Review: KEF R500 loudspeakers

Introduction: Last month I bought a pair of KEF Q350 speakers. I liked some of the attributes over the Wharfedale Denton speakers - mostly the sense of speed and some better detail. My plan was to eventually replace the Q350s with a pair of KEF R3s, speakers that were being sold via Accessories4Less for a very nice price. Things, however, began to move a little faster than I expected.

Fate stepped in: the Walnut R3s were no longer available. With my wife's blessing I instead purchased a pair of reconditioned R500s, the previous generation of the current production R5. It's been a few years since I've owned "full range" speakers so I was curious to see how these would sound in my narrow mid century listening room.

Shipping was fast with a Sunday (!) delivery from Fedex. I managed to unpack and setup the speakers without any help but be warned, the cabinets are heavier than they look. My weekly workout plan paid off! I also liked the spiked feed and the cups to stop damage to the new cork floors.

First Impressions: Where did all that bass and body come from? The two 5.25" woofers move a lot more air than I expected but perhaps I've been living in mini-monitor land for far too long. Sure it's not quite in the old UREI 813A territory with 15" woofers but the KEFs acquit themselves well with most rock music. The blending of the drivers - bass, uni-q midrange and tweeter - is also seamless.  Even though I only have 25Ws of Class A Aleph J on tap I had no urge for more power with the small listening room.

My friend rolled over and we listened to a few favorite records. It was obvious that these speakers still had some breaking in to do since changes were audible even in the middle of an LP side. After a few hours it seemed as if the treble had become more extended and the drivers even faster than before. Forwardness and depth changed with whatever turntable / preamp was being used. ie - the Thorens TD309 / Classe Five gave a "back in the hall sound" while the Dual CS5000 / Schiit Mani was more forward "mixing board" approach but with a little less resolution and bass depth.

Listening: After a week of daily use, it was time for a solid listening session with notebook in hand.   Turntable used was the Thorens TD309 paired with the Classe Five.

The Who - Tommy (Tracks) is an odd little album that I like but only in small bursts.  It is also an album I've heard on several of my systems.  The first side of this German pressed double-LP album has a lot of dynamics and a wide soundstage with a lot of things going on.  The KEFs did a very admirable job here; the firm foundation of Keith Moon's drumming and John Entwistle's bass was some of the best I've heard; only beaten by the massive UREI 813A speakers.  Where the R500s really shined was the attack of Pete Townshend's guitar work, sounding detailed and full of body.  There were a few times where my jaw literally dropped with surprise by the sheer dynamics of the album, not to mention the soundstage height(!) which is something I usually only hear on very expensive speakers.

Dead Can Dance - Into the Labyrinth (4AD) has a lot of acoustic instruments in a wide, sometimes shifting soundstage.  My original 1993 British pressing sounded marvelous.  On the song The Ubiquitous Mr Lovegrove, Brendan Perry's voice had real weight and presence.  The fleshy finger strikes on the heads of the drums was readily apparent..  Dynamics, once again, were excellent as was soundstage depth and width.  Just a stunning album, one that I would use to demo any excellent hi-fi system.

Hiroshi Suzuki - Cat (Coumbia) has recently been re-issued on very clean and quiet Japanese vinyl.  The color of the Suzuki's trombone is vivid with astounding dynamics shifts.  The rest of his bandmates sound as if they are sitting in a living real space.  An example of ths is the song Walk Tall which begins with hand claps that echoed with a natural decay.  The treble is fast and transparent, especially for a metal tweeter driver.  The high end detail doesn't quite match the best I've heard - QUAD ESL-63s or Ionovac plasma tweeters - but still has less aggression than the horn tweeter of an Altec 604.

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bayou Country (Liberty) is a classic rock 'n' roll album.  This original British pressing somehow bests the American copies I've heard with a cleaner, more see-through midrange.  The attack of the guitar has real body and presence; unlike the past mini monitors I've reviewed.  Once again the dynamics were impressive, especially the harmonica playing which had a real raw and dirty swamp sound.  It sounded as if a whole lot of air was being moved!  The instruments were each locked into their own space, separate but joined in the musical whole. 

