KEF Reference 201 refurb

tagowner

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I am re-furbishing a pair of KEF Reference 201 I have just bought and have a question. Anyone know how to get the bass driver out? I have removed the three bolts for the bezel, then the three screws for the drive chassis but both speakers have the assembly stuck to the speaker case. I am holding back on the brute force, any suggestions please?
smile.gif


My list of work is big, and includes replacing the UniQ drives, speaker body repair and rust removal (yes the poor things spent the last months in a damp shed).
 

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Tried gently prying it out with a screwdriver (which protecting the pivot point)?

Looking at the top one it might just be that the metal has embedded a bit into the wood and it's not actually stuck on. Getting the blade of a screwdriver into one of the bolt holes pointing towards the centre and gently pivot against the casing might give you a clear view of whether it's stuck or not. Make sure the point where the screwdriver rests against the outer wood is well protected though or you'll compress/scratch the surround.

If it's glued in you could try some solvents though it's very hard to try without knowing what type of glue might have been used. It also usually takes a long long time to "melt" glue.

G
 
Yes, thanks for the tips, I could get a spanner behind and tapped it until it finally came out. The gasket had merged with the paper thin veneer on the particle board to form a glue. I now discover the bass unit has a frozen coil and corroded back and just attempted to get an opinion from KEF Support, but no-one is manning the line, understandably.
 
Nice one.

Hmmm WD40 usually gets things moving again ;)

Maybe they'll sell you a replacement at a sensible price or give you the parameters so you can hunt a replacement down yourself.

Good luck anyway.

G
 
It turns out both bass units are corroded and one has a unstuck dislodged magnet spider. I will have send both off to a speaker repairer. So much for the eBay seller calling them "my beloved KEF Reference 201. They are in great working condition", maybe they were working a year ago, before spending the Winter in a shed!
 
I am re-furbishing a pair of KEF Reference 201 I have just bought and have a question. Anyone know how to get the bass driver out? I have removed the three bolts for the bezel, then the three screws for the drive chassis but both speakers have the assembly stuck to the speaker case. I am holding back on the brute force, any suggestions please?
smile.gif


My list of work is big, and includes replacing the UniQ drives, speaker body repair and rust removal (yes the poor things spent the last months in a damp shed).

Since you are farther along then I am....

I have a Kef Reference 203 with a failed UniQ driver. I can't figure how to get it out. How did you get at the driver and remove the upper black housing and hypertweeter?

I noticed there is a single screw above the UniQ driver. I assume that screw is somehow related to the plastic piece and/or the hypertweeter. For me, that screw seems "stuck" in a way similar to removing a screw from a wall with insulation twisted around it. I don't want to twist too hard for fear of snapping the screw. What worked for you?

I was able to remove the middle driver without trouble. It was fairly easy to remove the trim ring and the port. I did snap the speaker wire connector as the speaker wires are soldered and they didn't leave any slack. I don't know how they managed to put everything together as there is no slack in the wires at the speakers or at the crossover boards. What tricks are you using? I'm thinking of cutting the wires and soldering additional wire length to them to give more room to work with.

Thanks for your help - I haven't been able to find much information about fixing or refurbishing the Reference series on the internet.
 
I guess the top half of a 203 is identical to a 201. The bass driver is secured using 'normal' hex bolts to t-nuts and is the most common arrangement. The Mid/tweeter UniQ is different, and a 'challenging' design!

There are three square plastic inserts. they DO use a hex bolt and t-nut, but very small size. Now here is a problem, I suspect that previously someone removed things the wrong way, so my solution may be wrong, check carefully first!

The square fitting can be levered out first (true on mine) then use a 2mm hex key to undo the small bolts below. If you cannot get the square plastic out no problem, just insert the hex key in the middle and undo anyway. I cannot understand what the square bits are for, as they still have a hole in the centre. The top bolt goes not into a T-nut but into a thread in the metal dome cover.

The above was enough for me. Let me know how you are then going to do repairs, as I am very interested to compare.
 
The top bolt revealed for you, these tiny hex bolts are behind the square plastic pieces (3 of them), on mine some were drilled through so you could see the bolts, others were original and intact plastic, covering the bolt.
 

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The top bolt revealed for you, these tiny hex bolts are behind the square plastic pieces (3 of them), on mine some were drilled through so you could see the bolts, others were original and intact plastic, covering the bolt.

Thanks for the quick response and photo. I'm still not quite certain as to how to remove the bezel to get to the speaker mount itself. I'm assuming the part surrounding the speaker as indicated by the arrows is a bezel covering larger screws that hold the speaker to the cabinet.

The red circle shows the tiny hex screw that seems to be held in place a bit (the twisted insulation analogy) but I should be able to remove it. The blue circles look like they match up with the holes on your speaker for the actual speaker mounts. There is no screw inside these holes as they are used for holding the speaker grille in place. The circled speaker holder things actually appear to be "tabs" of some sort looking at them closely but I can't figure out how to remove them without destroying them. If you look closely, you can see I slightly mangled the one on the lower right as a tried to pry it out from inside the hole.

