speaker connections

[Mikeandvan]

You appear to be going around and around.

You have described the KEFs quite nicely - flat and uninvolving and the 909 is not a 'soft' sounding amp. Ditch those KEFs and find something more to your taste by listening before you buy.

Yeh they were a bit of an impulse buy. Its difficult to get an idea of how components sound from reviews, which isn't helpful! As they are physically larger than the Charios I thought they would have a bigger more exciting sound stage, but exciting they ain't. Playing some John Martyn now and they're ok, but I need more of an all round speaker. I'll leave em in for a while anyway, they were £300 so not expensive, I think they'd be good for people with more pedestrian tastes in music.

[RMutt]

I think they'd be good for people with more pedestrian tastes in music.

That will be The Walker Brothers then.

[hifi_dave]

Yeh they were a bit of an impulse buy. Its difficult to get an idea of how components sound from reviews, which isn't helpful! As they are physically larger than the Charios I thought they would have a bigger more exciting sound stage, but exciting they ain't. Playing some John Martyn now and they're ok, but I need more of an all round speaker. I'll leave em in for a while anyway, they were £300 so not expensive, I think they'd be good for people with more pedestrian tastes in music.

You can't rely on 'reviews' or other people's opinions. You need to listen and make up your own mind. One man's 'exciting' is another man's in yer face. Smooth and relaxing might be slow and laid back etc. Listen, preferably in your room, before splashing the cash.

[AJSki2fly]

Yeh they were a bit of an impulse buy. Its difficult to get an idea of how components sound from reviews, which isn't helpful! As they are physically larger than the Charios I thought they would have a bigger more exciting sound stage, but exciting they ain't. Playing some John Martyn now and they're ok, but I need more of an all round speaker. I'll leave em in for a while anyway, they were £300 so not expensive, I think they'd be good for people with more pedestrian tastes in music.

Mike it will not be the Quad 909, and I had some Reference 3.2's and also auditioned Model 2's as well and neither would I describe as laid back. However I did know that they can be affected tonally by the type of cable used with them. I used a Monitor Power 4mm silver cable (silvered copper) supplied by Guidlford Hifi where I got them from, a pair of 5m Bi-wires 20 years ago were £320, so now about 2 to 3 times that. I did try them with some pure copper and I noticed then that they had a more relaxed feel to them, so it may be as simple as speaker and cable matching.

The other thing I noticed is your sound may benefit form slightly toeing in each speaker a little about 1/2" each, this should give you better focus, depth and soundstage. If when in your listening position you ears are above the tweeter then adjust the feet/spike so that the speakers tilt slightly back so the tweeters are aiming towards your heard, do it the other way if you head is naturally below them.

The other aspect to consider is in your room your speaker are firing down it and they look about 6-8 feet apart, which is fine, this will mean the optimum listening position is so that you are 6-8 feet away from each as in an equilateral triangle, or you could try 6-8 feet times 1.2 away. This will give you the natural sweet spot. If you are sitting further way then thing get tricky. From my experience you then need to nearly double the distance away form the speakers and a little less toe in, you will need to experiment to find the best spot depending on your room. If in your current listening position you are virtually back against the wall then you are likely to be getting low-mid frequency enhancement and this will greatly affect the overall sound and may make it sound a bit dead. If that is your only listening spot then hanging heavy fabrics in the corners to stop reflections if the best option. You can experiment with old blankets or duvets, before you go mad and buy stuff. I think you will be surprised at how much it can affect to sound.

Lastly someone mentioned the inner bass drivers may not be working properly if the foam/rubber has failed. Find some bass heavy music and put it on not too loud, and then listen to each speaker with your ear near the port, if the speaker surrounds have failed you are likely to hear distortion. Also check no one has left acoustic foams down the ports, this has caught me out and not so long ago.

I hope this may help.

Cheers

Adrian

[Mikeandvan]

Mike it will not be the Quad 909, and I had some Reference 3.2's and also auditioned Model 2's as well and neither would I describe as laid back. However I did know that they can be affected tonally by the type of cable used with them. I used a Monitor Power 4mm silver cable (silvered copper) supplied by Guidlford Hifi where I got them from, a pair of 5m Bi-wires 20 years ago were £320, so now about 2 to 3 times that. I did try them with some pure copper and I noticed then that they had a more relaxed feel to them, so it may be as simple as speaker and cable matching.

