With impeccable effin' timing

It would appear the tweeter in one of my speakers has blown. It's a Kef Q35.2 unit so I've no idea how much a new one will cost. Anyone ever replaced one of these.
I'll try and find some speakers for Saturday... not sure where from though

 

Lord,

Sorry about your hassle mate, however its pretty common with this range of Kef's I've replaced 2 or 3 in my 55.2's and more than one or 2 in customers units, very simple operation, and I feel your local 7oaks may even have one in stock, about £17+vat, if not phone Kef direct and they'll dispatch one same day. Wm

 

Cost me £24 for one for a pair of Q15's I had a while ago, dont know if its the same unit though.

 

Better than I thought. I'll do some chasing tomorrow. Is it the whole driver or just the tweeter that gets replaced?

 

Lord,

No just the centre of the tweeter its on a stalk If I remember, 2 allen bolts?, and yes Mart they are all the same for the whole Q .2 range I believe.
Should take about 25 mins. I used to keep spares, but I seem to have used them all up

 

Just the tweeter.

However, if you've got a good relationship with your dealer and fancy an upgrade you could get the whole Uni-Q driver from the older reference series. The tweeter in that is the 25mm 'gold' ring job which is much sweeter than the 19mm job in the Q series. I replaced the Uni-Q's in a couple of pairs of Q15's before KEF got the hump and decided not to sell me any more.

Edit
Fastest finger first Tony!

 

That's good to know. I'm going to dismantle the thing now, and hope I can find a tweeter tomorrow. It needs to be working by Saturday

 

Hi Gary - didn't know you could do this. Does that mean that there's effectively a sort of upgrade path for my Q55.2s at some point down the road? Did you get em from Kef? How much did they charge? What sort of diff does it make?

Cheers

 

Kef UK have come up trumps. One is supposed to be being delivered tomorrow. Superfi offered to get it fixed in about 2 to 3 months!!!!! Cowboys wanted to sell me some speakers I think. Practical Hi-fi said 2-3 days and they weren't allowed to sell me a tweeter! Had to be fitted by them. So guess which shops in Manchester I won't be using again

 

Well it's an upgrade path *IF* you can get the Uni-Q driver's. You could try getting them directly from KEF but they may well ask you for the serial number of the Reference model they are for in which case you will be scuppered. You will probably have more luck with a sympathetic dealer that has a KEF account.

The Reference Uni-Q is less 'coarse' and is less 'edgy' than the Q models, generally a much sweeter treble, well worth the change if you can get the drivers. I sold both pairs of Q15's to get the TDM34's and I could kick myself for not keeping the Reference Uni-Q's.

Another worthwhile tweak is to swap the standard electrolytic cap in the crossover for a Black Gate job. I experimented with different components in the crossover using some exoteric inductors and caps at £40 a shot and found a simple change of the standard electrolytic to a Black Gate was the best option due to the effort required to match crossover to the cabinet and port, KEF are a bit coy about making the Theile-Small parameters for their driver's available to the general public.

In terms of cost, from memory a complete assembled Reference Uni-Q driver is about £60 delivered.

Regards
Gary

 

Hi LordSummit,

If you are stuck for a pair of speakers, I could bring a pair along. I can bring a pair of Snell Ks as these are easy to carry. I have some stands for them as well.

SCIDB

 

That would be really handy. Kef are going to try and get me a tweeter for tomorrow, but I then need to solder the connections and I don't even own a soldering iron. Hopefully the man I know who can will be able to do it tomorrow

 

I can bring mine over on the day if you like.

 

I'll let you know. The biggest hurdle is getting the tweeter, so long as it arrives at work tomorrow it should be fine, I can borrow one and do it myself I think, it looks really easy. If not I'll be taking the kind offer of the Snells up for the day.

 

Cheers Gary,

Well worth knowing and worth a punt at some point if I can wangle it. There are a lot of things I love about the Kefs, mainly I think down to the "rightness" of the dual concentric concept, but at higher volumes they can sound a bit edgy, especially next to the 10" Tannoy Dual Concentric's I've been playing with, which are actually a sweeter proposition altogeher (though not without there own problems - largely I expect down to the 80s disco box chipboard cabs they are in).

Cherrs for the info

Tony