How did you get at the speaker without damaging anything?
 

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OK, my steps were

1. Remove the three squarish plastic parts (the top one only is used by the grille, and then only a little, the grille is really held by the four large holders)

2. Remove three 2mm hex bolts - Bezel comes off easily or use a bradawl or suchlike

3. Remove three revealed screws to remove the UniQ drive (I'm very surprised that bolts were not used by KEF).

Let me know if you need more photos, what are you planning on doing with your speakers? Is it just the single UniQ replacement, do you have it? I was lucky enough to find two unused drives (SP1447) and buy them, but they are very rare and cost a lot!
 
Thanks for the additional explanation. I removed those square / elliptical clips by prying them from the inner foam part of the drive outward to pop them out. I wish they had done a bit better with that design and the finish they put on the tops of the speakers.

It turns out my driver was not fried. It actually seemed to be "sticking". I did a process of elimination by removing the driver from my other speaker and swapping them trying to eliminate a crossover issue. The driver started working again and I then gently gave it "CPR" trying to loosen the internal high frequency driver without crushing the dust cap. It seems to be working correctly now and I hope stays that way.

My solution to finding SP1447 drives was to find the cheapest 201, 202s, 203s I could find and cannibalize them for parts. I don't think there is anyone who can rebuild the drivers so we're stuck - especially in the U.S.

I do love the Kef References though. They are incredible - even Dr. Floyd Toole formerly of JBL / Revel admired that series given the methodology used to design them and their flat response, great dispersion and uniformity. I did mono blind testing with instant switching versus a JBL 708P monitor which is supposed to be the incredible little brother to the M2. It sounded great - just like the Kef. They had some slight differences in sound quality - likely the UniQ vs the compression driver but I think anyone would be thrilled to have either in their home.

Good luck finishing your project and thanks for the help!
 
I'm glad you succeeded! Sounds like a good fix. I agree the KEFs are good, but I've had excellence in the past. Leak 2075, IMF TLS080, KEF 105, 107, 207 so have experienced a lot of good sounds.
 
Let me know if you need more photos, what are you planning on doing with your speakers? Is it just the single UniQ replacement, do you have it? I was lucky enough to find two unused drives (SP1447) and buy them, but they are very rare and cost a lot!
Hello, thx
 
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Thanks for the additional explanation. I removed those square / elliptical clips by prying them from the inner foam part of the drive outward to pop them out. I wish they had done a bit better with that design and the finish they put on the tops of the speakers.

It turns out my driver was not fried. It actually seemed to be "sticking". I did a process of elimination by removing the driver from my other speaker and swapping them trying to eliminate a crossover issue. The driver started working again and I then gently gave it "CPR" trying to loosen the internal high frequency driver without crushing the dust cap. It seems to be working correctly now and I hope stays that way.

My solution to finding SP1447 drives was to find the cheapest 201, 202s, 203s I could find and cannibalize them for parts. I don't think there is anyone who can rebuild the drivers so we're stuck - especially in the U.S.

I do love the Kef References though. They are incredible - even Dr. Floyd Toole formerly of JBL / Revel admired that series given the methodology used to design them and their flat response, great dispersion and uniformity. I did mono blind testing with instant switching versus a JBL 708P monitor which is supposed to be the incredible little brother to the M2. It sounded great - just like the Kef. They had some slight differences in sound quality - likely the UniQ vs the compression driver but I think anyone would be thrilled to have either in their home.

Good luck finishing your project and thanks for the help!

Hi, I'm in the same position trying to test & fix the Uni-Q driver of a Reference 205, and this is literally the only thread on the internet I've been able to find of anyone trying to open up & repair a Kef Reference 20x series speaker (!)

Would you mind explaining in some more detail what you did to "unstick / CPR" the Uni-Q back to life? Did you also test it with a multimeter and if so what numbers did you get when testing when it was bad / working again?

Also, since the wires are soldered on, how did you go about soldering the driver back on to the speaker which sounds like a hard task to do... Or did you do something else to reattach it like crimping or something like that? Not sure if that would be an option.

Finally when taking the speakers apart you mentioned some type of screw "above the tweeter" that's supposed to be attached to the dome somehow, which I can not find on any of mine (except for the main 3 that secure the bezel, one of which is right above the driver).
The reason I'm asking is if you by any chance figured out how to remove the top dome from the speaker for refinishing the deteriorated sticky black finish that is such a common issue with all of these Reference series speakers. I've been able to remove the old black sticky stuff, but I would like to remove the dome completely to spray paint it separately if at all possible to avoid any risk of getting paint on the rest of the speaker.

I agree these are fantastic speakers, I have my entire surround set of Reference 205/204/201's for many years and I absolutely love both the look and sound of these!

Thanks for any help you can provide!!!
 
