KEF Reference 104/2 Speakers

[jimi]

Prompted by Jonny69 's thread on retro amplifiers, I thought I'd post this. A friend of mine is refurbishing a pair of KEF Reference 104/2 speakers that he has owned for 30+ years. As part of the refurb he wanted to change all the crossover capacitors, I offered to do it for him as he wasn't confident in his soldering abilities. He supplied a kit of capacitors specifically designed for these KEF crossovers which he sourced from the USA.



Crossover with original caps before I started


Circuit side ( note the 30+ year old flux)


Caps removed


In progress


Second crossover


Both finished


And circuit side cleaned, including removing some 30+ year old flux


Pretty substantial crossovers they must weigh around 2lbs (just under a kilo) each

[vitesseefi]

I’ve coveted a pair of those ever since seeing/ hearing a pair demo’s by KEF at a HiFi show in the mid 80s. They’ve held their money well though, so I’m still without…..

How are the cone surrounds on the internal bass drivers holding up? They tend to fall apart….

Nick

[jimi]

The surrounds were fine, replaced the inner foam dust caps (doughnuts) He still has some work to do on the finish (a few scratches) this is them in situ




I don't think I've ever seen a bad review of them, evreyone seems to rate them highly. They certainly hold their price well, I hope you manage to find a pair at a reasonable price I would have a pair but they are a bit too big for my room, my own speakers are what you might call vintage as well but more at the lower end of the market at around £100 IIRC although that was a lot of money to me back then
I have a pair of Wharfdale Linton 3XP's that I bought new around 1976, they had a hard early life and suffered a bit. About 20 years ago I replaced the tweeters and recapped the crossovers and redid the finish in satin black, still in use today and sound great (to me at least)

[Jonny69]

That's a pretty substantial set of crossovers!

[jimi]

Biggest ones I've seen, the cores of those inductors are solid iron bar, the big ones must be 40/50 mm in dia. the crossovers are also a complete pain in the A... to remove/install in the cabinets !