Greetings from South Wales!

Hello All!

I'm just returning to the fold after a 25+ year hiatus and I notice that while much has changed, much remains the same.

I've kicked off the addiction by acquiring a pair of Kef 104/2’s, a classic from back in the day and still a worthy competitor.

I've upgraded the crossovers, renovated the T33 tweeters and rewired them with functionally perfect silver in PTFE, a combination of multi strand, litz and solid core depending on the drivers.

I'm also in the process of making a full set of new cables, so far in silver plated FPC but plan to make some FPS interconnects soon.

Currently using an Arcam integrated, though I've acquired a Vishay stepped attenuator with a view to making a passive pre to combine with a pair of Denon 8800's that I'm on the hunt for (I had a pair in the 90's and I loved them).

The source is where I'm struggling now; I don't think I'm going to get back on the Vinyl merrigoround (in the 90's I had a Sondeck/Lingo SME IV Koetsu Red), I just can't justify spending that much on it now, so I'm thinking about a streaming DAC / Solid state player, and the one that's really got my attention in the Eversolo DMP-A8. So my question is, does anyone have any experience with the A8 and / alternatives in the same price bracket - I'm particularly attracted to the Eversolo's ability to be expanded with a 4tb SSD.

Thanks for any help or advice you can give and it's good to be back obsessing again!

 

Welcome back. I loved the 104.2s at the time. Great loudspeakers, especially with the optional KUBE.

As far as I'm concerned, mains cable is fine for loudspeaker wiring, so wouldn't bother with the rewiring, and as to upgrading the crossovers, what does that involve?

What would be good would be to remove the passive crossovers altogether and drive them active with an electronic crossover and 6 channels of amplification. With a DSP-based crossover and EQ, they could be made near-perfect.

S.

 

Thus far, the upgrade to the cross overs has included iron dust core inductor, film caps, bulk foil resistors and silver wiring in the signal path.

As far as the cables go, I've been making my own for a long time. I'm a great believer in proper screening and the sonic benefits of the litz cable. I also use Faraday clamps for rf.

The active crossover is an interesting idea though - I'll have to look into that. Do you have any sources I can read / watch? They would need to be set up / adjusted and that's all brand new to me and the only test gear I have is a multimeter!

Thanks

 

There's a thread on here from a few years ago that detailed what I did with my 'speakers. (B&W 801f).

https://www.audio-forums.com/threads/taking-the-b-w-801fs-active.110767/

You will need instrumentation to set them up, but that can be as little as a measuring microphone and a laptop with free software like REW or ARTA.

Without measurements, anything you may think you've improved is just speculation. Audio memory is very very short, so unless you can do some blind testing between original and 'improved', level matched and with instant switching, you can have no idea what's changed.

S

 

Brilliant!

Thanks very much - I'll get into that next week and report back.

Thanks for taking the time to help