 

Conclusion: As you can tell, I was taken away by the presence the KEF R500s could project.  The body of instruments and vocals were especially enjoyable.  These speakers seemed to sit in a middle ground between the UREI 813As and the Magnepan 1.6QRs, which is to say they could swing dynamically, soundstage quite well both in width and depth, and still provide musical enjoyment.  But they also didn't have the aggressive warts and all sound of the horn speaker, or the dark graininess of the planars.  After living several years with the limitations of small monitor speakers it will be difficult to go back; the ability of the larger KEFs to provide life-like body is something I cannot forget now.

In the future I will be playing with some wiring changes, a different cartridge, and maybe even a more powerful amplifier.  For now, however, the speaker quest is finished.

Review System:
Thorens TD-309 turntable with Ortofon 2M Bronze
 Classe Five preamplifier
First Watt Aleph J clone
Cardas Iridium interconnects
Cardas Twinlink speaker cable

Review: KEF Q350 speakers

 

Nothing too expensive or too exciting but for the price - brand new - from Accessories 4 Less, I couldn't pass them up. I've been a KEF fan for a long time, owning multiple iterations of the Uni-Q driver over the years. I was curious to see how this similarly priced speaker would sound versus my favorite budget Wharfedale Dentons.

I've been letting the speakers cook with daily usage from a vintage Dual CS5000, Schiit Mani, and Ortofon OM20 combination. At moderate levels the difference between the old *Wharfedale Denton and the KEF Q350 speakers are subtle. The Q350s are a touch cleaner with a brighter tone. Detail - neither are what I would call overachievers here - is also a little better, perhaps the difference between aluminum and woven Kevlar drivers.  The bass out of the 6.5" KEF woofers go down a touch deeper and with a bit more definition than the 5" unit on the Dentons.

With the family out of the way for an hour, I fired up the Thorens TD309 and spun my US copy of Pink Floyd's The Wall. At a higher listening level: within their dynamic limitations, the KEFs do a bit better here too. The busy sound effects come across cleanly and have real depth too. Definition - inner detail and body - are certainly not the best I've heard. These are, after all, no electrostatic speaker or an Altec 604 driver with a time-aligned crossover, but given the price the KEFs are more than acceptable. The old "PRAT" factor is high with lots of toe tapping enjoyment. Bass with the 6.5" driver is good but if you want to go deeper and louder a sub (or a larger Q-series) would be needed.

Further listening with a variety of records revealed a clean midrange with only some minor veiling - again, compared to the best I've heard. ie - there is an ever-so slight blurring of aggressive guitar work and the leading edges of high-hats. The treble is, however, extended with shimmer and shine but still not etched. I was expecting some overdone brightness from the aluminum tweeter but my (aged) ears weren't driven out of the room.

Overall I would give the KEF Q50s a solid thumbs up. They do punch quite above their cost point but these days that's no big surprise given the available computer modeling and testing that would have been a dream for speaker designers in the past.. I'm curious how the R Series would perform. But that's a future hope.

*Regarding the Wharfedale Denton speakers: these are equally good speakers but something I would recommend with a more aggressive digital front-end or amplification chain. In my case the smoothness of the Aleph J and the slight darkness of the Classe Five preamplifier was perhaps too much of a good thing. The Denton appears to have been voiced to have a vintage, smooth sound instead of the "hi-fi" approach of the KEFs.

System: 

Classe Five preamplifer

Aleph J amplifier

Thorens TD309 turntable with Ortofon Bronze phono cartridge

Belden 9497 speaker cable

various budget interconnect cables 

Review: Wharfedale Denton 80th Anniversary speakers

 

Introduction: I've been running with B&W Matrix 805 speakers for almost five years now.  They are good speakers but after such a long time I was interested in trying something new.  I first started concentrating on finding some KEFs, which is a speaker brand that I've always liked.  I had my eye on a pair of LS50s, Reference 1s, or even some small Q towers.  Instead I was drawn to a Wharefedale Denton review on the Steve Hoffman forums which had several fellow audio nuts being in love with this speaker.  One of them even sold his KEF LS50s and stayed with the Denton speakers. Given the low clearance price of these speakers I decided they were worth a try.

