How To Capture Sound – Interview with Jack Sharkey of KEF

Anyone who has experienced quality sound has been spoiled for life. Nobody knows this better than Jack Sharkey of KEF. 

“I want the air to move.” 

Audio technology has only improved in the last decade or so. Whether you’re a fan of headphones or earbuds, digital or vinyl, the quality of sound has been taken to fabulous new heights. Since 1961, KEF has been on the forefront of audio innovation.

“The job is is to put you, the listener, in the recording studio or in the concert hall. We put you in Carnegie Hall. So, you’re hearing what the recording engineer hears.”

For 60 years, KEF has developed some of the most innovative audio technology you’re aware of. In the early 1970s, KEF was the first company to adopt computers for the testing and design of loudspeakers. Back when computers were entire rooms. 

Throughout the 1970s and 80s, KEF was a pioneer in the development of audio technology. 

“KEF’s story is kind of unique to the industry, and it’s also a lot of people don’t realize that KEF is one of the sort of founding companies of the audio Hi-Fi movement”

Some of the techniques and technologies developed and brought to market are: 

• Driver Decoupling (Model 105.2) – a technique of reducing cabinet coloration by mounting drivers via controlled lossy coupling
• Coupled-Cavity Bass Loading (Model 104/2) – a technique of pairing two bass drive units and feeding their output via a single port.
• Conjugate Load Matching (Model 104/2) – a crossover optimization technique that presents a constant ohmic load to the amplifier.
• The “KEF Universal Bass Equalizer,” or “KUBE” (Model 107) – a technique to overcome the unavoidable phase lag present at low frequencies.
• Uni-Q (C-Series) – a patented implementation of coincident midrange and tweeter drivers that strives to preserve phase integrity and match dispersion between the drivers resulting in improved stereo imagery. 

Now, if you’re an audiophile you probably thought, “oh cool.” If you’re not, all you need to know is that that’s all very cool. It means “good sound.” And if you don’t know what “good sound” is, that means you’re lucky. Because good sound means you don’t notice it. Or, you notice everything. Both are correct.

It can be a little hard to explain. How the hell does one explain how sound works? 

“It’s actually a lot simpler than you think. It’s all about magnetism. And so if you think about it like, so I’m speaking into it into a microphone right here, right? There’s a membrane on that microphone. So when I push air the membrane vibrates, and what that does is that’s connected to a magnet, which makes a positive and a negative imprint of the signal, which becomes an electrical signal.

“It’s a magnet connected to a membrane that vibrates. So, it’s the simplest of electrical technologies. It is kind of mind-boggling in the sense that we can just use a magnet inside of another magnet to make an electrical sound.”

Sure, that’s how it works if you look back to Thomas Edison or RCA chains. But what about the digital world we live in today? 

“What we simply do with digital now is we take those vibrations and we digitize them, we turn them into computer ones and zeros for storage. 

“But the actual making of sound or capturing of sound is that it’s all about magnetism. That’s really all it is.”

Pretty cool, huh? 

KEF has been a pioneer and a leader in the audio industry. Along with the other big boys like Bose or Sennheiser, KEF is one such audio company you can rely on for the best quality sound you could ask for. 

KEF has just celebrated its 60th anniversary and is still going strong. They’re also not “purists” when it comes to the debate between earbuds and headphones or digital and vinyl. Each has their own role, their own strengths and weaknesses. And KEF provides the best quality sound for whatever your taste may be.