R107 Kef Karma!

Having been lucky enough to have a pair of the Kef Reference 107 to listen to at the store I worked at long ago, I have kept vivid memories of how great they could be when well set up. They have been at the the very top of my watch list for a while.They are fairly rare beasts around here and getting them shipped in is pretty much out of the question due to their size, complexity, not to mention the need to check the state of their alomost inevitable woofer rot.

I saw a pair for sale a while ago in town and was not surprised when I recognized the seller's name on the response he sent to my questions. Sure enough, he was an Audiocentre customer and the Kef's came from us. It took a while for us to hook up, but it finally came together over the last two days. They are in pretty good shape but they do have a few marks. As I was getting them ready to take away, I recognized a few of the marks. Not only were these from our store, these were the very demo pair I had been listening to all those years ago!

These are an early pair with the captive leads on the Kube. I had read that some early pairs had rubber woofer surrounds and I was hoping that I would find that was the case here and I would not have to replace all of the surrounds. Opening them up and pulling out the foam pads, I was disappointed to see a foam surround on the first woofer I checked. But an intact one...As was the second. The third one checked out also. I decided that there was no point checking the last one and went about setting them up. I have no idea why these surrounds and donuts survived while so many others have crumbled. Maybe there was very good climate control in the building that housed them for the last couple of decades.

For starters I have simply replaced the 103.3 in my living room system which consists of a CR-2040 and a Yamaha multi CDP. Hardly the type of partnering equipment, particularly the source, they deserve but good enough to see if they work. The bass is much tighter than on my 103.3. In fact, sometimes there seems to be much less bass, until some frequency too low to be heard on the 103.3 jumps out of the 107. There was one live cut on the Oscar Peterson Pablo box set that I had to skip over. It was fine on the 103.3, but on the 107 it was obvious that one of the mics was placed way too close to something and the resulting very low bass thumping made it feel like the walls were about to come down. The remastered Abbey Road CD was much less boomy, but the sheer weight of Ringo's drumming was astounding.Right now I am listening to "The Intimate Ella" and it really sounds like she is in the next room. When I sit in front of the speakers and listen, the dynamic range in her voice is startling even when she is not singing loud.

I am about to go out of town for a few days, but when I get back I will (get help to) cart them down to the basement where the real fun will begin. Not to knock the Yamaha that normally does a great job in the living room, but things will get more serious downstairs. I will get to try various combinations of Bryston, Cyrus, Meridian, Nak not to mention some vinyl. Should be fun. I wonder if the Mirage M-3Si will hold their own?

Here are some pictures. Emma is not sure what to make of these big, noisy things.

Congrats!! You sound like a kid on Christmas morning! It's such a great feeling, isn't it?

It is a great feeling. Right now I have "Raising Sand" by Krauss/Plant playing. The bass is titanic, a huge physical presence. Even while the loudest low notes are pounding away the voices remain completely open and clear.

I have never seen the power needles on the CR-2040 dance like this before. Still staying well away from overload or even half power, but getting a good workout on the 107s compared to the 103.2 or 103.3. I am not worried about the Yamaha. For years it was driving a pair of Gale GS-401C, speakers that acquired a nasty reputation for actually blowing up unworthy amps.

Great story about a great pair of speakers :thmbsp:.

Congrats on your acquisition.

I love that you got the exact ones that made you fall in love with that model. Small world...congratulations and happy listening.

Hows the pusser (cat) like them?

Hi Ray

Did you buy them from David this weekend? If so, I was the other tentative buyer. I wanted the 107 but as they didn't come with the covers, I bailed out.

Anyway, you'll be happy with these speakers.

Those are superb speakers, I don´t need to teel you that.

They really should be placed further apart to give off their best, though.

Hi Lee,

Yes, I got them from David. I saw your post on CAM and I believe that was also you on the Kef Speaker Talk Forum. I was going to send you an e-mail to let you know I had taken them after you had passed. The covers disappeared during a clean out of the Audiocentre empty box room. The guys throwing out the boxes were not aware we had stored the covers in them!

And don't worry Hi Fi Nut. When I get them wrestled into the basement some time this weekend they will be set up properly. They were just set up in the living room for basic testing.

BTW: The foam "donuts" for the centers of the KEF 104 and 107 woofers are now available. Not cheap... we've ordered several sets for customers... but they work just fine.

Regards,
Gordon.

Hi Gordon,

Where do you soruce them? For my 103.3 I got them from Midwest Speaker Repair. Not cheap for what they are, but at $9.95 each it worth it to bring some nice speakers back to life. Orange County Speaker that has a complete 107 refoam kit, 4 donuts and 8 surrounds with glue, with a regular price of $100 on sale for $80.

Hey Raynald. I am sure you'll be extremely happy with them. I passed on David's 107 only because I knew I wouldn't be able to source the top covers. Anyway, I have been offered two sets of 105/2, and even though they are different beasts, they'll do until I find another set of 107 or 107/2 on my path... And after reading your story, I am sure that the 107s had to be yours. You were destined to be reunited.

I will start modifying my Cantata's crossovers as soon as the 105/2 are in my basement.

Lee, you are probably right, those covers are likely unobtanium with Kef now really being a new and different company. I never cared for them personally anyway. They put a wood piece in each corner that really messed up the sound so they were just for cosmetic reasons between listening sessions. You may have noticed in the pictures I have even pulled off the metal grilles. I always found it funny that the only negative comment about the 107s was the slight lack of transparency compared to the best others had to offer in that area. Many believed that the Kube was to blame. If you were a minimimalist who believed that any extra connection or circuit was ruinous to sound quality, you simply could not accept owning a 107 no matter how good they sounded to you. Others blamed the tweeter. This was the era when many speakers were beginning to offer metal dome tweeters and many blamed the Kef's shortcoming on the fabric domed T33. Given the most transparent box speaker I have ever heard, the ProAc Response 2, used a Scanspeak fabric dome the material was not necessarily the problem. I thought it more likely the real problem had to do with listening through those fairly heavy metal grilles over the tweeter and midrange. Our Kef rep, Michel Girard who was the most professional audio rep I have ever dealt with and is now the Canadian Grado distributor, was horrified. He told me the Kefs were designed to give a flat response with the grilles in place and removing them would mess up the balance and it was not needed anyway as they were accoustically transparent. On this point I respectfully disagreed with Michel. Whenever I played the 107s stock for someone and then removed the grilles, they felt the same way I did. The speakers just came alive and opened up. Any lack of transparency was no longer an issue and the tonal balance was fine.

I find the same goes for the 105.2. They are lovely speakers and you will be very happy with them (and I suspect have some pocket change left over compared to acquiring a pair of 107s!), I found a pair for a good friend of mine and he loves them. I played them with and without the grilles and he and his wife heard the difference right away, both preferring without. Give it a try. You may also like them better that way. If not, you can just put them back on.

And Oldskl, to answer your question, Emma is reacting in an amusing way to them. She generally does not like loud music, especially if it has a lot of bass. But sometimes when there is something with really low notes that just seem to go through the floor, she will come over and sit beside one of the Kefs. Maybe the cat equivalent of sitting in a massage chair?