I’m not familiar with your kudos speakers at all as not available in Australia but if the 250DR could drive then successfully then the 5 shelf option might be the go. I think 6 shelves looks a bit much for me DJM
I have a 5 shelf option but with Linn LP12 Klimax and Linn PS along with 252/SCDR/250DR and it’s excellent combo with my Neat XLS speakers
I have had a full 500 series based system previously but for some reason I prefer the above, maybe room or my ageing cloth ears .
And don’t underestimate the SN3/hicapdr combo it’s pretty damn good and great value . I have that in another location running a CD based system with another LP12 and it’s really good. I have heard with the ndx2/xpsdr and it’s mighty fine
And let’s face it the 300 is better than the 250 but it’s a matter of compromise and getting the balance right
When I let the 500 series go ( as moved house ) I was looking to go 4 shelves but at the end of the day couldn’t get there so the 5 shelf system struck the right balance for me. I prefer the 4 shelf look but for my main system it couldn’t work, a step too far
Ahh the same here… didn’t realise you had gone down that path too… I agree it’s a fantastically performant combination, that Etude is cracking… incredible bit of kit.
For me Naim make some of the best streamers, hence I made my choice, unfortunately I fell out of love with their amps.
That is correct… in the end I moved on, and for me it was the right move… I trust my loved 552 is now being enjoyed in its new home.
Box count and real estate reduced and top performing SQ and the power to really drive and grip my ATCs beautifully.
I did toy with (combined) Actives including from ATC… and although they have some advantages, they just didn’t bring the overall performance I had come to appreciate from a quality power amp driving passives in my listening room.
Overall in my experience system synergy counts for a lot… although the Chord Hugo1 matched Naim amps very well… I think that was unusual… it was not the case for me for other more performant Chord sources… it wasn’t until I got into high end planar headphones that I realised what I was missing, so I got curious. Alas I never completely gelled with the Naim PCM1704K and IIR based filter reconstruction DACs that Naim use in their top end streamers… I just feel there are some sonic aspects missing compared to alternates like the Chord custom noise shaper pulse array DACs with FIR reconstruction, perhaps it is based on how I listen and cerebrally decode audio… Anyway top end Naim NACs and NAPs tend to seem to sound their overall best to me with Naim sources… so the die was set.
Obviously YMMV …
Did a click snd collect from my dealer who had an Accuphase £10k integrated playing…much better than i expected. @Tonym now has an Accuphase integrated powering his DBL,s instead of active 500,s, and he is pleased with his box count reduction and SQ. Just a thought…