 

The Wharfedale Denton is a small mini monitor sporting a 5" Kevlar woofer and a 1" textile dome tweeter, something you would find out of an 1980s speaker.  These particular units, with an original cost of $1000USD, were created for Whardale's 80th anniversary and as a homage to the original vintage version.  Sensitivity is only 86dB so low-powered amplifiers may have trouble driving them.  The speakers can be bi-wired via the gold binding posts outback.  Bonus - prices have dropped considerably with this speaker, now they can be purchased new for $400USD.

I bought my pair of Dentons used so they were already broken in.  The original Wharfedale box arrived quickly and without any damage.  Packing was excellent and the little cloth bags surrounding the speakers was a nice touch.  Build quality appears to be very high.  Rapping on the side of the cabinets gives a high "tink" instead of low, hollow "thunk" which reveals some heavy construction.  The veneer / wood combo and silver grille looks quite presentable in my mid-century modern furnished house.  Very high - at least in this domicile - wife acceptance factor.

After removing the Matrix 805s and associated line-level bass equalizer, I plunked the Wharfedale's on top of the speaker stands.  I then moved the speakers a little further out into the room.  Since I already had some Kimber 8PR/4PR cables in place I decided to bi-wire.  Amplification is the soon-to-be replaced Adcom GFP-555 preamplifier and GFA-545 amplifier while the front end is the Dual CS5000 with the soon-to-replaced Shure M97xe phono cartridge.  As you can tell, I'm in the middle of a system rebuild so stay tuned for further developments.  But right now this is a decent budget system, something that someone who has $400USD to spend on speakers might have.

Listening: Initial thoughts - a little boxed in sounding.  A little flat and very polite.  But these speakers were literally winter cold having sat in a UPS truck and on my doorstep for a few hours before I set them up.  After running some errands, and with a fully warmed up stereo, I finally sat down to do some serious listening.

One of the groups I've been collecting lately is The Police.  I now have all of their albums on Japanese pressed vinyl, but for this session I went with 12" British-pressing single of Wrapped Around Your Finger.  This is a really excellent sounding cut of this song, besting my LP version.  On the Wharfedales the bass had a lot of PRaT, laying down a solid foundation that only increased the enjoyment of this song.  Dynamics, considering the size of the woofer, was impressive.  I've heard similarly sized woofers in KEF and other speakers that get muddled in this part of the spectrum.  Perhaps there is some mid-bass hump here at play but it was still tight and well-done without any overhang.

The all important midrange was clean and lively with a touch of warmth.  Vocals sounded natural as did the other instruments.  Each sat in it's own space without sounding confused.  This made it easier to pick out the different threads of the song.  With the narrow front baffle, the Denton speakers also did a more than fair job at disappearing, only leaving a good left-to-right stereo spread.

The treble on this 12" cut was clean though perhaps a bit rolled-off.  Very British polite, if I do say so myself.  The brashness of the cymbals were muted, though to what degree would require further exploration.  But the first impression was of a very listenable speaker that didn't sound forward or overly bright.  That can be a difficult thing for many small speakers since the temptation for manufacturers is to make a speaker that has a lot of fake detail by having a tipped-up response.

Dan Bejar is the talented singer-songwriter that fronts Destroyer.  Kaputt may be the best realization of his vision: idiosyncratic lyrics mixed with breathless delivery, all held together by a tight multi-instrumented backing band.  It reminds me of the lighter moments of Roxy Music mixed with free form poetry.

