Kudos Titan 606’s are quite a respected speaker on our site, and I have enjoyed mine since 2019.
We have just moved to a new bungalow, but the listening room is smaller. The previous room was 19’ x 14’, but the new room is only 15’ x 12’. My 606s just don’t sound right in the new room, even with lot’s of soft furnishings, the bass is too boomy. There isn’t much flexibility to position them, as they are firing across the room and I’d be sitting on top of them. I appreciate that Kudos speakers can be quite ‘forgiving’.
So, I demoed a pair of Dynaudio Confidence 20s, (which are Standmounts) at the dealer, and also in my new bungalow. I have to say that they sounded very good driven by my 300DR. They had a tighter, less boomy bass.
Cut a long story short, I have now ordered the Confidence 20s and will now be selling my 606s.
Have anyone else experienced changing speakers after moving house?
I have not moved, but I have tried Dynudio Contour speakers with several different systems, in my very challenging room. They never sounded right. When I moved to Naim in 2023, I did not even consider them. I settled on Spendor A4 and them moved to D7.2. My room is relatively narrow too.
Our room is 15’ by 12’, which is pretty reasonable size for a U.K. living room. We’ve been here since 1992. I’ve never found a reflex speaker that works properly, all have boomed to some extent. The only speakers that have been satisfactory have been sealed (Linn Kan, Linn Kaber, Naim SBL, nSat, IBL, SL2, ProAc Tablette 10 Signature) or transmission line (PMC GB1, twenty.23, twenty5.21i). The very worst were Neat Motive 1s and Spendor A5s.
It’s really no surprise that you’ve had to change speakers, as getting a pair that works satisfactorily is something of a lottery. The Confidence 20 is a heck of a speaker and should be brilliant. Stand mounts are far less dominating in the room, and the Dyns are very stylish on their dedicated stands.
We downsized recently which meant no specific music room. The new house has a sitting room is 17 feet square which is where the hi-fi will be situated. As a result I wanted to switch from Proac floor standers to stand mounted speakers. Several years ago I got rid of all the boxes and switched to a Naim Uniti Nova with which I’ve been very pleased. I tested this with various speakers and decided on Dynaudio Legends. In my view a brilliant sound and really great looks. Importantly they don’t overpower the room as large speakers would.
I have moved home multiple times, of course moving hifi into each new one, and also heard several of my speakers in other people’s rooms. One of my past speakers I’ve heard in 7 different rooms, another in 6, another in 3 and the present in 2 (these not including original auditioning elsewhere). Until my most recent move there was only one occasion when moving into a new room didn’t sound very good after simply playing a bit with positioning, a problem that was soluble by undertaking measurements using REW, resulting in a complete room rearrangement from the initial one layout.
My present room in the house to which I moved a few months ago is not great, being smaller than ideal (though a previous room some years ago had similar dimensions and was OK), but more particularly the room has two very flimsy stud walls with properties like echo chambers. However I knew the room wasn’t right before moving, so planned an extension and structural mods to fix, just waiting to be done. (Room 5x3.6m - 16x12ft- will expand by about 0.7m (2’4”) both ways with the bouncy walls fixed.) In the meantime the sound is rather muddled, and less enjoyable than it should be. But no, I won’t be changing speakers - after the building work I expect to such judicious acoustic treatment as may be appropriate to maximise sound quality. Had planning permission for the extension unexpectedly been refused then rebuilding the internal walls and acoustic treatment would have been the way forward.
All speakers referred to above have been full range transmission line floorstanders. (Sorry, that’s not strictly correct as my PMC MB2s sit on stands so technically are standmounts, but I think of them as floorstanders because of the overall size, with stands the same width and depth as the speakers and the spaces they occupy not usable for anything.)
Have you considered Titan 505? Supposedly they work better in a smaller room. Also, the ATC bookshelves work well in smaller rooms so you could consider the SCM20.
When we first viewed the bungalow, I knew immediately the front/living room wasn’t right and would be an issue. When you buy a home there is always going to be some kind of compromise.
The location and position tick all the boxes, as do all the other rooms in the property. I can’t say to the Mrs, “Not buying this place, I can’t fit my speakers in”
It’s back to that old saying, ‘You can change the inside, but you can’t change the location.
A bit of extra money spent on the front room, by way of better carpets/curtains and acoustic room treatment, could make all the difference.
I forgot to mention in my OP, we did an AB comparison with the 606, 505 and Confidence 20. Thankfully, the dealer is a Naim, kudos and Dynaudio main dealership.
I heard it all the time from customers when I worked in the trade, “My system sounded great and since we’ve moved it doesn’t.” They always sounded surprised because the kit was the same and so expected it to sound the same as before-sadly not!
It just reinforces the room/speaker interaction as the most important thing to get right.
Lovely speakers. The only thing I would say is that if you have annoying bass room modes, changing speakers, even if they are smaller, may not solve the issue completely. The modes will still be there.
Seeing that picture brought back memories of moving house whilst serving. They (boxes were called MFO boxes) were used to store personal belongings in transit between quarters (military accommodation). They were also used extensively to move items (equipment, paperwork etc) between units as part of larger logistical moves. Not the easiest to assemble/disassemble.
Absolutely that. With every previous house I’ve bought the music room was a critical criterion - in some cases the prime criterion - and it would have been in this case except the house came up at a low price for quick sale, requiring a decision and commitment in just 3 days. We were there at just the right moment to view, and it ticked so many boxes - extremely rare in the chosen location - that i had to look at it differently, considering music room potential rather than actual. Fortunately I am good at visualising and could see a couple of options, so we went ahead - snap decision from “perhaps we need to start looking at houses sometime soon” to 2 days later organising money and legal things, then rapidly doing what was necessary to get our existing house ready to put on the market, then working feverishly to tie up all the other things we needed to do before moving to a different country… From first weeing this house a year ago to now it has been hectic, and I’m looking forward (still) to having time to do all the things I planned to do when I retired five years ago! The last house was supposed to be our forever home - this one now has the same status!
