KEF is a proud pioneer of excellence in sound.
Since 1961, from our UK home, we have created remarkable award-winning speakers. From our ground-breaking Uni-Q technology to our bar-setting LS60 Wireless, KEF exists to fill rooms with music as it was made to be heard, to move souls with truly authentic soundscapes. Now, we're bringing more people with us on our journey to discover the power of great sound.
Innovation
KEF is named after Kent Engineering and Foundry where our story began. Our founder Raymond Cooke was propelled by a love of music and a refusal to compromise, and he leveraged technology at every turn to ensure KEF’s position at the cutting edge of audio.
A list of breakthroughs spanning more than half a century shores up that promise; a walk to match the talk. Patents and academic papers alike testify to decades of consistent progress, from the early use of synthetic materials to our Reference Series which determines industry standards to this day. KEF’s insistence on excellence is at the heart of a virtuous circle, which attracts the world’s most gifted acoustic engineers to join us in the pursuit of good, better, best.
KEF Muon, Limited Edition 100 pair.
1960s
KEF was initially headquartered in a Nissen Hut on the premises of Kent Engineering & Foundry in Maidstone, Kent in the UK since 1961. Cooke, an ex-BBC electrical engineer, was keen to experiment with new materials and technologies to create products that could reproduce recordings as natural as the original performance.
The first KEF speaker, the three-way K1, incorporated the use of synthetic materials. In the following year, the first ultra compact two-way speaker system designed to give true high-fidelity performance Celeste was born.
Raymond Cooke re-established his working relationship with the BBC as KEF took on the exclusive manufacture of the LS5/1a monitor. The B110 and T27 drivers followed in 1967 and were successfully utilised in the Cresta and later selected by the BBC for use in the LS3/5a monitor. The manufacture of monitor loudspeakers for the BBC provided KEF with useful experience in working to tight acoustic tolerances.
The three-way bookshelf speaker Concerto arrived in 1969 bringing high-end performance, in an attractive package, into the mainstream loudspeaker market.
By the end of the decade, KEF was established as a leading company in the audio industry with commercial and critical success not only for the KEF loudspeaker systems but for the drive units which were adopted by numerous companies around the world into their own systems.
2020s and today
Now in our seventh decade, we're staying at the forefront of audio excellence.
We're committed to ‘sound before all else’, and have introduced the ground-breaking use of Metamaterial Absorption Technology (MAT) in speaker design, which was awarded the ‘Innovation of the Year’ by What Hi-Fi? Awards 2020. This is a revolutionary tool in our acoustic armoury. MAT absorbs 99% of the unwanted sound from the rear of the driver. MAT, and the technology that we continue to develop, allows us to design new ranges of revolutionary products including our LS50 Collection and LS60 Wireless, KEF's first active floor-standing speaker released in celebration of our 60th anniversary. It combines all our key technologies with the conveniences of digital, embodying our vision of High-Fidelity sound for the future.
The introduction of Uni-Core technology on our KC62 subwoofer in 2021 created a completely new take on subwoofer designs by redefining the physical space required for high-performance speakers and subwoofers. Our Uni-Core technology combines both drivers into a single motor system, which allows cabinet size to be reduced by over a third, and also increases excursion to unlock exceptional output and depth.
KEF Blade One Meta,The Top Model in the Blade Series with Single Apparent Source technology, a unique technology that makes the Blade incredibly coherent, with precise imaging.
Listen and believe
KEF’s mission is to deliver sound with as little intervention as possible; from treble to bass, and everything in between. Listeners should be able to close their eyes and immerse themselves in the sound so deeply that they are transported, in their minds, to the source. We believe that the best sound is natural sound – and that access to it is a right, not a privilege.
Experience is everything, and that’s no overstatement. Combining our obsessions with acoustic authenticity and innovative engineering, we’d like to think that KEF products speak for themselves.
We invite you to close your eyes and be transported. Listen and believe.
KEF LS 50 Meta, Internationally Acclaimed Bookshelf Speaker
KEF REFERENCE 8b Subwoofer, Twin 9 Inch Drivers
KEF Ci5160REFM-THX, KEF’s first THX® Certified Dominus speaker from Company's Architectural Speakers Product Category