SpeakerTalk

[Poacher]

Hi all, I'm a bit of a novice (as will become clear...) and wanted to ask some advice.

I've been bequeathed some lovely, immaculate KEF concertos. I use some half-decent low end stuff (a bit of a mongrel set up: an Arcam Alpha 9 CD player, a Stanton STR8.150 deck and a Cambridge Audio 540a amp) and managed to get the speakers integrated nicely - and they sounded gorgeous. However, over time, if I ever turned the amp up between 1/4 and 1/2 way, the amp would go into protection mode and I'd have to unplug it to get it to reset. This did happen with the CD player very occasionally, but it was usually with the deck. Anyway, it got to the point where it was becoming unusable, so I did some tests with my old crappy bookshelf speakers and everything was fine. So I switched back to using these full time.

I'm currently thinking about getting myself some new speakers, but the KEFs are whispering too me from their hideaway in our loft (they're covered, safe, and dry) so I guess my question is: is an amateur like me ever going to be able to work this problem through? I'm assuming it's an ohm/resistance problem in relation to the amp, but that's largely guesswork. Does anyone have any advice, or pointers as to what I can try?

Just to give an idea of budget, I'm looking at a pair of Mercury Tannoy V4s, but I'd sooner get the KEFs up and running.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Matt

[proffski]

What a shame... Sadly diagnostics over the internet are almost impossible.
I'd start with doing a DC check on the woofer a and a visual inspection of the crossover. Then venture onto a signal generator etc.
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