KEF 104ab advice sought

[Nordfors]

Before my recent purchase of KEF 104ab's I scoured these pages for insights and opinions, which was, as usual, endlesslesly entertaining and helpful. Thank you everyone past and present for your contributions here. I've hooked them up and they sound great. Fully functional, maybe a recap in their future, but good for now other than some cabinet refinishing. So, the hunt for a synergistic power source begins. It was repeatedly mentioned they need "100 watts" to wake them up, or bring out their best. I understand the efficiency to be around 85-86db, but a fairly consistent 8ohm load.

My question is: Has anyone run KEF 104ab's with a high quality but lower watt amp/integrated/receiver with good results? Say 40 to 70 watt range? If so, please lt me know. I don't own any high watt gear at the mooment, as my listening spaces are smallish to mid size, and sadly there seem to be no raging house parties in my near future! Gear I have in line to try these with currently - NAD 7240PE, Pioneer SX 780, HK430 (always suprises me)........I understand these are fairly wimpy compared to what lots of folks are running, but all 3 sound very good. So far, I would describe the KEF's as warm sounding and may pair well with a more neutral amp. My thought would be that quality high current and headroom, and maybe a decent damping factor should get me where I need to be, but please, I'd love to hear anyones experience.

Some gear I'm considering: HK690i, Kenwood KA8100, Hitachi SR904.
But not in a rush and open to suggestions and corrections if I'm way off the mark.

Thanks!

 

[bhairavi]

You'll always have people saying that more watts opens up speakers and people (me) saying the difference isn't even worth commenting on.

My KEF 104/2s sounded great with low-medium watt (25-50) Sansuis, they might have had sliiightly deeper bass when I ran them with a Musical Concepts-modified B&K EX442(200 wpc).

 

[kmagnuss]

Here's my different but somewhat relevant experience:

I have KEF 104/2's... obviously a different speaker but nearly everyone on the planet say the "NEED" 100 watts and above to 'make them sing'. Man I ran them on a Marantz 2015 (15 watts per channel) and they sound great. BUT... they do sound better with my Marantz 2230 (30 watts per channel). They do not sound any better with my Marantz SR4000 (50 watts per channel). But who knows... maybe they really do sound better with 100 watts and up. I would never use that sort of power in my room.

 

[dksp]

I use my KEF 104ab's (recapped about 10 years ago) with following amps (specifications according to hifi engine):

Yamaha A-1 – 80W @ 8Ω – damping factor 100
Yamaha CA-810 – 65W @ 8Ω – damping factor 30
Sansui AU-555 – 20W @ 8Ω – damping factor 12 or 45 (switchable)
JVC VN-300 – 15W @ 8Ω – damping factor 30

All these amps manage to drive the speakers at reasonable volume. My preferred amp is the Yamaha A-1, it handles the bass the best, and it has the best phono section.
CA-810 and AU-555 are equal. The JVC is less convincing, less fun to listen to. I don't know if the damping factor has to do with it, might be.

I have other amps, but haven's used them with those speakers recently so I don't really remember how it sounded.

 

[sound hound]

So far, I would describe the KEF's as warm sounding and may pair well with a more neutral amp. My thought would be that quality high current and headroom, and maybe a decent damping factor should get me where I need to be, but please, I'd love to hear anyone's experience.

Nice speaker. I wonder what they would sound like with a class D amp?

 

[A400]

If they have original caps I’d make that the priority. At least some of those caps will be miles out of spec by now and will make more of a difference than the amp.

Like others in this thread I’ve run mine with a range of amps, including an old mini chip amp that would be lucky to make 10 W. They still sounded great but obviously volume is limited with low power, and I’m careful in any case due to the driver age and scarcity.

 

[leesonic]

I have run my KEF 104aB on a NAD 3020 amp for many years. What's more important than absolute power is an amplifiers ability to produce peak current. Normal speakers rarely have an impedance curve that's ruler flat at 8ohms, most of them dip below this, and some of them by a quite significant amount. If your amp struggles with this, then it is going to run out of steam.