On the Denton speakers the music jelled together very nicely, making a cohesive picture that allowed me, to repeat myself, hear the different threads of the song but experience them as a whole.  Bass, once again. was very tuneful.  The midrange was smooth as was the treble.  I also noticed some extra detail retrieval that I hadn't heard before with the Matrix 805s speakers.  With the Dentons there was some synth that was low in the mix, along with extra breathiness in the backup vocals.  I've heard this album many, many times so this extra detail came as a bit of a surprise.  Nor was it hyped up detail from a bright treble, but instead seemed a completely natural part of the song.  Color me impressed.


 It was time to try an album that I am very familiar with, one that I have heard across several systems - a British pressing of Supertramp, Crime of the Century.  The lead in song, School, is bombastic with very deep bass and explosive dynamic contrasts.  How does the Wharfedale hold up compared to my departed UREI 813A speakers, which could really deliver the goods?  In a word (or three), not so well.

The deepest bass here - and there is a lot of it - becomes rather one-note and plodding, missing out on the subtle shadings I hear on much larger speakers.  The same was true with the dynamics which did not have the swell and force it should have had.  This is hardly a surprise given the physics of a 5" woofer; after all there is only so much air that it can move.  An added subwoofer would really help out here.  It really was surprising how nice the bass sounded on the Police cut versus the Supertramp track, showing the physical limitations of the small woofer on some material.

The midrange and treble, however, were still very pleasing but the muddiness of the bass did distract from the overall presentation.  Depth was foreshortened compared to the best I've heard, but the left-to-right stereo spread was marvelous.

A non-audiophile favorite of mine is John Moreland's High on Tulsa Heat.  The simpler tracks, which feature John's emotional voice and guitar, sounded pretty satisfying.  I was reminded of the time I saw him play live at the Ark in Ann Arbor.  The full band songs, however, were dark sounding and lacked air and detail.  I put the blame on the home studio recording equipment and microphones used, but just to be sure I listened to some brighter albums to see if they were noticeably rolled off on the top end.

The Stranger Things Volume 2 soundtrack is nothing but synth music made in a retro-70s style.  The higher frequencies were well-controlled and didn't display any massive roll-offs.  I would expect this to be a tad brighter than what I heard but not by much. 

Next up was The Blue Nile - A Walk Across the Rooftops, which features swooping synths and austere guitar work.  The top end was prominent but a small touch of top end loss was still apparent to these middle-aged ears.  It is obvious that this treble roll-off was an intentional design decision, made to replicate the sound of more vintage speakers.  So the Dentons are not the most accurate of speakers but a flaw that I can live with given the rest of the system budget.

Conclusion: In the sub-$1000USD range, the Dentons are the best that I've heard - period.  Highly recommended.

Life is about compromise, and speakers are among the worst in this regard.  The reality is that when dealing at this price range, it takes a lot of first-class engineering and careful listening to make a speaker work this well.   These are transducers that carry the music in an engrossing, melodic fashion.  Poised is the word that comes to mind, making lesser speakers in this cost bracket sound positively brash and unsophisticated.  The toe-tapping enjoyment I get from the Wharfedales make their sins ones of omission, which though are many, mostly fade into the background.

Limitations?  Many.  These are not party speakers. If you want something that rocks and plays harder, I would suggest you research any number of larger brands and models; especially something with a bigger woofer.   Another option is to add a subwoofer.  If you need even more finesse or bandwidth, then you're looking at spending more money.  The Denton speakers are well-balanced for their size, drivers complement, and price point but there are a lot of possibilities out there for better sound.  We shall be exploring these as my system changes.  But for now I will stick with the Denton speakers and see how they respond with tube amplification and a better phono cartridge.  Stay tuned!

System:
Adcom GFP-555 preamplifier
Adcom GFA-545 amplifier
Dual CS5000 turntable with Shure M97xe phono cartridges
Pioneer DVD-V7400 DVD player
Kimber 8PR/4PR bi-wire speaker cables
various budget interconnect cables

Update: The replacement of the Shure cartridge with an Ortofon Super OM 20 really broadened the bandwidth of the Wharfedale speakers.  Treble no longer sounds rolled off and bass -within middling listening levels - has a lot more composure.  It's a nice little match.  See the Ortofon review for more details.

