Audio

Speakers You Can't Afford: KEF Muon

How do $145,000 speakers sound?

By Florin Tibu, Editor, Software Reviews

25th of April 2007, 08:30 GMT

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KEF Muon, designed by Ross Lovegrove, who also made the Walkman and the iMac

How much are you really willing to pay for sound? Hundreds of dollars, maybe thousands? How about $140,000 for speaker purposes? And don't you think that "speaker-purposes" refer to a stadium-fit PA... I'm speaking about the speakers in your living room!

The collaboration between British exquisite manufacturer KEF and the designer Ross Lovegrove (iMac, Walkman) has given birth to one of the most extreme and expensive loudspeakers so far: Muon.

Muon are nothing like you've seen so far, no-never-whatsoever. The design of the shape is the creation of Ross and it took more than a sketch to be the way it is now. Even more, it seems like the shape of the Muon speakers is rather a hyper-customized "box" to perfectly fit the sound waves generated by the 8 speakers which load every tower.

And towers they are as the Muon are about 7 feet tall and weigh a nifty 253 pounds each. Pure aluminium casing and extreme-engineering internal bracing house no less than 8 speakers of which 2 are subwoofers and are rear-mounted.

Extreme in every direction: design, engineering and price

Precision-milled and machined aluminium was used in the construction of the Muon loudspeakers and the final shape was achieved by vacuum forming of the heated aluminium sheets so perfection of the roundness envisioned by Ross could be attained. And after a week-long workmanship process, the solid aluminium block is ready to house the speakers...

Muon can handle up to 400W so the "metal pillars" will definitely shake your manor and they will output sound ranging between 25Hz and a staggering 60kHz, in 4 Ohms and the 90dB sensitivity drivers being capable to load as much as 118dB SPL.

100 pairs edition of the Muon: $145,000 each.

The speakers powering the KEF Muon are as following: 4 x 250mm bass drivers with ultra low distortion Neodymium magnets, 1 x 250mm low-mid driver with phase tailoring, 1 x 165mm Uni-Q driver array comprising one 165mm midrange and one 25mm high frequency units and finally, 2 x 250 rear mounted bass drivers for better LF directivity.

Since there are only 100 Muon pairs produced I'd say you'd better be going and rob the nearest bank asap. They're aluminium and they're KEF: they'll surely last until you get out of jail...

TAGS:

KEF | audiophile | Ross Lovegrove | audio design | professional sound

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