More details for KEF Audio

[Leonard]

I'm still amazed that this stereo wasn't the dogs proverbials out of the box.
New build, by established high end brand into a new platform.
World is your acoustic oyster. Unless Lotus have messed that relationship up also 🤷

 

[Lotustoronto]

I'm still amazed that this stereo wasn't the dogs proverbials out of the box.
New build, by established high end brand into a new platform.
World is your acoustic oyster. Unless Lotus have messed that relationship up also 🤷

Well to be fair... nothing is out of the box yet... we haven't seen/heard/driven a finished production Emira. The first pre-prod reviews were 5 months ago. The latest batch was 3 months ago. I think there was some time built in to get reviews back from journalists and to fix some of the issues. I believe the cars will be better sorted because of it. (hopefully) I have no doubt that there was / is delays in certain parts. Perhaps more related to fixes / than supply chain tho. Or a mix of both.

 

[VL3X]

Somehow there still exists optimism on this forum.

I heard the production Emira will actually lose the black weatherstrip on the bonnet, be closer to ~3k lbs flat, v6 power bumped to 450, ride height 1" lower, and fancy steering wheels for all! 🥳

#emirawedeserve

 

[ksegg]

I'd love to believe that, but I think it's pretty clear it's just a wait for parts now

By the time the parts arrive, it will be renamed Elvirah, and we all would have aged 10 years.

 

[digilotus]

By the time the parts arrive, it will be renamed Elvirah, and we all would have aged 10 years.

And I believe in Emiracles!

 

[Pegasi]

I heard a rumour that they were tweaking the chassis setup. I believe recently there was information released suggesting that there is now going to be slightly different ride heights between sports and tour.

So some tweaks are being made

My gut just tells me there will be a difference in ride height. If Lotus does do some tweaking more power to them. I love companies that keep trying to improve their product.

 

[dgrace]

It’s not the despair that gets ya. It’s the hope.

 

[TomE]

Parts shortage could explain the power boost. They may have been forced to switch to more powerful chips due to availability. A lot of the class-D amplifier chips are pin-compatible and can be swapped without without too much redesign (well... you need higher supply voltage, thermal management, and output filter component size, but that's all a piece of cake in the modern day).

Of course, this is just conjecture.

No, it’s because feedback from Lotus to KEF was it needed more power. And KEF agreed and tackled it.

 

[NicolasB]

No, it’s because feedback from Lotus to KEF was it needed more power. And KEF agreed and tackled it.

Is this a factual statement or you are just feeling confident?

 

[TomE]

It’s what I was told by Lotus staff at Goodwood. At the time I was asked not to publicise it, as it was awaiting confirmation from KEF they could meet production supply requirements.

 

[Porter]

No, it’s because feedback from Lotus to KEF was it needed more power. And KEF agreed and tackled it.

This was my instinct as well. Or it could have been a "both" scenario.

The feedback from journalists about it being a bit tinny sounded like a tweeter balance thing to me. The KEF Uni-Q design can be somewhat bright if the tweeter angle is at certain off-axis angles to the ear, even with the more aggressive "flare" phase diffuser they are using over the concentric tweeter in this automotive application. Plus the inside of a car is a weird nearfield scenario. It's a rather specific sort of challenge to make anything sound objectively good inside a car.

Also KEF is not a giant company, so I would imagine that their testing for this application was likely on a bench with mocked up door panels, or with a test dash and door panel rig on a frame, rather than in a purpose-built full scale Emira interior volume enclosure. It may have sounded great on their bench but less ideal once Lotus completed building a bunch of Emira prototypes with the KEF installed, and KEF would have had to go back to the lab and come up with some signal and amplification chain changes to address the gap to the performance targets because it's way too late in the process to be making driver design or mounting changes. So it makes some sense to me that in response to a balance challenge that they might need a bump in amplification for the midrange and bass drivers, at least in the absence of some pretty aggressive digital EQ. And that sort of re-EQ approach would negate the point source advantages of their Uni-Q design by introducing a bunch of phase nonlinearity in the signal domain.

I'm very much looking forward to what the final setup sounds like. I have an optimistic outlook on it.

 

[Tonyshepp]

This was my instinct as well. Or it could have been a "both" scenario.

The feedback from journalists about it being a bit tinny sounded like a tweeter balance thing to me. The KEF Uni-Q design can be somewhat bright if the tweeter angle is at certain off-axis angles to the ear, even with the more aggressive "flare" phase diffuser they are using over the concentric tweeter in this automotive application. Plus the inside of a car is a weird nearfield scenario. It's a rather specific sort of challenge to make anything sound objectively good inside a car.

Also KEF is not a giant company, so I would imagine that their testing for this application was likely on a bench with mocked up door panels, or with a test dash and door panel rig on a frame, rather than in a purpose-built full scale Emira interior volume enclosure. It may have sounded great on their bench but less ideal once Lotus completed building a bunch of Emira prototypes with the KEF installed, and KEF would have had to go back to the lab and come up with some signal and amplification chain changes to address the gap to the performance targets because it's way too late in the process to be making driver design or mounting changes. So it makes some sense to me that in response to a balance challenge that they might need a bump in amplification for the midrange and bass drivers, at least in the absence of some pretty aggressive digital EQ. And that sort of re-EQ approach would negate the point source advantages of their Uni-Q design by introducing a bunch of phase nonlinearity in the signal domain.

I'm very much looking forward to what the final setup sounds like. I have an optimistic outlook on it.

Wouldnt KEF had a hand in listening to the system once installed in a pre production car? You’d think that they benchmark other stereo systems like Porsches bose and Burmeister systems or BMWs Hardon Lardon, For someone else to tell them it needs more power doesn’t fit right they’d know themselves being the audiophile experts.

