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Has anyone lost a KEF tweeter?

Wednesday I had a beautiful sounding system and Thursday morning the right side was so much louder and the left side was muddy sounding. I switched interconnects.  I switched speaker cables. Then I pulled out a test disk and played a 10khz tone.  Yep the tweeter in my left KEF Reference 5 speaker isn’t working.  I called KEF USA and they told me to call a couple of places for service.  The first place hasn’t worked on speakers in 4 years and I’m not sure the second place had even heard of KEF. One thing the guy from KEF said, was that all the speaker cables are soldered on the Reference 5’s. I checked the wires on the back plate and they were fine. So it either the crossover (s) or the tweeter part of the UniQ.
 

Grrr!

128x128curiousjim
carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

Where did you last see it?

carlsbad's avatar
carlsbad
1,551 posts
 

I'll add that there are good things and bad things associated with being a physicist and an engineer.  First, you can never fully enjoy action movies again because your brain keeps pointing out all the things on the screen that violate the law of physics.

But may people think doing technical stuff is for other people that they'd prefer to pay--implying that such stuff is beneath them.  But it sure is nice to be able to fix your own stuff.  

Assuming it's your tweeter, and it probably is, I'd pick a pair of aftermarket tweeters that I considered an upgrade and install them. I probably wouldn't wait for KEF to provide a replacement tweeter.  OEMs are notoriously slow with parts.  Of course some big OEMs, like KEF, may make their own tweeters wtih a unique footprint making it hard to change.  I upgraded my tweeters in my current speakers to Be and it was a 30 mintute ob to solder them both in.  They weren't cheap, but it was a good change.

Jerry

curiousjim's avatar
curiousjim OP
4,739 posts
 

Jerry, KEF use that UniQ tweeter inside the midrange design. I’m not even sure there’s a safe way of removing the outer ring without mucking it up. I’m thinking it’s just a snap in plastic ring, but.

jetter
3,033 posts
 

Jerry

But may people think doing technical stuff is for other people that they’d prefer to pay--implying that such stuff is beneath them.

This may be more the way you think about it. I think most are thinking they 1) don’t want to void their warranty, if applicable and 2) don’t want to screw up an expensive speaker if removal of the driver is more than just turning a few screws, which is likely the case here.

russ69's avatar
russ69
3,514 posts
 

If you can't source the correct driver from KEF, you may not have many options. There are many different types of the Uni-Q driver. You may have to buy complete replacement units. Call KEF again and inquire about the cost of replacement units. I would also talk to someone in tech help and see if you could use drivers from one of the other cheaper loudspeaker systems and replace the pair with those. Finding someone to repair the Uni-Q driver might be quite difficult or impossible.  

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