KEF Vintage Speakers
- Thread starter gerlando
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oldius
Manchester City, dogs, family and food.
I have experience of the 103, 103.2 and 104.2 within the reference range.
The first is a very traditional, BBC monitor sound, sealed teak cabinet, and leather bound steel baffle.
The second, a cooler sound than the 103, more noticeably extended in the treble. Again a sealed cabinet.
The latter, a ported floorstander needing a larger space, but a wonderful speaker also.
The first is a very traditional, BBC monitor sound, sealed teak cabinet, and leather bound steel baffle.
The second, a cooler sound than the 103, more noticeably extended in the treble. Again a sealed cabinet.
The latter, a ported floorstander needing a larger space, but a wonderful speaker also.
calorgas
Generic middle-aged man
I've had Chorale, Cadenza, 104ab, and I also had some 103.2.
I really liked the 103.2, they worked really well in my room with a variety of amps. Very BBC I thought.
I wasn't quite so taken by the others iirc though I had them quite a long time ago so I'm not sure I really trust my memory now, but I do remember the Cadenza being a bit dominated by the hefty bass. I think if I could choose to try one of the other three again then it would be the 104ab.
I really liked the 103.2, they worked really well in my room with a variety of amps. Very BBC I thought.
I wasn't quite so taken by the others iirc though I had them quite a long time ago so I'm not sure I really trust my memory now, but I do remember the Cadenza being a bit dominated by the hefty bass. I think if I could choose to try one of the other three again then it would be the 104ab.
Beobloke
pfm Member
Funny, I had some beautiful white 104ABs a few years ago and their woolly, flabby bass helped me to formulate my yet-to-be-disproved theory that the only companies who ever managed to get ABRs working successfully were Celestion and Goodmans!
A pair of Cantor 3s have recently found their way to me so it’ll be interesting to try them.
A pair of Cantor 3s have recently found their way to me so it’ll be interesting to try them.
Mark Packer
All Rev'd up!
I've had 104/2 Refs for c. 8 years and they were outstanding speakers. Quite large, with a beautifully lush midrange.
Hoopsontoast
pfm Member
Of 'Vintage' I've only had the Reference 103 (mk1) which I thought sounded OK, nice enough with reasonable bass but the treble was a bit rolled off. Very nicely made though.
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
I currently have a pair of Reference 102 (mk1), although later, from the late 80s I believe, they really are very good. Nice smooth midrange and treble, nicely balanced bass up against the wall, I have to say, very hard to fault especially for the price they go for! I've had the RDM1, somewhat similar to the 102, although less bass, even with wall reinforcement, really needs a subwoofer to be usable or a tiny room.
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
KEF RDM1 by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
Also had Reference 104/2, Reference Three-Two, as well as the much newer Reference 201/2 but all larger/more expensive, although the 104/2 can be had quite cheap still, around £500 in decent condition although the bass driver foams degrade, its quite an easy job to do as they are designed to be serviced/taken apart.
Kef Reference 104/2 by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
I currently have a pair of Reference 102 (mk1), although later, from the late 80s I believe, they really are very good. Nice smooth midrange and treble, nicely balanced bass up against the wall, I have to say, very hard to fault especially for the price they go for! I've had the RDM1, somewhat similar to the 102, although less bass, even with wall reinforcement, really needs a subwoofer to be usable or a tiny room.
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
KEF RDM1 by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
Also had Reference 104/2, Reference Three-Two, as well as the much newer Reference 201/2 but all larger/more expensive, although the 104/2 can be had quite cheap still, around £500 in decent condition although the bass driver foams degrade, its quite an easy job to do as they are designed to be serviced/taken apart.
Kef Reference 104/2 by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
System by Robert Seymour, on Flickr
Tigerjones
Bagpuss
I bought some Coda MK3s last year. A pretty unremarkable speaker in every way.
Robn
pfm Member
Used to spend a lot of time at some friends when they had Chorales fed by an Armstrong 621 with a Micro Seiko TT source. It's many years ago but we enjoyed hundreds of hours of music through that system. It was warm and full bodied but lacking very deep bass.
My 'winter' speakers are an old pair of 104/2s. I love what they do, have fed them from all sorts of sources through an Exposure XVIIIS/XX1 set up previously and presently a Denon PMA1510 AE.
Some folk say they need more powerful amps to be heard at their best but I've been more than satisfied with these amps. They are slightly warm with excellent soundstaging (it took the Denon pairing to create this, less depth with the Exposures), good timing, beautifully articulated midrange, detailed yet smooth treble. The bass does roll of quickly at I'd guess about 60hz, I have recently added a sub woofer which extends the bass but more importantly and unexpectedly opens up the sound improving imagery and dynamics further. I did replace the original tweeters with Midwest Audio replicas that I imported from the US. The bass units on mine have rubber surrounds and seem fine. At some point I will replace the ferrofluid in the originals.
I've also heard the previous 104 which is lovely and warm sounding with to my ears a pronounced upper bass. I think it is a speaker that might by imposing itself so much might limit what you can hear.
My 'winter' speakers are an old pair of 104/2s. I love what they do, have fed them from all sorts of sources through an Exposure XVIIIS/XX1 set up previously and presently a Denon PMA1510 AE.
Some folk say they need more powerful amps to be heard at their best but I've been more than satisfied with these amps. They are slightly warm with excellent soundstaging (it took the Denon pairing to create this, less depth with the Exposures), good timing, beautifully articulated midrange, detailed yet smooth treble. The bass does roll of quickly at I'd guess about 60hz, I have recently added a sub woofer which extends the bass but more importantly and unexpectedly opens up the sound improving imagery and dynamics further. I did replace the original tweeters with Midwest Audio replicas that I imported from the US. The bass units on mine have rubber surrounds and seem fine. At some point I will replace the ferrofluid in the originals.
I've also heard the previous 104 which is lovely and warm sounding with to my ears a pronounced upper bass. I think it is a speaker that might by imposing itself so much might limit what you can hear.
Snufkin
pfm Member
I also acquired a pair recently with some other equipment. They are OK but ‘unremarkable’ sums them up. They are not shouty, perhaps they are a little thin sounding but they are perfectly respectable. However my Mordaunt-Short Pageant S2’s are a much more satisfying speaker.
rontoolsie
pfm Member
A guy in my Uni dorm had some 104ABs (these rooms were maybe 4m in maximum length) with full monty LP12/Ittok/Asak/Nytech 225XD.
The very fruity bass of the 104's along with similar attributes in the Asak made the entire hallway drone.
Fortunately he listened to almost exclusively Judy Tzuke, that didn't have prodigous amounts of bass.
And the guy next door to him also had LP12/Ittok/Asak (these were the days when the local Educational Board grants afforded decent audio), but with Active Nytech/ARC 101s. and the dynamics and bass control he got shamed the 104ABs.
We sometimes went room to room playing the same LP just to compare them.
Geoffreybombom
pfm Member
Kef Calindas were quite good
rontoolsie
pfm Member
Another story about KEFs....the grad student I lived with decided he needed new speakers to go along with his Rega3/Nytech 252. Understandable given he was using some ancient speakers from a Rigonda music center.
So we drove from St. Andrews to Montrose to visit Robert Ritchie, who of course said that the only way to really judge the speakers was to try them at home. So he helped us load three pairs of speakers (KEF Concorde, ARC101 and a third pair that I cannot remember) into his Skoda and told is to bring them back in a couple weeks once we decided.
Now, we had never met Robert Ritchie before and he had no idea who we were, yet he let us walk away with those speakers without even so much as a deposit. His response to our suggestion that we leave a deposit was to say...."Nay, ah'll ken ye".
For some reason the KEF Concordes sounded better than the ARC101 and the other speakers in the room we set them up in.
And two weeks later we drove back with the remaining 2 pair of speakers and paid for the Concordes.
