Blue cone version ..Good speakers or cheap imposters?

 

Well I seem to be good at making posts no one replies to here..

I took a punt and bought the speakers in question anyway.
They are new old stock, kef kar m130 drivers with matching tweeters and crossovers.
There is very little info I can gather on the net about these
I'm going on Kefs reputation and them being Nos condition
When They arrive I'll install then review them

 

How old are we talking? KEF is a GREAT home audio company, but being a slightly younger generation I've never heard of their 12V speaker sets.

 

http://www.talkaudio.co.uk/ipb/index...ction-manuals/

Here is a link I found to the owners manual which is dated 1995
These things could turn out to be great or a dud
Guess I'll find out when they turn up in the mail.

 

I have not seen KEF car audio since the mid 90s. Their coincident drivers were decent back then so, provided they work, you may like them

 

The kefs arrived today and they are indeed Nos ,
The drivers are blue cone with rubber surrounds , "made in England" is moulded into the baskets! So go figure that one.
I set up the drivers crossovers and tweets in shoeboxes and connected to the two spare channels of my amp.
This way I could AB compare them to the infinity kappas in my car.
The kefs had a more solid midrange and bought out more detail in the music, when I would switch over to the Kappas they sounded thin and tinny by comparison. Tweets sounded about the same but was hard to gauge with them lying on the back seat.
I'm liking the blue cone drivers and looking forward to changing my kappas out for them next weekend

 

It should be noted that home audio drivers and car audio driver are generally the same thing just marketed differently and packaged differently. The only area that really should be designed for a car environment would be in the subwoofer region of the audio spectrum. It's just that home audio drivers usually come with a matching box that isn't needed in car audio (not always though).

Kef is great stuff. Great reputation. Never heard any myself that I can recall. Generally consensus would be that they can dominate any Infinity system.

 

How can you claim that the KEF will dominate Infinity when, by your own admission, you have not heard them? I worked here and there with KEF in the mid 90s and they were decent but never knocked my socks off. I'm not saying I care for the Infinity drivers either but their biggest hurdle tends to be that the tweeter is too hot and, if one can address that, they can sound decent as well.

 

I was merely trying to convey what I've read regarding the two brands and their reputation for audio quality. The whole reason I mentioned I haven't heard Kefs is so that the statement directly after could be taken with that huge grain of salt. I can't recall ever hearing an infinity system I enjoyed, but I also have probably not heard their good stuff - only the future shop lines. Anyways we're starting to argue semantics over a dead thread - the OP has already said what he or she prefers to listen to and has made the choice. Now we just sit back and wait for install pics.

 

Most home audio = on axis listening
most car audio = off axis listening

I can name a couple companies that have designed their high end speakers for this.