Kef Corelli speakers

[Richard]

Hi all,

Setting up a second system and enjoying the JR149s powered by the old Quad 33/303 earlier this year set me looking at other speakers I missed all those years ago.

As mentioned, the good lady had Corellis when we met and being of a similar age and using Kef drivers (the Corellis not her ) they had come up in search threads quite a few times.

I love the sound of the JRs at low volume and the T27 tweeter in particular has great resolution. So when a pair of Corellis came up 10 miles away a few weeks ago I bought them if only for old times sake.

Like the JRs they too are from 1979 and use the T27 but this time in a cabinet twice the volume and with the larger B200 mid/bass driver so hopes were for a little more bass weight.

They were one owner in decent condition so I planned similar work to the JR149s; remove the drivers and crossovers, check them, rebuild, clean and oil the cabinets keeping them as original as possible.

Light rust on the driver screws suggested damp but it was superficial and cleaned off with no other damp problems or the dreaded water rings on the tops. Another bonus was finding the grilles were perfect so nothing to do there either other than hoover them! Nice to find the driver date labels all matching for 1979 and the crossovers original though the capacitors don't usually hold up after 40 years.

A meter on the terminals showed one good as expected around 7R but gave erratic high readings on the other. No scraping sounds though so onwards and upwards...