Thank you an excellent tutorial. These speakers are reference quality and still hard to beat even though they are 40 year old...i have 2 sets. 1 set need this done and have the repair kit... I have recently bought the raymond cook special edition 104/2 with this refurbishment done....

Great job! I would chsnge the inductors that are in series (signal line) to copp3r tape, and definithly change in series capacitors to poly film foil solen or audyn for tweeter, c9mpensating for decreased resistance. Maybe next tiime Cheers !

Why did you need to feel like you had to change the tweeters what's wrong with the ones you had before or the originals??

Thank you very much for your great video!! I started to restore my 104/2 cause of it and already ordered the tweeters and a refoam kit. I hope you can help me with one question: Do you know how to replace the midrange drivers without damaging anything cause one of mine is broken and i can't find informations about that in the net. Thanx a lot!

You don't need to replace tweeters. Originals can be repaired. There are many guides how to do this.

Wow never saw anyone use a big weller solder-gun on a pc board before.. he's got skill not to burn it. but not the best way to teach, as a smaller iron much more suited to the job. A nice restore there and i'm sure they sound great !

Thank you for the video.

Yea really I dont even have these speakers and I watched the whole video hehe. I have a pair of Energy 22 pro and was looking for videos and ended up watching this.

Very informative video instruction. thank you Mrs. Frank Soos, well illustrated and videoed. congratulations. Now the big move is to do exactly on my ket 104.2 restoration.

Thanks for this, I have a set that is suffering the same as yours, Could you please pass on the details of where you bought the parts from, I am OK with the capaciors, but the rest of the gear I could do with finding a supplier., Thanks for the great video,.

Very good work to restore this pair of vintage speakers. By the way, why not upgrade all the internal wiring as well? Also upgrade the small value capacitors to GAD or Mundorf?

This is a great video! Any idea if doping the doughnut keeps them from drying out the same way as the original?

MidWest Speaker Repair has direct T33 tweeter replacements available. No modification to the cabinet required as with the Morels. Speaker grilles can be re-covered as needed as well, with speaker cloth from Amazon, and some 3M Super 77 spray adhesive. Speaker binding posts can also be replaced with posts from Dayton Audio, or Amazon. If you have the bi-wire 104/2 models, be aware that you will need a slightly different set of capacitors from Falcon, so let them know you have bi-wire speakers, or just pull the networks out, and write down a list of the caps you'll need, and let them know. The bi-wire speakers used different crossover networks from the two-post models. I encountered this when restoring my bi-wire models (have done 3 pair thus far over the past 20 years)

As of 2023, capacitor kit (2 speakers) runs about $200 shipped to the US. Inner and outer surround replacement kit is about $80 (2 sp.) ferrofluid replacement is about $20, MidWest direct replacement tweeters are $45 each, and speaker binding posts can run from $15 to $80 (set of 4) so a full restoration will run between $300 and $400.

hi the quality kef from the 80s, incredible age, unfortunately today it is no longer the case.

This is a great guide, but a couple of thoughts from someone who has restored two pairs of these. Firstly, replacing the T33 stock tweeters should only considered (IMO) where the original tweeters have blown. I have read various reports that people prefer the sound of the original tweeters, a simple ferrofluid replacement is an addition to your procedure above, and takes about 30 minutes per tweeter, Secondly, I never did the cap replacement in the crossovers and I also researched this extensively. These caps are very well built and its arguable they dont actually need replacing. The two pairs of speakers I did still sounded great without this (and I am generally a fan of recapping amplifiers). The other issue is that the caps you need can only be obtained from falcon acoustics in the UK and they can be VERY hard to deal with and are often out of stock of values, or send you the wrong parts.

This is truly a comprehensive DIY Refurb video that I shared with my twin brother. He has had his Reference 104/2's since the mid-'80s. I am more of a Vandersteen kid, and actively troll for audiophile info. I had learned about how the lower surrounds on these woofers fail. He's never really pushed them very hard, but it is hard to escape the basic chemistry of the material deteriorating over time. I know there is mad science behind the design of this system, but damn, this is a wee bit of a process to refurb them. Thank you for this video!

