Anyone with interest in (vintage) British loudspeakers: any opinion/experience with KEF C55?

mhardy6647

So -- there's a pair of KEF C55 loudspeakers visiting the ol' manse of late.
I was curious to try them, so try them I am.

So far, I've tried them with three different amplifiers: SE 2A3, PP 11BM8 (same "dually" tube as the 6BM8 triode/pentode but with 11v filament; ca. 8 wpc) and a harman/kardon hk770 (dual mono PP soiled state @ ca. 65 wpc).
So far, I've had the loudspeakers on low stands, tipped back a wee bit (and angled in a wee bit, too).

The sound is -- well, not great. Nice and clean midrange but overall very tubby (midbass heavy) -- with any of the three amplifiers mentioned(?!). Now, those three were chosen semi-arbitrarily (i.e., easy to get off the shelf & hook up!) but as a deliberate attempt to "run the gamut" of amp topologies (SE, PP, tube and soiled state).

I figure I am doing something wrong! There's an undercurrent of a sound I like (and associate with KEFs, based on my largely vintage experience), mixed with molasses.

Any suggestions or comments are greatly appreciated and gratefully received!

Thanks.

PS I do understand that these are far from high-end (indeed, pretty close to the bottom of the food chain) and somewhat anachronistic (early "Uni-Q"), so I may be hearing exactly what they are... but I am kinda skeptical of that based on lots of other KEF experience!

Jimbo18

I was interested to read your comments about that Kef model. There has been a set on our local CL four weeks now for $135 with stands and I have been curious how they sound. Not enough to buy them just to try them out, but still curious.

mhardy6647

That price sounds really steep to me -- unless they're with awfully nice stands

A suggestion from www.hifihaven.org was to try tall(er) stands, which I shall do. I used little "Polkstand"-esque stands that were handy when I did my first evaluations, so a more modern "small loudspeaker" stand may be a better choice.

motorhead43026

If these are anything like British cars, probably not all that hot

mhardy6647

The smoke is pretty good at staying in the British loudspeakers -- even Quad ESLs

[Deleted User]

McLaren, Jaguar, Mini, Land Rover/Range Rover, and more are way above "all that hot". What little I've tried that were British made were all very good. B&W, and Tannoy are the two standouts. Had a pair of KEF book shelf speakers with the tweeter in the middle of the woofer that were very respectable. I'm an American and know there are good and not so hot speaker produced here too. You can't throw a blanket statement over a country like.

pkquat

Its been a long time since I have heard C55's. I don't remember them being tubby, more bass shy. The C75's had a more rich sound. Those were my target of the two.
There may have been some over compensation of upper bass for the lack of bass with the C55 that I was less aware of then. I did play with tone controls back then. As I recall I could get the C55's to rock and have some punch with the proper low bass boost. Although the imaging was great, and I think they had more bass at neutral settings than early Polk M5's, there was something that left me feeling like I would be settling if I got them. I remember wishing something was better about them. I could be mistaken, but they may need to be in a true bookshelf location with some dampening around them to sound best, or maybe near corner placement in a smaller room to boost the lower bass. I heard them on shelf rack surrounded by books and stuff, and also more out in the open on top of a table further from a wall. I think it was on the shelf surrounded by stuff that was better.

I recall the Uni-Q tweeters often needing a refresh, and the lack off or dried out ferrofluid changing the sound even it the tweeter wasn't dead. I thought it effected the C75, which uses the same Uni-Q driver, but I could be mistaken.

[Deleted User]

Italy can't make decent audio. 60's Alpha's and Fiat's show that

Japanese are a puzzling bunch. They prefer high end and tweaky audio but they eat weeds, insects, and uncooked fishies. At least the Brits triple batter and deep fry their fishies before eating them.

I forgot about Aston Mart. They can't be any good cuz England hasn't won enough World Cups over the years.

One doesn't have anything to do with the other.

motorstereo

I had a pair of them back in the day and my impressions pretty mirror yours Mark. Audiodon also had a pair and his thoughts were same as well. I could not get mine to sound good either and I also thought the top end was a bit rolled off as well. They're not one of Kef's better efforts for sure.

whitedigital

Trying to be careful..I have two 16 ohm British speakers in a cab...I want to hook them up either mono or stereo...I’m thinking mono is 8 ohms and stereo is16 ohms...wired seperatlt in stereo or do I flick the switch on the back of my amp to 16 ohms and plug one speaker cord or two speaker cords one to each speaker..? Ha hathnx man!

F1nut

Your speakers are 16 ohm nominal regardless.

mhardy6647

They are indeed, immutably 16 ohms each, as @F1nut says.

It is possible to alter their nominal impedance as seen by the amplifier if (and only if) they are operated in monaural.

Wiring the two loudspeakers (drivers) in series* and connecting to one amplifier (or one amplifier channel) will double the nominal load impedance to 32 ohms.

Wiring the two loudpseakers (drivers) in parallel* and connecting to one amplifier (or one amplifier channel) will halve the nominal load impedance to 8 ohms.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am assuming that the two "speakers" are in fact two drivers physically co-located in "a cab". If there is/are crossover(s) involved, it's a different ball game entirely.

______________
* In case @whitedigital needs to know the difference between serial and parallel:


source: https://blogs.qsc.com/cinema/2020/07/10/series-versus-parallel-surround-wiring/

BlueFox

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pitdogg2

BlueFox wrote: »

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Too much math Bud?
🤭

SeleniumFalcon

Found this KEF related cartoon, submitted for your approval: