cheaper than this kef as well but will the kef be better for music now the reason why people ask this question is because music you don't tend to listen to it as a higher volume like you do with with movies and yes there is lower demand from a subwoofer for music but not all music for example music with heavy bass lines hip-hop music for example and also even acoustic music like church organs for example the lowest note on a church pipe organ is apparently 16 hertz so some music is still very demanding from a subwoofer but yeah i guess if we're going to compare music to movies i would imagine the kc62 will be better for music than it is for movies i wouldn't consider it for movies at all unless you're completely desperate or you don't want to buy something from the likes of bose or you know something sonos or something like that so guys i don't like making reviews where i run honestly i don't it makes me feel negative you know i like to give honest reviews and sometimes it includes negative uh feedback but at the same time that's kind of why i run the channel i don't run the channel to expose companies i'm not not one of those people like an anarchist or something i'm trying to bring down the corporations or whatever no it's not about that it's about i just want to tell the truth i want to i want to tell people what i think what is the point of me making a channel and just lying and lying and lying and just saying i'm not saying what i really think to me that takes the fun and enjoyment out of doing this i'd rather not so yeah my final words about kef as a company because a lot of you are probably thinking this guy just doesn't like kef that's not true traditionally i've really liked kef products my second set of speakers and my third set of speakers this is when i was like uh in the early days right sorry and uh my second set of speakers was kef iq7 and my third set of speakers was was iq5 and the reason for that was i made the traditional mistake of over buying the biggest uh bigger flaw standard for the space that i was in and i needed the iq5 and this was back in 2007 2008 sort of time and at that time i was very much in love with the brand i thought they made excellent product but over the years i felt a little bit more detached it is true i felt a little bit more detached from kef as a brand and the reason for that is i feel they're moving into another space that i don't really like consider the products like the kef r series the ls50s which are decent speakers but just look at the styling for a start it makes me think are they making these products to appeal to audio files or they're making them to appeal to your home decor you know secondly look at the products like the kc62 which we're talking about now have a look at the mu3 or the mu3 whatever they're called they're the in-ear buds are they making these earbuds and this subwoofer they're making it to compete with the audiophile brands or are they making them to compete with the likes of bose and sonos who are they competing with here honestly i don't know but as somebody who's very much into hifi very much into home cinema this brand is becoming less appealing to me over time that's all i'm saying how about we discuss it what do you think of kef as a brand and where they are going do you agree that they're slightly less of an audiophile brand now than what they used to be from decades ago or do you disagree and you think they are actually going the opposite they're becoming more of an audiophile brand leave your comments down below let me know i want to discuss this with you guys right that's enough for today hope this review slash information slash advice was useful to you i'll see you next time if you haven't subscribed subscribe join my tribe or i smash you
2021-02-13