Kestrel

About the Kestrel

The Meadowlark Audio Kestrel is a 36" tall, 8" wide, and 9" deep floorstanding speaker designed by Pat McGinty. It features a 1" fabric dome tweeter and a 6.5" cast frame mineral-filled poly cone woofer with long excursion. The speaker uses a first order transmission line design, which preserves the original music waveform and phase, resulting in exceptional spaciousness and naturalness. The sloped front baffle is time-aligned to ensure synchronous wave launch from the drivers, enhancing imaging and soundstage. The cabinet is heavily braced and damped to reduce resonances, with the crossover mounted in a separate subenclosure to minimize microphonics. It has a frequency response of approximately 38Hz to 20kHz, nominal impedance of 8 ohms, and sensitivity of 89dB. The Kestrel is praised for its tight, fast bass, excellent vocal and jazz reproduction, and fatigue-free listening experience. It is easy to place and works well with modest electronics, recommended with a minimum of 10 watts but benefits from higher power for improved presence and authority. The grille is a frameless slip-on design to avoid diffraction. The speakers are hand-built in the USA with high-quality components including polypropylene capacitors and air-core inductors, and feature gold-plated 5-way binding posts. The Kestrel has a cult following among audiophiles for delivering high-end performance at an affordable price point.