Kef Q55.2

[Corto Maltese]

I need your opinion:
I have a very nice pair of KEF Q55.2, which is driven by Synthesis Nimis. It sounds to me that KEFs do enjoy the Nimis, but… While quite sensitive, they do not sound very fast. For the nice bass, I have to go high in volume, and play with both ports. I must admit one thing – my wife and kids are right when they say that the socks do not look very good in the front port. So, to see them without the grille, I got my black dress socks (three pairs!) in there. You can imagine comments that they make now.:frown2:
Knowing KEF and the drivers they used in Q55.2, I am wondering could “hot rod” x-over help.
I did reed the review here from Pete R, where he describes what he did:

The reason that I''m throwing in my two cents is because a couple of weeks ago I decided to upgrade the capacitors and resistors in the crossovers. I used the Solen fast caps from France, 8.2uf and 10uf@250V. I also replaced the 3.3ohm and 6.8ohm 5watt resistors with Mills wirewound 3.5 and 7ohm 12watt respectively. The stock parts were okay but basically 19 cent parts. The improvement was immediate and not subtle. The bass improvement was a pleasant surprise. It is now fuller and more natural, I can hear more of the attack and the amp on electric bass. Also, the bass seems to be coming from the floor between the speakers, it''s alot more three dimensional. The mids and highs are alot more natural also. Previously my left speaker was slightly brighter than the right, now they are balanced. Overall a very worthwhile mod considering a $30 investment.
I tried to contact him by posting a comment. No answer, so far.
My question is:
Did anyone made similar improvements with predictable and positive outcome?

Thanks!

[harley .guy07]

I have a pair of Paradigm Monitor 7 speakers form the mid 90's that sounded Ok but were way too bright and did not have the smoothness and control or the imaging I wanted. So I did the same thing as you did with the crossover, intalled better components but I added a Zobel network in the design to smooth out the midrange performance. Plus I changed the tweeters to a 1 1/8" soft dome tweeter because I thought it would take away the brightness and add a controled smooth sound that imaged way way better and made the sound more natural. About your speakers I would take one of the drivers out and see how well these cabinets are braced, what kind of dampening material is used on the side of the cabinets and make sure it is doing its job well, also I might play with acousta stuffing or something similar and put different amounts in the cabinets to see if you can improve the bass performance even more on these speakers. I know the retail price of my speakers in the mid 90's were around 750 bucks and after my mods I would put them up against anything in the 1000 to 1200 dollar range and I believe they would hold there own. It just goes to show that some people give up on a speaker when all they would have to do is improve some crossover components, maybe add to it if necessary. Check out the drivers and cabenits and find the weak links o bottle necks and repair or replace them and most mid high end speakers can become way more of a speaker than they ever thought possible. Thats my opinion.

[Corto Maltese]

Thanks, Harley Guy.
My intention is to play with the dampening / isolating materials, but that can not speed up the reaction of the speaker. Playing with the x-overs would.
What influence the Zobel network made on the impedance? Wouldn't Zobel network influence the performance of your amp as well?
Another question is would I have enough space on the board...
I just wanted to know did anyone here perform any “hot-rod” jobs, especially on KEF before I start hacking the existing x-overs.
Also, I did try to contact KEF help line, to buy the crossovers for my speakers, so I can play without thinking about “the point of no return”. No answer.