Are the alcap capacitors from Falcon marked for the negative pole?

Thanks for this. I have these speakers for a long time and they sound as new.

My KEF 105 Series1 spkrs, which I purchased new in ‘79, are now 44yrs old, the drivers are in perfect condition, they sound excellent. The crossover caps ruptured after 20yrs, KEF replaced them, still working fine. Sadly KEF recently said they would no longer service my spkrs if needed😡.

Great restoration! Very nice Kef speakers

Agreed on the electrolytic caps there. Sadly a missed opportunity to further improve the sound quality. Replace the electrolytics with Polypropylene types. Eg JB Caps, Jantzen, Mundorf. (There’s a really good capacitor test review on Humble Homemade HiFi). The Dayton audio caps may be made by Bennic in Taiwan and although Polypropylene they’re fairly bargain basement but still better than electrolytics. Add a Bypass cap on the Tweeter capacitor (I use Cornell Dubilier 940C 0.01uf on budget upgrades, see the Humble Homemade HiFi review for other suggestions). But a much better upgrade on the Tweeter circuit would be Sonicaps with a 0.01 uf Miflex copper foil bypass cap. And more regular Polypropylene caps on the Mid and woofer circuits. Only Use wire wound resistors (not the standard ceramic types), eg Dayton or Jantzen and replace the iron cored inductors with Wire wound air-cored types eg from US Coils. To learn more about such speaker upgrades, follow the GR-Research channel and Danny Ritchie.

Wow 1984 .awesome job

folienkondensatoren wären sinvoller und viieeel besser

Wow, this is the best video on any restoration I’ve ever watched, your skill and your wife’s narration are top notch . Congratulations. I’ll subscribe and share this video

Fill the gap with shims before removing old deteriorated foam to avoid gap filled with debris

Why not MKP caps...

Hi, I have a pair of these and I noticed lately that one seems to be quieter than the other, do you know what could be the cause? Many thanks.

An awesome video..I'm looking at buying a pair of these locally.

Thank you for this video! ❤️

Pressed steel baskets? I can see why they needed that rod.

Gratulálok! Nagyon szép és szakszerű munka! De jó volna itthon is egy ilyen hangfalon Jazzt hallgatni! Köszönöm ezt a videót!

Good job 👏

BPeterso Just opened up my 104s. Only had to redo the donuts as the annulus rings looked like new. Discovered that the leads off the speakers were all long enough on my speakers to work on the cones without having to unsolder them. Thanks for the video!!

morel twitters are awesome

Thank you very much for all the effort you've put into this instruction video. I'm starting the refurbishment of my own Kef104.2's and this will prove invaluable, thanks again.

Brilliant video! I need to change my donuts and this video was perfect. Thanks.

Sir How to make crossover design Please to upload full video.... Thanks

Thank you so much. I just purchased a pair of 104/2 and noticed the need to repair /replace several components on the crossovers and the speaker donuts too. This video is so helpful because it covers the coplete list of operations to restore the speakers to their original glory. I couldn't believe how "simple" the operation is. Can not thank you enough Mário

So to get to the filter you must remove the down bass, but in another video, I saw that the filter is inside the side of the bottom panel

I would have used another wide bead of blue tack for the bottom when attaching not just the weather strip Not sure why you had to change the original tweeters how do these compare to the original spec, That's the question?

Thanks sir...👍👍

Hey Frank. I'm struggling to find a crossover schematic for the KEF 105/3. Any chance you can help ID what C33 is?

I enjoyed every minute of it. I wish I had the skills to do it but sadly I’m not brave enough to attempt it. Will have to find someone to do it for me.

Well made video!

do you sell them ?

Many thanks for execellent video.

That tweeter just wow 👏

How did the speakers sound after changing out the tweeters, compared to the original units?

Thanks for posting this awesome video. Hopefully I can use it to repair the tweeters that were damaged during some loud music.