KEF 101: Vinyl Like Noise
 

I have a pair of KEF 101 bookshelf speakers, and like them very much. Yes, they are old and cheap, but sound better than my more expensive Dynaudios.

However, an issue: in the first several minutes, they will give sounds like I am playing dirty vinyl records, you know the pops. After about 5 minutes without interference, the issue will go away.

Any ideas what can be the cause? Capacitors need to be replaced?

Most likely bad capacitors in your crossovers. Get them recapped/rebuilt and you should be good to go.

Thanks Audioraven.

Good catch - also check the woofer surrounds to make sure they are not deteriorating - that can throw off the voice coil alignment and cause all kinds of sonic trouble.

I'm pretty sure 101's have rubber woofer surrounds, so deterioration should not be an issue.

The woofer surrounds seem to be fine. BTW, the noise comes from both tweeter and woofer, at the same time.

I've seen some deteriorated rubber surround (I remember a Celestion SL700 with both woofer gone) but maybe was due to a poor storage condition or direct sunlight, not the usual foam aging.