The Article

K300 SPEAKERS FROM KERR ACOUSTIC

12th May 2025

High-end standmounts. They look good, muses Paul Rigby, but is it really worth spending out?

Been a while since I have reviewed a pair of high-end stand-mounted speakers. Then I attended the Bristol HiFi show in the UK back in February and was reminded by Jes Kerr, owner of Kerr Acoustic that I was the first person to give the company a bit of media coverage back in 2016. In that recent Bristol show, I saw the K300 speakers in their show room and thought, this review is overdue. So…

These 6 Ohm designs are transmission line bass loaded designs, which I highly approve of incidentally. Note the fabric covering on the front slot, an aesthetic addition to prevent a bare, cavern-like gap.

According to Jes Kerr, this system was chosen because, “In my view, transmission line loading ultimately confers a more time-coherent, low-distortion bass response than any other loading principal.”

These speakers sport 60mm true ribbon tweeters (which I also approve of – most people pursuing a similar design ethic use Air Motion Transformers). Kerr Acoustic wanted a low mass design to allow the tweeter to be sprightly and nimble and the ribbon used here is certainly that, being lighter than AMT drivers by just over a factor of six.

According to Jes Kerr, AMTs were avoided because, “I have always found them a little artificial sounding and fatiguing to listen to for extended periods.”

Underneath is a 165mm mid bass unit. A variant of the Scanspeak Revelator, run off a patented symmetrical drive motor.

Again, Kerr chose this method because, “The choice of a wood pulp cone for the mid/bass driver stems from my feeling that ultimately, paper cones still give the most natural and uncoloured sounding midrange (when covering both mid and bass frequencies simultaneously).”

They’re relatively large for standmounts at 420 x 195 x 395 mm and weigh in at 12kg per speaker while, around the back, you’ll find a single pair of 4mm, copper, 5-way binding posts.

Offering 89db in sensitivity terms, the speakers are wrapped with Baltic Birch plywood with a 24mm front baffle. The wood being chosen because, according to the company, it sounds good but it’s also pretty rigid. And that build quality is very nice indeed while grilles are supplied as standard but I tested these designs without.

I have to say that I didn’t find these speakers hard to drive, they are much easier than my Quad 57s, for example, but they are just as easy to drive as my little AMT-driven, Scanasonic HDs.

Stands are provided if required.

SOUND QUALITY

To test the K300 speakers I initially brought in a pair of Quad 57 electrostatics which are, in and of themselves, true giant killer designs, out-performing speakers many times their asking price and played Neil Young’s album Zuma and the track, Pardon My Heart which features the Young vocal, close mic’d acoustic guitar and Crazy Horse as harmony backing, some shy piano and subtle electric guitar and percussion.

VS QUAD 57

What I loved about these speakers – and let me tell you right now, I do love them – is that they immediately separated Young from his backing singer and isolated him and his guitar in the studio space, and you really felt that he was singing in a big room here, away from everyone else. The soundstage on this and other tests tracks never felt crowded. And that meant that subtle and delicate detail could be heard at the fringes.

Finger-picking string effects were focused and precise here with a real metallic reverberation that showed the effort placed in the string work.

That sense of instrumental separation, where instruments are placed within their own space, was significant here with the subtle and shy electric guitar and piano having a greater affect in the mix. That is, despite their position in the rear of the mix, the enhanced transparency of these speakers allowed you to better connect with them and to track their actions.

Hence, you never felt that you were missing out. You really did feel that the K300s were providing you with all the detail on offer but without resorting to those oh-so-familiar, cheap and nasty, negative tricks like artificially pinching the treble or brightening the upper mids to fake detail. The K300s never did that. Information from these speakers flowed naturally and without stress.

VS SCANSONIC HD MB-1B

I then changed to the lower-cost Scansonic HD’s MB-1B speakers which offered a broadly similar configuration to the K300s with an AMT tweeter installed instead but I wondered if the Scansonic HDs provided everything the K300s could muster at around a third of the price?

So I changed to vinyl and Level 42’s early track, the high-energy outing, Wings of Love, featuring synths, bass, percussion, electric piano and guitar and secondary percussion and vocals.

And yes, there are differences between these two designs. Lots. In bass terms, that K300 mid/bass unit was a lot larger in physical terms, as was the cabinet, when compared to the neat and tidy Scansonic design. The result was a more impressive bass weight and bass thump. That satisfying bass drum kick was much in evidence as was Mark King’s sparkling bass guitar work.

As was the low-noise approach to mids and treble. The tonal realism here was truly excellent with plenty of newly-found reverb around the keyboards and treble-infused cymbals. The overall presentation also sounded larger, grander, more epic in pure scale.

CONCLUSION

These designs might be relatively large for stand mounted designs but, my goodness, they certainly maximise both their size and the components utilised within to the best effect. And that doesn’t always happen.

The K300s are the sort of speakers that prompt you to go through your entire record collection again saying things like, “But I wonder what the speakers sound like with THIS one?” That sense of rediscovery will be high with the K300s. Beautifully balanced in sonic terms with detail to die for and a presence that will fill even larger rooms with ease but will still work well at lower volumes in smaller rooms, once you get introduced to the K300 speakers from Kerr Acoustic, they will quickly become your new best friends.

KERR ACOUSTIC K300 SPEAKERS

Price: from £6,395 (stands available on application)

Website: www.kerracoustic.com

GOOD: low noise, tonal realism, midrange focus, bass impact

BAD: nothing