Hi, I'm in the same position trying to test & fix the Uni-Q driver of a Reference 205, and this is literally the only thread on the internet I've been able to find of anyone trying to open up & repair a Kef Reference 20x series speaker (!)

Would you mind explaining in some more detail what you did to "unstick / CPR" the Uni-Q back to life? Did you also test it with a multimeter and if so what numbers did you get when testing when it was bad / working again?

Also, since the wires are soldered on, how did you go about soldering the driver back on to the speaker which sounds like a hard task to do... Or did you do something else to reattach it like crimping or something like that? Not sure if that would be an option.

Finally when taking the speakers apart you mentioned some type of screw "above the tweeter" that's supposed to be attached to the dome somehow, which I can not find on any of mine (except for the main 3 that secure the bezel, one of which is right above the driver).
The reason I'm asking is if you by any chance figured out how to remove the top dome from the speaker for refinishing the deteriorated sticky black finish that is such a common issue with all of these Reference series speakers. I've been able to remove the old black sticky stuff, but I would like to remove the dome completely to spray paint it separately if at all possible to avoid any risk of getting paint on the rest of the speaker.

I agree these are fantastic speakers, I have my entire surround set of Reference 205/204/201's for many years and I absolutely love both the look and sound of these!

Thanks for any help you can provide!!!
Sorry - it's been a long while since I did my repairs.

I think what I did with the speaker was use a 9 volt alkaline battery to touch / scratch the speaker terminals with to get it to "unstick".

I don't recall removing the coax driver from the speaker. For the soldering I do, I use a high quality Weller soldering station. A basic soldering iron would likely work.

If I recall correctly, if you get the top driver out below the dome and hyper-tweeter, there is a screw / nut that can be removed to get at that.

That's all the info I can provide as my recollection isn't great.

I've managed to pickup more of these speakers on eBay at very reasonable prices to complete my 7.2.4 system. I've seen great deals on 201s, 203s, 202c and 205s. Compared to the cost of new comparable speakers (of which there are very few), the Kefs are relative steals for the performance they offer.

Good luck with your repair.
 
Sorry - it's been a long while since I did my repairs.

I think what I did with the speaker was use a 9 volt alkaline battery to touch / scratch the speaker terminals with to get it to "unstick".

I don't recall removing the coax driver from the speaker. For the soldering I do, I use a high quality Weller soldering station. A basic soldering iron would likely work.

If I recall correctly, if you get the top driver out below the dome and hyper-tweeter, there is a screw / nut that can be removed to get at that.

That's all the info I can provide as my recollection isn't great.

I've managed to pickup more of these speakers on eBay at very reasonable prices to complete my 7.2.4 system. I've seen great deals on 201s, 203s, 202c and 205s. Compared to the cost of new comparable speakers (of which there are very few), the Kefs are relative steals for the performance they offer.

Good luck with your repair.

Thank you for replying so quickly, I wasn't even sure you would see my post since the last post was quite a while ago.

I'll keep that battery trick in mind if that would happen to work on mine.

The reason I asked about the soldering is mainly about when putting the driver in again, and you need to somehow hold the driver up to the Uni-Q opening in the speaker cabinet, while soldering the wires on to the connector and was just wondering if you remember how you got that done...

Are you using Kef for Atmos speakers as well, if so which ones if I may ask? I've thought about upgrading to a new atmos system myself but not sure which other Kef speakers would be a good match to the 20x reference series and also work well as atmos ceiling speakers. Only ones I've seen so far are the Ci200RR or QR models but they're apparently not aimable, or their upfiring speakers which I'm not that interested in.

My Kefs are all bought used on ebay over a long period of time too, and I agree they really give great bang for the buck. I haven't listened to any of their recent reference 1/3/5 series so not sure how they compare to them, but they also cost quite a bit more as well...
 
IIRC, the wires are quite tight in the cabinet. I think I disconnected them at the crossover board(s) to allow me the slack to solder and then re-fastened or re-soldered at the crossover boards.

I'm using Ci200RR-THX speakers for my rear top speakers and 201s on a heavy duty wall mount high on the wall angled down. For safety, I do not tilt the 201s as far as I would like since they are bottom mounted but the ATMOS presentation is still phenomenal.

I'm now using Kef 205s, purchased used over a long period of time, for fronts and side and rear surrounds. I had previously used a mix of 201s and 203s.

The advantage of the 205s for me is that the UniQ drivers are at ear level while seated in a reclined position without interference from our theater chairs. The 201s and 203s were very good but I think the height of the 205s helped for the sound quality. I did not use the 205s for better bass as I already have incredible subs to handle that.
 
I'm glad you succeeded! Sounds like a good fix. I agree the KEFs are good, but I've had excellence in the past. Leak 2075, IMF TLS080, KEF 105, 107, 207 so have experienced a lot of good sounds.
A person after my own heart. I have sampled all on your list and currently have the original reference ones. The bass suddenly seems awol. Any suggestions for a cure.
 

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