So we drove from St. Andrews to Montrose to visit Robert Ritchie, who of course said that the only way to really judge the speakers was to try them at home. So he helped us load three pairs of speakers (KEF Concorde, ARC101 and a third pair that I cannot remember) into his Skoda and told is to bring them back in a couple weeks once we decided.
Now, we had never met Robert Ritchie before and he had no idea who we were, yet he let us walk away with those speakers without even so much as a deposit. His response to our suggestion that we leave a deposit was to say...."Nay, ah'll ken ye".
For some reason the KEF Concordes sounded better than the ARC101 and the other speakers in the room we set them up in.
And two weeks later we drove back with the remaining 2 pair of speakers and paid for the Concordes.
I've always felt that if the ABR is larger than the bass/mid then problems arise - for example RAM 200/DS80 with 8" bass/mid and 10" ABR compared to RAM 150/DS70 with 8" bass/mid and 8"ABR.
The 150/DS70 was a far better balanced speaker.
The Goodmans Achromat Sigma had the same problems as the RAM 200/DS80 and indeed the KEF 104/104ab - 8" bass/mid and a 10" (or equivalent as in the case of the 104/104ab) ABR.
Beobloke
pfm Member
Interesting that you mention the Goodmans Achromat Sigma, as I still think they are one of the best implementations of an ABR that I've heard.
Update, too - I tried out the KEF Cantor 3s that I mentioned upthread last night. Not bad. Not bad at all.
I have owned RAM 150, Goodmans Achromat Sigma, KEF 104ab and RAM 200 and I would judge the sound balance to be best starting with the RAM 150 and descending in the order I have listed them.
It would have been interesting if Goodmans had made a model with the same size ABR as the bass/mid as per the RAM 150 - the Hitachi v-pleat surround ensured really good bass control.
It's a pity that the Kappa/Sigma 8" bass/mid units suffer from pigtail connection problems and are very difficult to repair. That's why you see so many Kappa/Sigmas with non standard bass/mid units.
Interestingly, I never had any such problems with the smaller Beta model and although it didn't have the v-pleat surround, I don't think that's the reason why.
I had many pairs of Beta, Kappa and Sigma and found them all very nice sounding speakers and were/still are greatly underated - shamefully ignored by the ridiculously biased hi-fi press at the time.
Beobloke
pfm Member
Indeed.
I often find that Goodmans are still tarred with the brush of being cheap and not comparable to the likes of other classic British manufactures like KEF, Spendor, B&W etc. Personally I think this grossly unfair, as whilst they definitely made a few howlers in their time, they also made some superb models that performed well above their price points.
Had 104/2 long ago. Loved them but didn't have enough power nor space for them.
Ref 101, somehow in my place they perform better than many standmounts, like 1sc's, T&F Arts, and many more. I've had their X/O recapped. Heard them once with a good 180W amp, that was a revelation, I've yet to explore this path.
Ref 102 with Kube - nice bass but didn't have that midrange of the 101 or LS3/5. Not bad but weren't spectacular IMO.
Ref 101, somehow in my place they perform better than many standmounts, like 1sc's, T&F Arts, and many more. I've had their X/O recapped. Heard them once with a good 180W amp, that was a revelation, I've yet to explore this path.
Ref 102 with Kube - nice bass but didn't have that midrange of the 101 or LS3/5. Not bad but weren't spectacular IMO.
foxwelljsly
Me too, I ate one sour too.
I use 104/2s with a Leak Stereo 20 and they sound fabulous. At 4r and 92 dB they really don’t need a lot of power. Unless you want to exploit their trick of going louder than a Who concert.
Hoopsontoast
pfm Member
Yeah I used the 104/2s with a Puresound A10 (EL84 10wpc) which was a great match, a big Sony TA-F770ES was better at real high volumes but not really needed, unless you are into Drum and Bass. Only downside of the 104/2s I found I could not get the bass even enough when placed anywhere near the rear walls, that's with refoamed bass drivers.