SpeakerTalk

[adam_audio]

Goodbye, KEF. Finally heard the Calinda. Thought the bass was the typical "we designed these using giant solid state amps and computers with little regard for tonal accuracy below the midrange" type of KEF sound....slow, blurpy, and colored. The T27 is a nasty little bugger as well....sonic character suggests gross lack of refinement and poor design. Then I realized that the 105.2 is a hard sounding speaker with an artificial plastic sheen glazing over the music, with upper midband problems from the B110 making the experience uninvolving and sometimes downright unpleasant and painful. The 105.2 is a nice speaker system....infinitely better than most.....but still ultimately incoherent, ham-handed, and unacceptable...IMO. What has shed light upon what a speaker system should properly sound like....a truly neutral, natural, perfectly behaved, and all-around stellar performer....is the unfathomably god-like Harbeth Monitor 30s that are sitting majestically in my listening room where the 105.2s used to be.

I'd like to thank all of the members of this forum for your help and advice, particularly Colin..who is a genius and one of the best vintage speaker guys I've ever run into......for your assistance and guidance during my journey through the world of KEF loudspeakers. Vintage KEFs are among the finest budget loudspeaker systems available and absolutely take 95% of what is available on today's market to the cleaners....but in the end they win many battles but loose the war.

And so this afternoon, the last remaining KEF pieces in my collection have left the building. RIP.

[centaurus]

there's no reason to trash KEF speakers on a KEF forum.

i love my calindas. the T27 is only spitty if underdriven and not on axis (speakers not on stands). also, they will sound like crap if you use anything other than the 8 ohm tap on your tube amps.

the bass is fine for small speaker. i use a REL Q100 sub and it's awesome.

the Calindas do lack a bit in the lower midrange arena which is why the rather "mid-dy" Quad 405-2 matches so well with them. they were voiced with eachother.

all solid state is not bad and you can't condemn a speaker or a brand of speaker if you keep incessantly running them with inappropriate amplification. a 20 watt per channel eico 6bq5 amp will NEVER sound good on any KEF speakers. end of story.

when i tried to run my McIntosh MC60s on my apogee centaur minors, they sounded horrid, but i did NOT condemn either the amps or the speakers. both are wonderful with the right gear.

have fun with your $4,300 harbeths.

sorry if I'm coming off as rude, but you have to admit Adam, that you like to start shit with snide comments, that are only worded to get people's goat. maybe you should stop trying to rile people up, stop buying all these speakers, pour yourself a nice glass of scotch and actually LISTEN TO MUSIC!

Robby

[adam_audio]

[centaurus]

well, I'm happy you're happy. from my experience, tube or solid state, an underpowered speaker sounds thusly. rolled off bottom end with slow and flubby bass.

reason being has less to do with wattage and more with current. tube amps, by design, have far less current capabilities than good SS design. a good dampening factor for tube amps is in the mid 20's (like McIntosh). most classic tube amps are far below this. dampening factor is an amp's ability to offset the DC voltage from the "woofer kick-back." meaning, when the woofer moves forward, how fast the amp can basically stop it from moving backwards. maybe others can describe it better.

this is why tube amps sound richer and fuller on speakers that are a relatively easy load (i.e. bozaks). basically, an easy to drive woofer with not too long a throw will sound lovely on a tube amp. the low dampening factor is what makes the sound so romantic. if you use the same tube amp on a speaker that's not an easy load (drops way below 4 ohms), then you lose bass and the system just sounds stressed and sibilant.

also, as the impedance drops, good solid state amps can double their power. with tube amps, the power goes to HALF. so, your 20wpc eico is indeed 10wpc into a 4 ohm load.

you are right about good tube amps smooth highs. that's were their inherent second order harmonic distortion is bettered by SS 3rd order. so, when a tube amp is over driven, it's far more polite. more like a gentle compression.

i to have owned lots of stuff (though not as much as many of you). bozaks 302A Urbans, McIntosh MC60, McIntosh MC240, McIntosh MC225, McIntosh MX110, conrad johnson pv2a, dynaco MKII, dynaco st70, fisher SA300, adcom GFA550, adcom GTP500II, quad 34, quad 405-2, quad 909, precision fidelity C4 tube preamp, vandersteen 2C, a/d/s L810, kef calinda, kef 104/2 acoustic research AR3, apogee centaur minor, ampex 6bq5 monoblocks, ampex tube preamp, heathkit W-5m monoblocks, fisher 400 tube receiver, fisher 500S tube receiver, MFA maguc C preamp, harmon kardon citation V, harmon kardon citation I and more that i can't remember.

so, i have been around the block too

see ya,
Robby

[adam_audio]

[oplancq]

[speakerguru]

[centaurus]

preach on brother!

all i hear with my calindas and 104/2 is music. plain and simple. are they the greatest speakers ever made? no. do they have awesome an synergy that makes you forget about the stereo and concentrate on the music. YES!

as i said before. if you are hearing a marked drop off in bass AND slow/flubby bass with sibilant highs. YOU ARE UNDER DRIVING THE SPEAKERS!

I'm all too familiar with this tonality to blame it on the speaker, let alone the manufacturer.

i love my calindas with my Quad 909 and McIntosh MC60. but i can't wait to get my modded quad 405-2 back. the synergy between the two is breathtaking. it's quite obvious the 405 was the amp used to voice KEF speakers in the 70's.

sure, you can bitch that a speaker should sound good with any proper amplification, and they do. but you always find that certain magic when you couple a speaker with its "voicing amplifier." same with bozak and McIntosh. or janszen and marantz.

see ya,
Robby

[adam_audio]

[centaurus]

well, i'm in no way trying to compare my calindas to a $4,300 pair of harbeths. i should hope your harbeths would wax my calindas for that kind of scratch.

as far as tonaly challenged, well, i can almost guarantee your harbeths are not in the same league as a pair of Apogee Scintilla ribbon speakers, but that doesn't mean your Harbeths are "tonally challenged."

much as the saying with cars; "there's always something faster" rings true in audio as well. there's ALWAYS something that sounds better.

Robby

[adam_audio]

ATTENTION: Recently it has come to my attention that the pair of KEF Calindas I heard had damaged crossovers. No wonder they sounded so horrible. My apologies for my previous commentary, which is now absolutely retracted.

[centaurus]

do they sound better now? or you guys haven't fixed the x-overs yet?

i should probably go through mine.

see ya,
Robby

[adam_audio]

[centaurus]

got the quad 405-2 back. it does sound lovely with the calindas. awesome mids. not the tightest bass, but full and musical. awesome imaging. highs are much better, but still not in the same league and my McIntosh.

regardless, it was a fun experiment to pair the 405-2 with the calindas. the two were invariably used to voiced one another.

but, i think it's gonna be the macs and the caindas as my reference. I'll still keep the 405-2 and probably the quad 34 (no one wants to buy it). i think they would make a super cute bedroom system once i find some baby KEF speakers (although the reference 101 are too expensive these days).

I'm gonna make an i-pod listening station they way it SHOULD be. 405-2/34/small KEF bookshelf with an ipod on top

that's Bose DONE RIGHT!

see ya,
Robby

[speakerguru]