iQ50 Price error?

[SouthaK]

Just been reading the review of the three-star iQ50's, and was a little surprised to see the price quoted as £300. I can't find them anywhere online for less than 499.99 for example:

http://www.avland.co.uk/kef/iq50/iq50.htm

Is the price stated in the review wrong? If so does this mean the product would receive a lower rating at this new (correct) price or was it just a typo?

 

[Simon Lucas]

I've assailed the web editor about the neck and shoulders with a copy of last year's Awards issue - the KEF iQ50s are indeed £500, as quoted in the magazine and Buying Guide. By the time you read this, it should say so on the website too.
As outlined in some of the more robust threads on here, we divvied up three stars to the iQ50s before KEF advised us we'd received a pair that weren't production-ready. New, as-per-the-High-Street-dealers, iQ50s are currently warming up in our listening rooms and we'll be reappraising them soon. At £500.ÿ

 

[Andy Clough]

Simon has just given me a good duffing up and the correct price should be on the site in the next 20mins. I will now go and eat lots of humble pie for lunch.

 

[SouthaK]

Simon Lucas:...before KEF advised us we'd received a pair that weren't production-ready.

That's a bit naughty!

A related question perhaps not for this forum, but how do you guard against being supplied either pre-production or "tuned for what hi-fi" kit?

It must be very tempting for the morally "less-than-robust" suppliers to tweak kit to suit your ears, or perhaps even supply you higher spec kit then would be commercially available. What safeguards do you have? Do you source kit from the "high street".

*not that Kef are in any way morally "less-then-robust" i'm certain*

 

[Andy Clough]

We do indeed sometimes buy kit from the high street, and we always make it clear to manufacturers that they should only supply production-ready samples for test. I think most of them realise that if they did tweak kit for us, and it sounded very different to the ones you buy in the shops, then our readers would soon start to complain if our findings were very different from their own.

And if we do suspect something is amiss, we'll get a second sample to test.

 

[Anonymous]

Hello all,
I have just recently bought a pair of IQ5SEs with a very deep discount, the introduction of the IQ50 must have been the reason.

I am curious about the updated results of the units but while waiting for it, I couldn't find anywhere what exactly are the updates? What has changed over the SEs?

And by the way, are you planning to review the IQ90s in any foreseeable future?

Thank you very much in advance for the responses.