KEF owners thread
- Thread starter matteos
- Start date
Hi All,
New KEF fanboy checking in! New to me 104/2’s picked up this week from a fellow AK’er @Gruvin'.
Well cared for speakers that have highly impressed me with their clarity! I am running them with 40wpc @ 8 Kenwood KR-4070. They sound sooo good! Can’t wait to set them up properly.View attachment 3509479
Congrats and welcome to the KEF owners fold! I know how good those are, as I've restored two pairs of those and one pair of the 105/3. My son got the first pair of 104/2 that I did.
Congrats on acquiring a very nice pair of excellent sounding speakers.Hi All,
New KEF fanboy checking in! New to me 104/2’s picked up this week from a fellow AK’er @Gruvin'.
Well cared for speakers that have highly impressed me with their clarity! I am running them with 40wpc @ 8 Kenwood KR-4070. They sound sooo good! Can’t wait to set them up properly.View attachment 3509479
Currently listening to Mendelssohn: Symphony #4 with mine.
codacodi
New Member
I forgot to add - These are so pretty! Under stated, enough of a presence but also I can see them blend in so well.
I have been listening to some Motown for the last hour.
Hi All,
New KEF fanboy checking in! New to me 104/2’s picked up this week from a fellow AK’er @Gruvin'.
Well cared for speakers that have highly impressed me with their clarity! I am running them with 40wpc @ 8 Kenwood KR-4070. They sound sooo good! Can’t wait to set them up properly.
Congratulations! I have a pair in walnut just like those. If you think you like the sound now, you should try it with more power. I think the sweet spot for those is somewhere between 100 and 200wpc, but you don't have to have the latest and greatest. I'm running them with a Proton D1200, which - like the 104/2 - was designed with musical transients in mind. They're perfectly matched, or at least I think so.
Mystic
We're all born mad
It has now been 11 years since I left The States, and while I don't miss much back there, I do miss my KEF 104 AB set and even more (appealing to me) my 104/2 set w/ the darned lovely rosewood veneer cabinet finish. It's unlikely I will ever find again, at this point of life, a second set of 104/2 speakers like those ... not in all of the EU and (pretty certain) not in Kenya.Hi All,
New KEF fanboy checking in! New to me 104/2’s picked up this week from a fellow AK’er @Gruvin'.
Well cared for speakers that have highly impressed me with their clarity! I am running them with 40wpc @ 8 Kenwood KR-4070. They sound sooo good! Can’t wait to set them up properly.View attachment 3509479
My 104/2 set handled everything -- '50s Be-Bop, '50s Doo-Wop, Prewar Delta and '50s Chicago Electric Blues, '60s R&B ~ Soul, anythng "classical" and even METAL very very well.
arts
Addicted Member
My first pair of "good" speakers were my 104/2's (also rosewood) and I still have them. Many others have come and gone, but these will have a home here forever.
When it comes to their ability to handle everything, I couldn't agree more. This is what makes a truly great speaker; I can go from chamber music right on up to live Humble Pie and it always sounds perfect.
My only complaint is that they are very deceptive about just how loudly they are playing. I'll put something on, wander around the house for a bit, and when I come back into the living room, I'm wondering "holy crap, why is that so loud??"
Mystic
We're all born mad
I, too have noticed this deceptively loudness aspect of the 104/2 ... but since a decade of heavy boots on the ground soldiering circa 1978-1988 left me w/ only around 50% of full hearing sense, that followed by another 35+ years of ever-advancing tinnitus + "aging" and , say, 35% of full hearing sense, not much is loud any longer.My first pair of "good" speakers were my 104/2's (also rosewood) and I still have them. Many others have come and gone, but these will have a home here forever.
When it comes to their ability to handle everything, I couldn't agree more. This is what makes a truly great speaker; I can go from chamber music right on up to live Humble Pie and it always sounds perfect.
My only complaint is that they are very deceptive about just how loudly they are playing. I'll put something on, wander around the house for a bit, and when I come back into the living room, I'm wondering "holy crap, why is that so loud??"
Hawkeye83
Super Member
I've experienced the same with my 107's, although some of that is my house layout. But yeah LOL.My first pair of "good" speakers were my 104/2's (also rosewood) and I still have them. Many others have come and gone, but these will have a home here forever.
When it comes to their ability to handle everything, I couldn't agree more. This is what makes a truly great speaker; I can go from chamber music right on up to live Humble Pie and it always sounds perfect.
My only complaint is that they are very deceptive about just how loudly they are playing. I'll put something on, wander around the house for a bit, and when I come back into the living room, I'm wondering "holy crap, why is that so loud??"
