The eagle-eyed and bat-eared amongst you may recall that Arcam chose KEF Reference loudspeakers for their astonishing home theatre installation that toured the serious Hi-Fi shows of Europe, including our very own Sound and Vision Show in Bristol.

Nic, Chris, myself (Ade) and a number of the Audio T Swansea faithful heard them in action and were impressed enough to want to hear more. We persuaded the lovely Alex from KEF to lend us a pair of their delightful Reference 3s for evaluation. We were very reluctant to let them go, even though we did have them here for quite a while...*cough* (Thanks Alex!).

Hooked up to our Chord Electronics Dave DAC, CPA3000 pre-amplifier and SPM1200 power amplifier we bathed in their lush, glossy, even, wide and deep soundstage. Virtually every track we played we looked at each other puff-cheeked in admiration and realised we really had to stock them. Fast-forward a few weeks and we're the proud owners of a pair of KEF Reference 1s and a pair of KEF Reference 3s. (Yay!)

As you can see in the picture above and below, the Reference 1's look a million bucks in Gloss Rosewood with that brushed aluminium front baffle. Fitted with the latest iteration of KEF's speciality, the UniQ combined tweeter/midrange unit - here in 125mm (5 inch) - it's designed to provide a common point source for high and mid frequency sound. This gives us a better sense of integration, yielding a much larger sweet-spot and a more natural sound. The all-new 165mm (6.5 inch) alloy woofer that KEF is rather proud of, are beautifully finished and look very pretty too.

Around the back are what can only be described as luxury Bi-Amp/Bi-Wire terminals. In case you were wondering, the centre wing bolts connect the low and high frequency terminals together should you choose to single wire them. (We happen to be using Black Rhodium Encore Bi-Wire in this instance, so have them wound out.)

Initial listening is pretty encouraging as the soundstage is wide open, but they clearly need running in. After a couple of hours they'd fleshed out a fair bit, but are nowhere near their potential yet. We're going to give them a run overnight and report back in the morning. We need to get them singing soon as we've had our first request for a home demonstration - that didn't take long!

KEF Reference loudspeakers are available from Audio T Swansea and Audio T Preston

We've been busy creating a new look at Audio T Preston. We hope customers old and new like the new record decor!

By far, our most popular products at the moment would have to be the turntables, so we wanted to create a display to show off the range we keep.

We also wanted to have a great sounding Hi-Fi stereo system to show off what's possible, and by partnering the Naim Audio & KEF Reference together we have definitely achieved that.

With just a little help from Ike ....who knows his stuff!

So come and have a listen, we have Tidal ready to play any genre of music you like on a world class Hi-Fi Naim NAC-N 272.... Naim NAP 250DR.... KEF Reference 3 speakers.... Chord Company Sarum cables

The Naim NAC-N 272 is a state of the art streaming pre-amplifier, which has features such as Spotify, Tidal, UPNP, Internet radio and Bluetooth all built in as standard for all your streaming needs as well as the conventional analogue and digital inputs for connecting other devices to it.

This Naim NAC-N 272 pre-amplifier can also be controlled by the remote control supplied but, for ultimate control you can download the free Naim control app for sit down palm of your hand convenience. We have connected this to the Naim NAP 250DR power amplifier which provides plenty of power whilst being able to deliver the level of finesse that Naim electronics is known for world wide.

We then added a pair of KEF Reference 3 floorstanding speakers in the stunning copper black finish which looks fantastic and delivers a very detailed and big sound stage. A great partner for the Naim system.

Finally we added the Sarum cables by The Chord Company which when connected to your Hi-Fi of any ilk lifts veils and uncovers layers of music that you didn't know was there!

Naim Hi-Fi and home audio products are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Oxford, Portsmouth,
Preston, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon

KEF Hi-Fi products (Preston reference only) are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Bristol, Cardiff, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Portsmouth, Southampton, Swansea,
Swindon

Chord Co Cables are available from the following branches of Audio T:
Brentwood, Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Enfield, Manchester, Online, Oxford,
Portsmouth, Preston, Reading, Southampton, Swansea, Swindon