Review: B&W Matrix 805 loudspeakers

 Introduction
Bowers and Wilkins have long been audiophile darlings.  I'm no historical expert, but from my many years of reading the audio specialty magazines, it is the venerable 801 studio monitor that cemented their reputation.  Unlike many other speaker makers, they also produce their own drivers, and have an engineering staff on board to build excellent crossovers and cabinets.  This attention to quality is hardly extraordinary in the world of audiophiles, but like their British competitor KEF, it speaks of a long term love of the black arts of speaker design.

My own personal experience with B&W is very, very short.  The only pair I've personally heard was back in the 80s, when my best friend had a pair of stand mounted units of an unknown model.  I don't specifically remember much about the sound other than the speakers could take all the power that the Denon receiver could dish out.  This was, of course, before my audiophile days, when playing clean and loud was all that mattered to my teenage ears.

Time for a New Speaker?
Moving to a new house with a smaller listening space, and a Denon DL-103R cartridge that got damaged during the move, tempered my audiophile equipment craving.  Instead I pulled back on my expenditures, scaling back the size and quality of my system by going with a pair of KEF iQ30 speakers that I already owned, and buying a new Denon DL-110 cartridge.  I even stuck in some Chinese EL34 tubes for my Eico HF60 monoblocks, wanting to save my vintage Mullards for the day when I had a larger listening room.

However, fate being what it is, those plans of hanging back were thwarted by the purchase of a VPI Aries 1.  This was not a turntable purchase that I was planning to make, but it was such a hard deal to pass up - being local and priced lower than what I was seeing on Audiogon - that I took the plunge.  The resulting sound, even through the budget KEF monitors, was a major eye-opener.  I'll be reviewing this turntable in a separate post, but needless to say the overall sound, even with a budget priced Denon DL-110, became much more dynamic, involving, and was quite the step up in reproduction.  After hearing the Aries, I knew that to get the full effect I had to upgrade the rest of my stereo system.  I also knew that with my smaller listening space that approaching the bass and dynamics of the UREI would be near impossible, but perhaps I could be sated with a mini-monitor of high enough quality.

My initial thought was to go with KEF - specifically the KEF LS50, but the low efficiency of 85dB made me wonder if 60Ws of tube power would be enough.  The lower-end models of KEF had their own issues.  For example I wondered if the current Q300 model would really be a major upgrade versus the iQ30s currently in the system.  Browsing through Audiogon for monitors under one thousand dollars, I came across the B&W Matrix 805s, the baby brother of the famed 801s.  My interest piqued, I read the Stereophile review and this post by Ken Rockwell.  Both are excellent starting points if you wish to have a deeper technical description of these speakers.  Needless to say, I was thoroughly interest in this speaker now.  Though the efficiency is only a rated 87dB, it still seemed worth taking the risk.  I purchased the 805s and soon had them in my hands.

Initial Impressions
Opening the box and unwrapping the yards of bubble wrap, I was greeted with a very nicely built pair of mini-monitors.  The enclosure made of rosewood (veneer?) is very lovely.  Binding posts on the rear are recessed and gold.  The woofer is a 6.5" kevlar unit while the removable bullet tweeter on top is a metal dome that is time-aligned by a fourth-order crossover.  An extra feature is the optional outboard electronic crossover/filer the cuts bass off below 10Hz but firms up the response between 10Hz and 50Hz.  This could be useful to reduce turntable subsonics and improve the low-end for rock or symphony music.

Installation was on top of my UTI 29" tall stands, bi-wired with budget Kimber 8PR/4PR.  Distance between the speakers was some 7' from each other and perhaps 2' from the sidewalls and 3' from the rear wall.  Obviously not a cavernous listening area, eh?