I switched the 104/2 from the Proton D1200 to a Sumo Andromeda thats been gathering dust here, with an Adcom GFP-565 preamp and GCD-575 CD player - a very good combination.
Markoneswift
Quartz locked n ready to rock
Quick update on my !04/2 - temporarily reassembled (to stop bits getting lost) while I wait for new woofer parts (coils and spiders). I had to install all-new T-nuts (not sure what they're called in the States, the captive threaded nuts on the inside of the cabinet) throughout both cabinets due to severe corrosion of the original parts. There was a lot of cabinet damage inflicted by me when trying to get the rusted old bolts out. Hopefully I've managed to repair the cabinets sufficiently and thankfully most of the areas of damage are covered by the huge front covers!
On the subject of covers - do owners of the 104/2 run theirs with covers on or off? I read in the original KEF manual that the covers are designed to remain on the speakers as they form part of the structure for forming the audio output and act as a partial transmission line for the bass port (aiming the output of that port somewhat downward).
On the subject of covers - do owners of the 104/2 run theirs with covers on or off? I read in the original KEF manual that the covers are designed to remain on the speakers as they form part of the structure for forming the audio output and act as a partial transmission line for the bass port (aiming the output of that port somewhat downward).
Those of us who sold these speakers back in the 80s would say : go do whatever KEF suggests, those gents knew their craft. The guys at ASR would tell you thats all snake oil, and there's no difference when playing a single speaker with or without a grill in an anechoic chamber using pink sound driven by a 100 watt class D IcePower amp and measured at 1 watt / 1 meter.
The folks on this forum however, will tell you - rightly - go use your ears and run these the way you like them.
Markoneswift
Quartz locked n ready to rock
That's a pretty good assessment. From looking at the construction of these covers, they are built much more like a wave guide than a frame to hang some fabric on. Personally, I would lean towards the 'KEF engineers knew what they were doing' camp and run with them on. Of course the other key thing is - being very front-heavy, these models in particular are very vulnerable to knocks and bumps to the twin mid-band drivers. As they are specific to this model, I really wouldn't like to try and repair them so I guess it's going to be covers on for me! I also think they look a bit bloody ugly without covers on lol.Those of us who sold these speakers back in the 80s would say : go do whatever KEF suggests, those gents knew their craft. The guys at ASR would tell you thats all snake oil, and there's no difference when playing a single speaker with or without a grill in an anechoic chamber using pink sound driven by a 100 watt class D IcePower amp and measured at 1 watt / 1 meter.
The folks on this forum however, will tell you - rightly - go use your ears and run these the way you like them.
I read that paragraph and said "twin mid-band drivers, WTH is he talking about", and I had to read it a few more times before I realized I was so focused on the Reference 107 I just brought home that I forgot we were talking about the 104/2.
And I have the 104/2 sitting here, staring at me. I need sleep.
I don't know how I missed this thread when I bought a set of KEF R7 Meta floor standers in May. I just put some IsoAcoustics Gaia II feet on them. These speakers are simply amazing and they're really nice to look at too (Walnut veneer with copper colored drivers).
Mart Mccall
Well-Known Member
Was at a demo of the Reference 5 Meta not so long ago. Astonishingly good speakers and I don't say that lightly. I think you made a good choice there.
OK, I'll bite...what difference do the Isoacoustics Gaia II feet make for you? The same are recommended for my Blade 2 Meta speakers, though I'd have to spend even more because I would need their carpet spikes too and with that the total bill would be about $830!!
They got rid of a secondary reflection coming off the hardwood floor, making the bass/mid bass tighter. Vocals also improved but I think that is due to the Uni-Q driver being 1.25" higher up than it was before (closer to ear level). I was listening to Pink Floyd's Pulse and heard the female background singers chatting and Gilmore talking to Wright... amazing !
Not sure that these would do much for your speakers on carpet, most of the reviews I read that give them really high marks were from folks whose speakers were on hard floors.
I for the life of me cannot fathom how isolation pads under speakers could "rid of a secondary reflection coming off a hardwood floor." Don't sound reflections happen out in front of the speakers where only plush floor coverings would quell them?
Whatever makes your ear and brain happy is best, I say. Enjoy!
Apparently the reflection was going back up into the speakers. These feet let the speaker move about 1/4" front to back and side to side, the opposite of what spikes do which is kind of counter intuitive, but they work (you'd think a rigid connection to the floor would be better). The science behind it was long and boring, but proven, and most of us that use them are quite happy with the sound.
Edit: my son came over a little while ago, saw the new feet and remarked within a minute: "oh I get it, they work like an earthquake proof building in Japan"... great analogy !
Last edited:
