Book Review- KEF 50 Years of inovation of sound

[Radioham]

I have just finished reading the KEF Book. Its not Cheap (£60) but having owned many of the models including Chorale, Concerto, Concorde, Ref1,IQ50 and Q300 to name just a few, I thought I would put it on the Xmas list. Whilst still at school I looked at the Chorales in the local hifi/photographic shop window , but they were way beyond my pocket money.

Its very interesting, unlike other Coffee Table books, which tend to be all Hype and Photos, this is very good and is quite critical of people in the industry and their own products. I guess it helps that a lot of the people mentioned are not around anymore or no longer employed by KEF so there are quite a few home truths, warts and all.

For example here are some of the “Issues”:-

The arguments between Briggs and Cooke at Wharefdale.
The flood of 1968
The fires of 1971 x2 (Suspected Arson)
The Ref101 is close to the BBC LS3/5A but was made the KEF way rather than the BBC way
If you had a dented tweeter dome, you just used to suck it out with your mouth, until Raymond Cook found out and went ballistic.
The P60.(C60+Quad active x-over).
The 104 & Leak30 issue.
Concorde and Celeste use non-Kef drive units !-Employees not happy !
Helped (Consultancy) was provided by Peter Baxendale, Alan Boothroyd, Peter Comeau for specific projects.
250,000 Coda 7’s sold.
Tangerine guide adds about 4db boost to top end of uni-Q otherwise product may have been dropped.
Edinburgh Festival with 36 x Model 105.2 in use at the same time to relay the organ located 1 mile away in a live concert.

All I want to do now is buy every KEF speaker mentioned and hear them all myself.


Regards

Alan

[sq225917]

Coda 7's, was that the nineties Richer sound version or the originals, they were fricking everywhere at uni.

[Radioham]

Coda 7's, was that the nineties Richer sound version or the originals, they were fricking everywhere at uni.

Yes, The book does say that the Codar 7 was made just to go with the Nad 3020 as an alternative to the AR's or Missions 70s. Kef admit that it was very crude in that the back and fronts were made of plastic with a wrap around case, but it did sound quite good and they used the case to resonate, so that there was some extended bass. Which of course was againts the normal ethos of making the case non-resonant.

Alan