 

[Porter]

Wouldnt KEF had a hand in listening to the system once installed in a pre production car? You’d think that they benchmark other stereo systems like Porsches bose and Burmeister systems or BMWs Hardon Lardon, For someone else to tell them it needs more power doesn’t fit right they’d know themselves being the audiophile experts.

It probably doesn't objectively need more power, but a slight re-balancing of driver outputs. It could have been an amplifier inventory availability challenge as well.

 

[kitkat]

It’s what I was told by Lotus staff at Goodwood. At the time I was asked not to publicise it, as it was awaiting confirmation from KEF they could meet production supply requirements.

What else does TomE know…

 

[Leonard]

What else does TomE know…

If they pushed my early allocation back 2 months I'd spill ALL the beans.
Just saying.... 😉🤣

 

[NeilMuso]

In a prior post I promised to reach out to Lotus to get more details in relation to the KEF audio system.

Lotus have kindly shared more technical details in relation to speaker/amp placement and specifications that should help answer some of our questions.

View attachment 3996

Some of us questioned whether there will be tweeters in the A-pillars in the KEF setup. From Lotus - "The standard base audio (128w) will become available at the start of 2023 production once we begin production of the base cars, this version of the audio system has tweeters located in the A-pillar, the KEF audio system does not use this location for the tweeters, they are located in the door as part of the Uni-Q speaker installation".

In relation to amplification, it seems that the base amp will be the DCY11 (likely the same amp as in Lynk & Co 01 as DCY11 was the model number for the 01). The Harman amp seems to be a booster amp, so it would piggy back off the DCY11 amp (rather than take pre-amp level output) for increasing power output. Power ratings here are likely to be real world power (RMS or continuous power output) and not peak power output so 340W will be plenty loud in a small cabin!

One thing I'm still confused about is what amp will drive the subwoofer. If each KEF speaker unit has two independent amplifier channels needed to drive them, then all the cabin speakers will consume 8 channels. So does the subwoofer have its own amp? Does anyone know what amplification was in place in the Evora subwoofer setup?

Based on the diagram above, ECS likely stands for Externally Coupled Subwoofer. The round hole in the chassis is therefore the open air subwoofer location.

View attachment 3997

Thanks for this information. I have tried to find more details myself and drawn blanks.
I have a lot of experience with the Kef UniQs in a sports car environment. I had a series of MX5s in the 90s the Laguna blue one 95 but fitted them in 96 had the 6.5 inch uni-Qs. These came with very serious crossovers each the size of a vhs cassette. Anyone aware of the Mk1 Mx5 will know the placement was low down in the doors. I can say though that imaging and response was unbelievable. The concentric design worked very well and meant a tweeter high up was not needed at all. I tried to find a way of usind the gt100 sub but proved impossible to do and retain enough boot space for my saxes. I am certain that as they sit so much higher in the doors of the emira they will sound excellent. Kef have an massive reputation for image and phase cohesion and I know the car products I had lived up to that.

 

[Pugwash]

It’s what I was told by Lotus staff at Goodwood. At the time I was asked not to publicise it, as it was awaiting confirmation from KEF they could meet production supply requirements.

I was told the same at Goodwood but I was not asked to keep quiet about it. I just never got around to mentioning it.

Now if you ask me about early nose badges……………

 

[DrD]

So I've just got back from Salon Privé, sadly no Emira there... However there was a KEF stand and... The lady in charge of KEF's relationship with Lotus happened to be there. What are the chances (at salon privé - pretty high).

Anyway as Tom has already stated, it was an executive decision between lotus and KEF to increase output. Not down to a shortage of supply or anything.

She was down at the factory recently and I'd asked informally what the situation was on the shop floor. She seemed positive that cars were being churned out and appeared to be being completed too. Likely these are the demonstrator cars. But at the least it seems like there's more momentum.

Next steps for you guys is to get yourselves in the demos, play some good FLACs through a memory stick and tell us what your favourite songs sound like.

 

[emiraspain]

But, back to the topic at hand. I am no sound expert, and even being one of the few on here to have heard said Kef sound system, the best I could say was that it was distinctly underwhelming and yes, certainly needed more power and BASE.
From a business point of view though, with potentially thousands of the little KEFFing buggers heading to the Lotus Factory over the next few months and years, at a B2B price of at least 4-500 pounds (?) and then sold to us as an extra of probably 2000 pounds, I would feel almost certain Kef would have requested and received a mock up chassi with a full interior of the EMIRA for them to work with in their Labs.

THIS opportunity for them to reallllllly get their brand out there does not come along every day and into the car market, and Geeeeeely group, which could really help them, it would just be something I would force through if I were Jeff at Kef and something Lotus should have been very willing to do, as the cost to them is maybe 20k, vs 5 million in spend with Kef, and to "guarantee" the best sound experience available, something they have so far failed with one way or another from what I experienced. I certainly hope they get it right, BUT, again no expert, but I am guessing some of the quality will also depend on the other parts in the system which Kef do not supply at all...... maybe this is the issue.
I still really struggle with the infotainment provider being used. I know a lot of you seem to think its great to use this company with experience etc, but from what I have seen... its way behind any car I have been in over the last few years apart from Leonards GR (sorry.. its leonard bashing night and its not even friday!) which has an awful system and screen......

after having watched the video, I am not sure if I am more or less convinced by my own premise that Keff had the inside of a car to work with..... I know I would have though!

 

[Lotustoronto]

I am very happy to hear that the sound system has in fact been upgraded... I think it will sound good and from the looks of it, Lotus was determined to fix some issues from the pre-prod review cars. That is good.