The other thing I noticed is your sound may benefit form slightly toeing in each speaker a little about 1/2" each, this should give you better focus, depth and soundstage. If when in your listening position you ears are above the tweeter then adjust the feet/spike so that the speakers tilt slightly back so the tweeters are aiming towards your heard, do it the other way if you head is naturally below them.

The other aspect to consider is in your room your speaker are firing down it and they look about 6-8 feet apart, which is fine, this will mean the optimum listening position is so that you are 6-8 feet away from each as in an equilateral triangle, or you could try 6-8 feet times 1.2 away. This will give you the natural sweet spot. If you are sitting further way then thing get tricky. From my experience you then need to nearly double the distance away form the speakers and a little less toe in, you will need to experiment to find the best spot depending on your room. If in your current listening position you are virtually back against the wall then you are likely to be getting low-mid frequency enhancement and this will greatly affect the overall sound and may make it sound a bit dead. If that is your only listening spot then hanging heavy fabrics in the corners to stop reflections if the best option. You can experiment with old blankets or duvets, before you go mad and buy stuff. I think you will be surprised at how much it can affect to sound.

Lastly someone mentioned the inner bass drivers may not be working properly if the foam/rubber has failed. Find some bass heavy music and put it on not too loud, and then listen to each speaker with your ear near the port, if the speaker surrounds have failed you are likely to hear distortion. Also check no one has left acoustic foams down the ports, this has caught me out and not so long ago.

I hope this may help.

Cheers

Adrian

Hi Adrian, Its all sounding better now for whatever reason, playing some David Sylvian and its a fair bit better than the Charios, more depth, better soundstage, timbre etc. Played some UK garage earlier as you said to play something bass heavy, that certainly is! It was all fine, not surprisingly these are quite bass shy speakers, what with the drivers being inside the speaker, for my room I think these speakers were a good choice for this reason, there certainly is'nt bass boom now. I haven;t given them my trademark 'bunch of kittens scratching away at a gutair' Kinks/stones/ 60s rock treatment yet, no doubt they won't up to much, is any high end equipment good for that sound? I did toe them in a bit this morning actually, that might have helped things. I'm certainly looking forward to playing some more music with these beasties, only tried a tiny part of my collection as yet, Jazz trumpets will be another challenge I'm sure!

[Edward]

Mike, what did you decide on how to connect up the biwire links and also are all drivers working? Lack of slam and lack of excitement which you mentioned possibly point to one or more drivers not working. Alternatively the caps on the crossovers needs refreshing. Kefs definitely should be exciting and have slam.

[Mikeandvan]

Mike, what did you decide on how to connect up the biwire links and also are all drivers working? Lack of slam and lack of excitement which you mentioned possibly point to one or more drivers not working. Alternatively the caps on the crossovers needs refreshing. Kefs definitely should be exciting and have slam.

I just put some old copper speaker cable between the terminals.

IMG_20191008_130815952_HDR by Mike Van, on Flickr

Rather dominate my living room! As you can see rather limited in positioning.
IMG_20191006_201155863_HDR by Mike Van, on Flickr

How would I know whether any of the drivers aren't working? 2 of them are inside the cabinet!

[Stryder5]

I would have fed the speaker cable into the LF terminals and the links ( wires whatever) to the HF.

May not make any difference but I would do it that way.

Gary

[Mikeandvan]

I would have fed the speaker cable into the LF terminals and the links ( wires whatever) to the HF.

May not make any difference but I would do it that way.

Gary

I didn't wanna rip the plugs off!

[Bigman80]

I didn't wanna rip the plugs off!

I do t know why you think Gary would "mean rip off the plugs" lol.

The reason (recently explained to me) for fitting the cables to the LF and putting the jumpers to the HF, is that bass drivers have the furthest distance to travel so usually draw more power. It's better to directly connect the LF to the amp for this reason.