If the drivers and crossovers are still in good condition, keep them. You will need to spend a lot of money to get anything better.
Looks like keepers.
Get new/modern drivers with less dist, biamp/triamp the speaker and play with xover settings with your DSP.
Perhaps add a microphone to measure an averaged FR in the listening area.
That sounds like a fun project.
Agree. One issue I’d consider with 40-year old speakers is the condition of the electrolytic crossover capacitors. These capacitors tend to go off spec as they age and that aging issue is less obvious than driver surround aging. If you have a good repair shop that can test this, it may be worth checking.If the drivers and crossovers are still in good condition, keep them. You will need to spend a lot of money to get anything better.
I think you'd find the 105 drivers *as used* to be still superior to many made today, but the 105 crossover may need a looking at for drifting caps (I don't remember the crossovers as we never dismantled any to find out, but worth researching perhaps).
Apart from a slight cool quality on female vocals (my subjective description), these speakers were very high quality indeed, especially for the time and they measured well and properly by anyone's standards as indeed they should with the considerable R&D that went into them. Messing around with trying to go active and so on with amateur levels of DSP eq and all manner of 'stuff' on the back of them to try to make it work, I'm really not sure about! I'd sooner look at a good powerful modern amp with a couple of hundred Watts at 8 ohms minimum to let them breathe a bit and a clean source to exploit the potential performance I still think they can offer.
I agree, recently recapped a pair of original B&W 801s for a friend, where the bi-polar electrolytics had drifted in value after 40 years.Agree. One issue I’d consider with 40-year old speakers is the condition of the electrolytic crossover capacitors. These capacitors tend to go off spec as they age and that aging issue is less obvious than driver surround aging. If you have a good repair shop that can test this, it may be worth checking.
As threatened, here's the HiFi Choice review done by Martin Colloms. This is from a very well thumbed book and page colour is authentic
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1978
Hell, the mag has all but fallen apart as I removed it from the scanner - I did say it was well thumbed
As threatened, here's the HiFi Choice review done by Martin Colloms. This is from a very well thumbed book and page colour is authentic
Just above the mid driver and in the bottom of the tweeter part of the 'pod,' there was a red led inset with a control on the back for setting power levels before the lamp flashed. I believe the inset led helped with setting the angle of the 'pod' which was adjustable for tilt and lateral angle for 'listening axis' I remember. This really was a very serious 'proper' loudspeaker back then and considerably ahead of the rest apart from possibly the B&W 801 which I don't think was 'quite' as good in initial form (I have a deep suspicion of the intrusive sonic qualities of the protection system with push buttons just in front of the mid driver on the 801 that was incorporated into the posher speakers of these times - and promptly abandoned a season or two later as my pal's later issue 801 pre Matrix cabinet doesn't have them... If Serge is interested, I also have the review in the following issue of the 105.2 with decoupled bass driver and refinements further up (not sure how much rock music was used in the listening sessions at the factory...)
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I would say so, if able to add a sub to tame the room modes with the sweet spot and the aligned phase design I can't see changing to a new speaker can result in significant perceivable improvement, except mentally coz you spent a fortuneSo the jury is pretty clear that these kef’s doesn’t deserve being flipped, rather restored to factory new spec?
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I would say so, if able to add a sub to tame the room modes with the sweet spot and the aligned phase design I can't see changing to a new speaker can result in significant perceivable improvement, except mentally coz you spent a fortune
from measurement it suggesting a yes for me. of coz say getting the Blade 2 will be even better, but then your wallet wont think soSo > $2k USD to get them (+sub) shredding better than brand new then?