KEF 102.3 speakers - opinions sought.

KEF 103.2 (Edit!) speakers - opinions sought.

A pair of KEF 103.2 (Edit!) speakers is for sale locally. They are in good shape and I like the rosewood cabs. The seller is asking quite a bit for them, and I am not asking for value, but was wondering if anyone here has owned, auditioned or otherwise has an opinion about this speaker.

Thank you.

Best regards,

Do you mean Kef 103.2 instead of 102.3? I have owned 103.2 and people that have them, seldom sell them. They like power and I went to tube amplification and didn't need them anymore. They are very fine speakers.

Fishstink said:

Do you mean Kef 103.2 instead of 102.3?

Click to expand...

You're right, it is 103.2 - the owner was mixing up the numbers. I will attempt to correct the OP.

Best regards,

I owned the next one up in the series,the 104.2,and they were wonderful.What does he want for the 103.2's?
Jimmy

I have a pair of Reference 102's, the bookshelf model from the same line. They are superb speakers, with a smooth sound that well suited for classical and jazz. If I'm not mistaken, they use the same tweeter as the 103's.

If the price is right, the 103's are definitly worth owning.

Kef 103.2

They are simply great speakers. They like to be at least 20 plus inches off the floor (ideally the dome tweeter would be about "eye height" with the listener), and 20 inches or so out from any wall (further from a corner). I used to sell them at an audio store in the early Eighties. They were made in England, fairly inefficient, 8 ohm "bookshelf" sized and non ported. Mine sound wonderful to me with a Yamaha CA-1010, Sansui AU-717, or my Sansui 9090DB receiver (since Terry DeWick reworked the driver boards). Great imaging, great detail and yet they never seem bright. KEF Reference Series cabinets were bookmatched walnut or rosewood veneer (occasionally you will see black laquer over wood grain)...never vinyl. They were tested to be within 1/2 dB of each other as factory matched sets, and should have concecutive S/N (maybe it was A and B? I can't remember).

Very Important note: the actual KEF website erroneously shows the 103.3 specs under a heading for the 103.2! They even have the wrong picture. I wrote them but no response. The 103.3 might be fine, but it was a 4 Ohm speaker and a very different animal, requiring the "KEF Kube" for bass extension.

The following site has a copy of the 103.2 owner's manual:
http://www.hifiloudspeakers.info/Anatomy/KEFDocuments/DocumentsIndex.html

Oh one other thing: if a woofer voice coil starts rubbing (usually because someone played Iron Butterfly on their Pioneer SX-450 through it with the loudness on and bass cranked for some nice DC current) don't despair! Also, ignore most of the advice about turning the driver upside down, as gravity won't help if the voice coil has been damaged. The very high quality woofer can be repaired, and it is cost effective (at about $40 or so, "Van L Speakerworks" in Chicago does a fantastic job on these). The rubber surrounds on these drivers never seem to wear out; the dome tweeters are quite hardy as well. The woofer cones were made from a material called "Bextrene".