KEF Muon Loudspeakers Are Best In Class In CES Innovations 2008 Design And Engineering Awards

November 16, 2007

KEF received highest honors from the CES Innovations 2008 Design and Engineering Awards Team for MUON Loudspeakers. MUON Loudspeakers were awarded Best of Innovations 2008 in the “High Performance Audio” category, in which they received the highest score. “KEF’s MUON Loudspeakers are a one of a kind design that portrays innovation through design and engineering perfection,” stated Alec Chanin, president of KEF America. “Rarely has such a sublime union of form, function and manufacturing integrity been realized in audio technology. The result is an unparalleled loudspeaker that will produce the ultimate in sound quality, and we thank CES for taking notice and awarding the MUONs the highest ranking in its category.” The MUON loudspeakers are a result of KEF’s world-class engineering team and visionary designer Ross Lovegrove, one of the leading industrial designers of our time. These impressive loudspeakers, standing nearly seven feet tall, were recently unveiled during the famed Milan design fair, arguably the most prestigious design gathering in the world. The central aim of the MUON project was to create the ultimate in sound technology and design innovation. The production of these speakers will be limited to 100 pairs and will be available in 10 exclusive cities worldwide, including New York and Los Angeles. The MUON loudspeaker is made from super-formed aluminum, which uses a similar molding process to vacuum forming. Malleable sheets of heated aluminum were used to achieve otherwise impossible shapes. The eventual form of the loudspeaker was the result of a careful convergence between Ross Lovegrove’s design aesthetics and the physics of sound. The process by which it was conceived meant that, in effect, Ross Lovegrove was sculpting the sound by ‘skinning’ the technology with purposeful form. MUON’s four-way speaker system, mounted into the front of the structure with its powerful bass drivers, is one of the elements that make it so superior. But it is also the upper mid-range and treble where some of MUON’s key technology lies in the form of the Uni-Q® drive unit array, remarkable in its construction and delivering a seamless sonic picture throughout the listening environment. KEF has also used its patented Acoustic Compliance Enhancement (ACE) technology, which enables them to effectively double the available volume through adsorption of air molecules via activated carbon granules while lowering acoustic distortion to near immeasurable levels. The two additional bass drivers mounted on the back of MUON help to produce a remarkably clean and open sound by dealing with room effects. Finally, the 6mm thick, heavily damped aluminum shell provides a totally rigid structure that minimizes any sound-distorting vibrations.

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