Using the Denon DL-110 cartridge, along with Hitachi 5AR4s and Shuguang EL34s installed in the Eico HF60s.  The first record up on the Aries 1 turntable was Neil Young's "Live at Massey Hall".  This recording is fantastic - however with only one singer and guitar (or piano) it is by no means a complex or very dynamic album.  Nonetheless, it is a good album for picking out overall sound quality.  The treble sounded very clean and polite.  The midrange was clear with plenty of detail and space.  The bass, which isn't very deep on this album, had a slightly wooden character.

The next two albums: a German pressing of Pink Floyd's "Animals" and a Japanese pressing of Steely Dan's "Greatest Hits" showed the natural limitations of all small speakers.  As expected, ultimate dynamic range and the lower bass of the B&W 805s were limited by the small woofer size.  Yes, I'm being quite unfair comparing such a minute speaker to the massive UREI 813As, but I'm just reporting what I heard.  When the bass got really deep, the 805s didn't choke, but instead began to slowly compress, leading to the already mentioned wooden character to the bass.  However, throughout the dynamic swings, the sound still remained balanced and focused without getting gritty or uncontrolled like the KEF iQ30s.

Getting Deeper:
Now it was time to upgrade the rest of my system.  First it was a new cartridge: the Dynavector 10X5.  This is a good, dynamic high output moving-coil cartridge that works quite well with the Aries 1 turntable.  After that, it was time to bring out the best tubes I had for my Eico HF-60s.  Out went the Hitachi and Shuguangs, and in went my vintage Mullard tubes.  I also replaced the GEC CV4085s (EF86) with the very earliest and rare "long plate" versions that Mullard made.

These changes were proof positive that rolling in the right tubes can have a major impact on the sound.  Not only did the midrange become more relaxed, but the higher frequencies were even smoother than before.  The Dynavector 10X5 has always been a dynamic cartridge and partnered well with the B&W 805s.  Sure, the UREI 813As still hold sway in the explosive bass department, but for such a small speaker, the overall frequency response was much improved.

You Got to Equalize! 
B&W also included a small bass equalizer with the 805s.  Since I didn't have another pair of Cardas interconnects on hand, I opted to use some budget Canare wire to make the connection between the Quicksilver preamplifier and bass equalizer.  From the output of this little unit, Cardas Cross wire was used.

The change was immediately apparent - this small speaker now growled like a much larger speaker.  Again, it was nothing like a big speaker with multiple drivers, but it sure helped with rock 'n' roll music.  The wooden character of the bass was gone and instead became really firm and punchy.  However there was a bit of detail loss, but for the types of music I listen to, I definitely preferred the improved bass response.  Now I will have to go ahead and buy a short run of Cardas interconnects.  However purists or listeners of lighter fare may prefer the speakers without the additional wiring and active equalization.  Try it both ways.

Speaker Cable Upgrade:
The Kimber 8PR/4PR is great budget wire, but I was curious to hear how my vintage Cardas Hexlink speaker cable would fare.  So back in went the binding post jumpers on the 805s, and on went the Cardas.  The change was quite immediate - the slightly bright, polite sound became much more relaxed.  The top-end treble also smoothed out, turning the monitor into one warm, full-bodied speaker.  Wow.   I would never expect such a major character change from a few feet of cable.

Details R Us
Bass Response:  Hey, this is a small speaker with a relatively tiny woofer.  Expecting subterranean bass suitable for hard rock or organ music is just plain wishful thinking.  If you like that kind of music, you either need a larger speaker or an additional subwoofer.  However, with the B&W bass equalizer installed, lower frequencies are served well enough that I don't miss my big studio monitors (too much).  The sound became really punchy with good detail.  It wasn't all boom either, but instead the bass became very tight and controlled.  Obviously some thinking went into the speaker crossover design and the additional needs of the equalizer.  Again, very dependent on system and musical tastes.

Midrange: Compared to the UREI 813As, which are ruthlessly neutral as befitting a real studio monitor, the 805s have a slightly recessed sound when using the Kimber wire.  This was tremendously reduced by the Cardas cable.  When the music gets really busy or the dynamics really start swinging, it's almost as if the speaker is slightly "holding back" as the big peaks swell up.  Once again, perhaps this is just the effect of a small speaker being asked to do the work of a larger one.

