Thought to share as I know you KEF owners appreciate a journey.
Back in late 2015 my mom passed and I had a little "to remember her by." She was always my supporter when I was a kid who loved music, providing me with whatever stereo I "spec'd out" from catalogs. I chose a pair of KEF R500's, getting a floor demo pair. Over the next year I added the matching R200c center, R100 surrounds, and later, R50 Atmos-enabled speakers. An SVS SB2000 filled in the bottom end. What I learned too late was that the room was acoustically horrible, my wife (a huge movie watcher) hated surround sound almost as much as subwoofers.
Meanwhile I decided to build a nice 2-ch office system, and picked up a used pair f LS50's in frosted black/blue driver. Eventually I added an NAD M10 and twin Kube 10b subs. The office is a much smaller, acoustically better space. a nice turntable and a Schiit Mani phono stage, the office was great. A few months back a friend offered me a pair of new LS50 Meta (passive) for $1k. I bit. Now where to put the original LS50's? Guest bedroom. A friend got me a Carver M-1.5t amp for $100, and I had an M&K sub that had been totally reworked. Wow. Turns out this room is, incredibly, the acoustically best room in the house! The LS50's sound so good!
My dealer posted on Facebook that they got in 3 pairs of the obsoleted color (v1?) Reference 1's, plus a couple pairs of 3's and 5's. The Reference 1's offered at $5k for $8k speakers, B-stock, That got me thinking, why should I keep this living room R series set if no one listens to it and it doesn't sound great in the room any how? Sold everything but the NAD T758v3 receiver. Bought a used passive soundbar KEF HTF8003 for $201.50 on eBay, It's a long, 3-channel soundbar. My dealer ordered me a pair of T101 wall mount speakers, and I borrowed a Kube 10b sub from the office. Now I got surround sound for the few concert DVD's or football games a year that I watch.
Last night I picked a pair of Reference 1's that I had put a deposit on last week. With all I sold and bought in the past couple weeks, my out-of-pocket for the $8K speakers discounted to $5k...was $1141. When I got them out of the car, I noticed something weird. The label didn't read "Satin Walnut", it said "Silver Walnut." OMG, these are the new design. It's more than just color change to the woofer, they also changed the aluminum front baffle color and incorporated the trim ring for the woofer right into the machining of the plate. These things blow my mind.
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The attached pic are not my speakers but someone changed the binding posts to 5 way from the original horrible spring clips which mine have. If anyone has done this, is this difficult and is it dangerously near the crossover? Also if it is fairly easy, can someone recommend where I can purchase the better posts as pictured. I would prefer the ones on the left. I am concerned about doing this because my nickname used to be "Destructo" lol!
new KEF owner here. Thanks to AK member- rickb119 for pointing me here. I acquired a pair of 103/3 speakers with stands in pretty good shape except for the bottom LF driver needing a new donut, couple little dings in the cabinets.... and of course the PO could not find the Kube! While scouring the web for a replacement Kube , I went ahead and ordered the replacement foam seal and some ferrofluid to refresh the tweeters, and completed some TLC on the cabinets. These are cleaning up pretty nice, but the not having the Kube is bumming me out as I've read that the 103/3's really do need it to sound good.
