Hello from Europe everybody,
Im a new member from Austria and despite being an electrician, Im a total speaker upgrade newbie.
Thanks to Danny´s YT Videos, I was infected with the tinkering virus...
As Im right in the escalating process of doing the swap, I thought, I should give back and contribute my findings and some pictures.
Three months ago I bought a pair of KEF R7 Metas after searching the webs for new speakers that would fit my preferences and my room constraints.
The KEFs seemed to fit my categoty the best and like most of you might already know, do have very solid and well braced cabinets plus good drivers.
The "weak point" (like in most commercially available speakers nowadays) are the crossovers and that constellation was right what I was looking for - budget wise and tinkering wise.
Long story short:I ordered a large package from Mundorf, including all new HF & MF parts plus the most effective LF upgrade parts (some coils unwound to match the exact original value), low mass terminal replacements (WBT knockoffs), 2mm² (12AWG) Mogami wires for the internal wiring and WBT 4% silver solder.
Thanks to user
Pagu38´s thread, I could spare me a lot of headache up to this point, so thanks!
Just as the other guys that posted their KEF R upgrades, Im struggling with getting the newly designed boards in the cabinet and the new cables routed properly.
These tasks are indeed a PITA, as KEF braced the cabinet´s whole middle line from the top down and three times horizontally, effectively limiting the working space radically.
Also the cables are held via two stapled cable ties in the most unreachable spots thinkable.
At least the original crossover boards are fairly easy to remove if plastic prying tools are at hand - to get the glued plastic standoffs out of the cabinet walls.
Without them you would need to cut the standoffs.
I pretty much went pagu38´s route by mounting the HF & MF board directly to the sidewall and making use of the full height given between the wall and the center brace. (~65mm - 5mm board heigth - some cable ties). I had good luck and found the board with the mundorf parts fits the space given prefectly - the cable ties even acting as sort of a spring load under the board and on top of the 100uF MCAP, without inducing mechanical stress when in its intended position.
The LF board is planned to be mounted back in the original spot with the original standoffs, but with a slightly larger board - designed just short of the big 100uF Mundorf MCap Alu EVO Oil.
Thats because with full support, the package would be just a tad too long to fit around the corner of the lower bass driver (original cutout, vertically) and back at the bottom end of the cabinet (back to horizontally).
Ill keep you updated, as the project continues.
