Hi!
I bought the KEF R3 Meta (Blue) during Christmas and I have really enjoyed it.
I know the science of break-in is really questionable, but subjectively I really did not enjoy them for two weeks.
After that I think they have become better and better and now I absolutely love how they sound!
And I know, this is prob. just my ears getting used to their sound, but still. That was my experience.
(I've been in pro-audio for many years and have also been a producer where we recorded things with with questionable everything only to to later see hifi people fantasise on how perfect our studio-env. must have been to build that sound..).
I did however want to share an experience on what happened with one of my speakers:
My son was sick. He had a glas of Orange Juice on the floor, next to the speaker, I came in a hurry and kicked that
glas so that the Juice went flying and hit the speaker. The grill was on but the Juice penetrated the holes in the grill and went STRAIGHT
into the tweeter.
The high-PH fluid was quickly wiped away as best as I could, but it had pulps. And I could see those trapped between the tweeter dome and the
small start-shaped plastic cover for the tweeter. I listened to them and they sounded fine... until a song with Piano, with strong 4-6k details came on.
Then the distortion became apparent. I tried most things: Blow gently into the tweeter (release pulp) and waited 4 weeks.
But the distortion is still apparent. If anyone has any other tips, please let me know.
However. I decided to replace the Uni-Q driver. And I really did not want to ship the thing back to the dealer.
It's half across the country. So I contacted KEF directly. But they sent me right back to the dealer.
As I said I have a long background in Audio and in Engineering so I told the dealer that I'm happy to replace the driver myself.
So now I've ordered a new Uni-Q driver. And this is one of the reasons I'm writing this. Two pieces of information that I could not find online and that I've so far has learned about this speaker:
1. The driver for mid/tweet on the R3 Meta is
SP1814GA (Bronze color. I think the last two letters indicate color,
AA is black for instance).
2. The Plastic ring around the Uni-Q driver is not easy to remove! I had to stick a flat metal tool (I tried with all plastic tools I have first) from the inside (Very close to the driver) and pull it towards me while trying to grab it from the outside with my nails to slowly remove it. It is however just friction-fitted and has not clips.
It did not leave any marks and all went well. But go slowly and gental. And try with a plastic tool first!
My replacement driver is arriving any day now and changing it after the ring is removed will be trivial. It's just two sets of cable with clips on there.
I'll let you know how it all went.