Ralf - I have to say that I was not totally surprised by the outcome described in your original post. I did have a similar experience auditioning the 'old' B&W 800 Diamond (the last version prior to the current updated model) It was a reasonably good audition and I was impressed with many aspects of the speaker's performance, but the bass was way too polite for me. The bass was there, you could hear bass drop tones to the lowest frequencies, but it was just that, you could hear it but any notion of feeling it or bass slam was totally absent. I came to the conclusion that they would be excellent speakers for analysing the music, but not so good for actually enjoying the music.
It looks to me as if there is a high degree of overlap between the music you and I like to listen to. So maybe my experience might help. I used to have some late 90's vintage JBL's with lovely 12" woofers. I loved those JBL's, and when it came to the time to upgrade to something better I listened to all kinds of speakers. Many of them were better than the JBL's in a whole variety of ways, but nothing quite had everything I wanted, so the JBL's stayed, which was good because no money was spent! This all changed when I listened to the KEF Blades, I think that less than an hour into my first decent audition of them I had decided to buy. As for electronic music, for me the Blades are the best speakers I have ever heard with electronic music. OK, we may have some overlap in terms of music preference, but this does not necessarily mean we would end up having the same taste in speakers, I think speakers can be a very personal choice, far more than anything else in audio.
All I am saying is that if you can get a decent audition of the Blade or Blade 2, it would be at least be worth the time and effort. Of course the Blade 2 is slightly more expensive than the 803's, for that I can only apologise!
As a final point to note, the Blades can sound a little different dependant on room size, something to keep in mind if you get an audition in a room vastly different to what you might have at home. As an example, KEF recommend a minimum spacing for the Blade of 1m from the side walls, with 2m between the speakers, so you need a 5m wall. My wall at home is fractionally narrower than this (about 4.7m) and they sound fine. I have heard the Blades in a room a little under 4m wide, they were ok but there was a loss in bass performance (Blade 2 would be better), conversely, I have heard them in a very large room where again they worked well but were strangely different in character. All subtle stuff.
It looks to me as if there is a high degree of overlap between the music you and I like to listen to. So maybe my experience might help. I used to have some late 90's vintage JBL's with lovely 12" woofers. I loved those JBL's, and when it came to the time to upgrade to something better I listened to all kinds of speakers. Many of them were better than the JBL's in a whole variety of ways, but nothing quite had everything I wanted, so the JBL's stayed, which was good because no money was spent! This all changed when I listened to the KEF Blades, I think that less than an hour into my first decent audition of them I had decided to buy. As for electronic music, for me the Blades are the best speakers I have ever heard with electronic music. OK, we may have some overlap in terms of music preference, but this does not necessarily mean we would end up having the same taste in speakers, I think speakers can be a very personal choice, far more than anything else in audio.
All I am saying is that if you can get a decent audition of the Blade or Blade 2, it would be at least be worth the time and effort. Of course the Blade 2 is slightly more expensive than the 803's, for that I can only apologise!
As a final point to note, the Blades can sound a little different dependant on room size, something to keep in mind if you get an audition in a room vastly different to what you might have at home. As an example, KEF recommend a minimum spacing for the Blade of 1m from the side walls, with 2m between the speakers, so you need a 5m wall. My wall at home is fractionally narrower than this (about 4.7m) and they sound fine. I have heard the Blades in a room a little under 4m wide, they were ok but there was a loss in bass performance (Blade 2 would be better), conversely, I have heard them in a very large room where again they worked well but were strangely different in character. All subtle stuff.
1000 Pro - KEF Blade - iFi Zen Stream - Mutec REF10 - MC3+USB - Pro-Ject Signature 12