Detail was exemplary - fingers on strings, studio effects, and overdubs were just that more obvious than many other (more budget) speakers I've heard.  The level of available information was much higher than my old Magnepan 1.6QRs, but not quite in the Quad ESL-63 league.

Treble:  The 805 tweeter ranks up there with some of the better I've heard.  It's clean but not totally antiseptic.  It's also very detailed  Sure, it doesn't quite strike in the electrostatic speaker or the plasma tweeter level, but it's no slouch either.  Admittedly there is a slight bump in the highest of frequencies, so some system matching is paramount here.  For example, the wrong solid-state amplification or an aggressive moving-coil or DAC could play havoc with the system balance.  Be also sure to play with speaker wire, as my Kimber vs. Cardas experiment proved.

Other: Even at loud listening levels, the 805s never fall apart.  That is to say the speakers never sound ragged or uncontrolled.  Soundstaging placement, width and depth are also very good, letting instruments and voices sit naturally within the space of the recording.  There was some minor shrinkage - as to be expected - of image size compared to larger speakers.

Conclusion:
Speakers in the less than one-thousand dollar range are a hard nut to crack.  My advice in this range is to buy the best used model you can afford.  The B&W Matrix 805 is one such model.  I'm sure there are many others, but few in this price range can match the engineering, quality, and performance of these top level speakers.  I expect the 805s to have a long shelf-life in my current system.  Highly recommended.

Review System:
VPI Aries with JMW 10.5i tonearm and SDS Power Supply
Dynavector 10X5
Cardas Quadlink 5C 1M interconnects
Quicksilver preamplifier with Mullard short-plate 12AX7s, RCA 12FQ7s, Raytheon black-plate 5814
Cardas Cross 1M interconnects
EICO HF-60 monoblocks with Mullard XF2 EL34s, EF86s, 5AR4s, and GE 6SN7GTAs.
Kimber 8PR/4PR 2M bi-wire cable or Cardas Hexlink
VTI UF29 stands
VTI BL503 equipment rack

Revisiting the UREI 813A loudspeakers

In my previous review of the UREI loudspeaker, I claimed:

Weaknesses? Maybe because of the large baffle area, these are not soundstaging champions. Most mixes never go beyond the sides of the speakers. Another downside is that the sound never truly opens up until these are playing very loud. This makes them unsuitable for apartment and condo dwellers. Because of this, they don't quite work with baroque music either. They are also a touch dry and unrelenting - a bad recording is well, a bad recording and they will certainly show you the weaknesses of your favorite not-so-well-mixed music.

After some extended listening with a new front end and different amplification chain, I'll take most of those words back.  With an EL34 based amplifier and my improved analog front end, I am now getting excellent left-to-right imaging that goes beyond the boundaries of the speakers.  Depth has also improved.  The EL34 coupled to the Altec 604 driver has also resulted in a smoother, more coherent sound than either the Threshold S/500 or my old Dynaco Mark IIIs using SED 6550c.  Now hearing inner-detail doesn't require the volume level to be cranked to the max which makes me happier.

Lessons learned?  The front end is the most important part of your system; concentrate on that part before casting blame downstream.  Also the UREIs are in fact very neutral speakers only revealing the flaws of your signal chain.  That is to say that modern production tubes just can't hold a candle to the old stuff, especially in the treble department.

Main System:
VPI HW19 Mark III with SDS Power Supply
Rega RB300 with Cardas wiring
aluminum rebodied Denon DL-103R
Audio Sector Phono Stage with OPA627s
Cardas Cross interconnects
Quicksilver preamplifier with (real) Mullard 12AX7s, RCA 12FQ7s, and a black-plate Raytheon 5814
Cardas Quadlink 5C interconnects
Yaqin MC-10T amplifier with black-plate RCA 12AT7s and (real) Mullard XF2 EL34s
Cardas Hexlink speaker cables
UREI 813A speakers