KEF Owners Thread - Page 99

Yep a few feet above ear level is optimal. Whether you put them on stands or wall mount is up to you. I have mine wall mounted since I think they look cleaner that way.

Anyone have a recommendation for stands for the IQ30s? KEF does not make them, do they?

If you are looking for budget stands(less than 50 bucks) then I'd recommend getting a pair of Sanus BF-31 or 24 depending on your requirement.

Just ordered a pair of "Like New" IQ90's from Accessories4less - I will be pairing these speakers with HK 3490 Stereo reciever for now. Plan is to move them over to the dedicated media room where i have the KEF 3005 running. These IQ90's and IQ60C (Yet to buy this) will be the replacing the Front LCR while i will retain the Eggs for the rear surrounds.
Does anyone know (or have )if the upgrade to XQ50C will be susbstantial compared to IQ60C with the IQ90's? Media Room is 16*17*11. Please comment.

So, basically what you are asking is whether you should get an XQ50c instead of an iQ60c, right? I would just stick with the iQ60c. Any chance you can accommodate a 3rd iQ90 in the center spot?

Yeah thought of that too (3rd iQ90 in the center spot).. But that might be tight/no option. would XQ50 be a overkill with the others in the setup OR it just does not add value(justifying the price)?

Thanks for that Hector. I missed a deal on them at Amazon today. Does anyone have any other suggestions on speaker stands I might look at as well?

There is a pretty big selection here.

http://www.standsandmounts.com/

Any specific one from there? Or should I just look for something with a similar size to the IQ30s in terms of depth and width?

On another note, I'm putting up the IQ50s.. they look great! I'm wondering about the spikes for the bottom... are they necessary? I'm a little concerned about them damaging the floor. I have carpet so its not a huge deal, but wondered if they might penetrate too far? I'm probably just being paranoid!

There is no science to picking stands. They're pretty much all of good quality. I'd just get ones that are of the right height, fit your speakers, fit your price range, and of course look good to you. For surrounds, you're going to want some stands that are kind of high. Take into account iq3s are on the larger side of bookshelf speakers so the stands don't need to be as high as stands you'd get for iq1s. The tweeter should be a couple feet above ear level.

Sanus brand seems to be real popular around these forums since they're a wonderful bargain. I myself just ordered a set of the sanus 31" stands for surrounds from amazon for $47.

I ordered Sanus BF-31B (31 inches) from thenerds.net today for 35 dollars after applying a five dollars discount coupon and got additional 5 % cashback from bing.com too... ;-)

Here is the bing store link for thenerds.net:
http://www.bing.com/cashback/go?c=17...BST08&cbst=1.1

Search for "BF31B"
Checkout and apply coupon "SUMMER" and it should give u 5 dollar discount.

For iQ30s I'd recommend getting Sanus BF-24B, which is 24 inches tall and has more room for speaker than BF-31B. Just a suggestion.

I wish I knew about that 2 days ago. I already ordered from amazon. Thanks for the link though.

Time to upgrade... I just purchased a Reference 4 which will be replaced my Reference 3 (will sell on Audiogon). I was tempted to upgrade my side Reference 2s with the Reference 3s, but that would probably be overkill

Has anyone else also experienced louder sound from one of the fronts while doing an Audyssey setup ?
When I say loud it means, at least twice as louder as the other channel (left in my case).

What is the general opinion of the KEF iQ60c? Positives, negatives, etc? I'm brand new to HT/AV stuff and this looks like it might fit my set up nicely, along with matching fronts.

It's probably the acoustics of your room.

Thanks subiefast, I rewired my fronts and did the audyssey setup again and now its gone.

I have currently biamped my KEF iQ1s using 16AWG Radioshack cable.
Do you think if I get better sound if I use a better gauge(like 12 AWG) and better company cable?

It shouldn't make any difference.

Does anyone have any information on speakers break-in period ?

I found this interesting article at one of the yahoo forums about speaker's break-in period:...
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The break in on speakers can range from 50 hours to 250 hours, depending on the size, make and model of speakers, on a nice set of bookshelfs, I would say that after 100 to 150 hours of use, they will sound noticeably better than they do out of the box.

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Full article can be read at the following link:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...9211033AA79lix

Any comments, if any of this is true ??

There are varying opinions on this in the forum. Some say there is a break-in some say, it's just placebo.

Seeking Suggestions..
I can stretch for $2K more if i could really get more oomph/$ beyond what i have acquired already..

I have a dedicated Media Room (~3500 CuFt) with the following..
KEF IQ90 Front L/R
KEF IQ60C Center Channel (About to Order from A4L)
Part of the existing KEF 3005 Series
-Eggs as the Surrounds (4 - HTS3001)
-HTB2 as Sub
Sanyo PLV-Z2000 PJ | Pioneer Elite VSX-82TSX AVR | Sony PS3 for BD
Usage will be 100% Movies and very Little Gaming

>A decent sub in the $1K Range or May be Two for the same price - Any suggestions?
>Reading quite a bit about seperates. Thinking of.. Emotiva XPA-3 to power up the Front L/C/R (Or may be a XPA-5) - Would i really see any difference doing so given
that i will be using this all for HT Usage? & since that i have a decent AVR?

I dont have to spend that $2K; If its not for my media room - I will propably use that for a 2 Channel Setup that iam
planning for my Living Room (Have a HK 3490 Stereo Reciever - Powering couple of in walls from Aperion Audio for now).

IQ30s are arriving today. The only thing I need now is a sub! Well.. that and my cables/wires to get here so I can wire everything up. I guess I need an audio rack too.. as I have too many components for my TV stand... :-) Oh.. and I suppose some wire channelling and some stands for the 30's. Oh boy. lol.

I can't wait to have everything all ready.

I would seriously consider upgrading your speaker cables. Not to start a 'cable war', but one of the few cable upgrades I've done that actually made sense was to upgrade my speaker cables.

I was at the back of my speakers yesterday so I could figure out the wiring, and they have those plastic caps on them. Yes, I'm being a noob here. I can take the cap off, but then the wire that connects the two terminals together comes loose. I was looking at THE_FORCE's setup and it seems like he was able to put the wire in while leaving the caps on.

I am going to be using banana plugs... I'm assuming these caps come off in that case? What do I do about the wire between the two terminals?

You need to take the caps off to use the banana plugs. However, the binding wires shouldn't come loose when you take the caps off.

Thanks... I'll have to take a look at that to see why its happening....hopefully there is nothing wrong.

You want to remove the small red and black caps that cover the holes at the very end of the posts. Not the entire screw-down binding "cap". You use a knife or razor blade to get underneath those little caps and pop them out.

Thanks! I was wondering if those should come out.

Yeah, you have to get something underneath them to get them out. Be patient. Try not to damage them or your binding posts. It will probably help to remove the "caps" that you were removing prior in order to get to these caps, easily. Not that they are really necessary, but put them somewhere for safe-keeping in case you want to sell the speakers at some point down the road.