New Speakers Kef IQ5SE Vs B&W 685

[admin_exported]

Having recently bought the Denon DF102 (purchased as a compromise for a bit of space) after my CD player had given up the ghost, to run through a pair of Mission M71, I am considering an upgrade of speakers.

Whilst in my local hifi shop auditioning the Denon through my speakers, I got chance to listen to the B&W 685's through the Denon and they were definitely an improvement over my Missions. At £380 (could probably get 5% - 10%) off that price, it's a lot of money to pay and I'm not certain the Denon would truely do them justice.

I have therefore been looking around and spotted the KEF IQ5SE's at a knock down price of £250 and therefore decided to look into them a little further. Having read the review on this site it states that they are fantastic 5 star speakers but the B&W's 685's are just that bit better than them but the question I have, are the IQ5SE's at £250 a better buy for my system than the extra £100+ I would need to pay for the B&W's.

Ideally I would like a chance to audtion them but the local HiFi store does not stock them and the two chains here which do may not have them in due to the updated version (IQ50's) having been released.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Regards

 

[Anonymous]

I like the IQ5SE - but then I like floorstanders as I don't find the stands for standmounts that pleasing on the eye. Don't forget to factor the cost of stands into your figuring btw.

At £250 you can't go wrong.

 

[Anonymous]

I have the IQ5SE's and after a serios run in they are fantastic and they got even better when I purchased the RB-06 power amp! I found them a bit bright to begin with but they did settle down after a couple of weeks. A bargin at £250.00, I paid £380.00 and still thought that was good value for a fine pair of floorstanders.

 

[Anonymous]

The Denon 102 is about 45wpc, so go with something easy. The KEF's will be fine. The B&W's will be a harder load for your system as they drop to 4 ohms. I wouldn't recommend them for anything other than seperates.

 

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for your response. I auditioned them today and compared them with the B&W 685's. As much as I love the B&W's the extra price wasn't quite worth it over the discountd KEF's.

Paid £275 in the end from the shop I listened to them in (got them down from £300) as had the added advantage of being able to return them easily if something went wrong.

Cheers