Kudos KS-1 speaker cable is proving a surprise upgrade here over the last month.
G
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Forgot about the Achromat! I tried one and it lasted here a couple of months - impressive at first, but after a little while I realised there was something missing and switched the felt mat back in. A sense of balance and coherence returned, and the Achromat was sold within a week!
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Best (going avtive with ATC 40a)
Huge: Room treatment, degritter
Big Adding a mains regenerator, Isoacoustics on speakers, mood
Noticable: power cables, going optical for ethernet, Isoacoustics on TT and valve phono stage
No real improvement Isolation on other components, stillpoints on anything
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I made a lot of upgrades to my system in 2020/21 swapping out the following:
BEST
Hercules for L4 then Radikal
Naim Cups n’ Balls + sheet of glass underneath my CDX2 (I was gobsmacked!)
Sean Jacobs Hydra Cable (aesthetically more pleasing than loadsa cables to boot)
Witchat Phantom speaker cables to Chord Anthem 2
Dynaudio Contour 1.3’s for Spendor A4’s
Collaro Red Mat (who’d have believed it?)
FAIR TO MIDDLING
Karousel (expensive for what it does)
Roksan NIMA for Naim ARO (not worth the extra moolah)
AT95ML for DVXX2
WORST
Linn KORE
Rega ARIA PS to a Vertere
Naim Speaker and IC’s for Witchat (o.k, WH is bendier but could I hear any difference? Nope, not really)
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Interesting @Jonners - thanks.
What was your CDX2 on before the cups-and-balls-and-glass?
I am trying Witch Hat interconnects now and (so far) it sounds better to me. The difference my be rooms or system, so I was wondering what the amp (s) was?
Of course, I could just be suffering from day 1 expectation bias…
Finally, the LP12. I am interested that the Kore scored badly (not my experience, but not a unique view either). I
am also interested to find someone who can give a view on L4 versus Karousel upgrades, because I and several others got them done together, and so can’t tell at all which was bigger.
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The CDX2 was sat on a bare Quadraspire shelf (oak). I bought the cups and balls + glass on recommendation of my Naim dealer and the uplift in treble was very noticeable, as was soundstage which became deeper. I guess it’s a poor man’s answer to a FRAIM.
I run a chrome bumper 250 and a newer style 282 as amps. As with a lot of upgrades, the differences can be quite subtle, especially cables. That’s not to say upgrading them isn’t worth it, it’s just I think they don’t deliver the bang for buck some others do.
The KORE scored badly because it really didn’t seem to make much of an improvement, perhaps to bass response but not as good as the Karousel (which is similar money) and nowhere near as good as the Radikal.
To my ears the Radikal was one of THE best LP12 upgrades I’ve done, it really is so much better than the L4 - better PRAT and separation.
I have a spiked rack with granite shelves for my Naim boxes - very different solution to a Fraim, but the same result - good sound. I was surprised to find that putting some extra isolation under CDS2 gave a small but consistently discernible improvement to several different ears. Smaller (but not zero) improvements came from doing the same to boxes where the moving parts are just electrons - Superline and 52 - but not the rest.
I’d agree that cable changes are usually small (unless horribly wrong), and that they are often bad value. Also lots of off-putting & silly claims are made, and there are lots of situations where more expensive cables sound worse, so sceptical investigation is the best way to get to a good room-specific answer - which is what you’ve done.
Radikal from L4 - intriguing as I was impressed with L4 and Karousel - perhaps I am mostly being impressed by the bearing.
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Yes, there’s a lot of trial and error involved with some of these upgrades. For example, when I had the Dynaudios I had BluTac between the speakers and the stands. Swapping that out for some Sorbothane “feet” resulted in zero difference but when I inserted those same feet under my separates the sound noticeably degraded. I remember reading a thread on isolation a year or 2 back and Richard commented that NAIM put rubber feet on amps for a reason so don’t mess unless it’s to pop them directly on a shelf.
By and large, LP12 owners generally have an obsession with tinkering and most focus on the bearing, chassis and PSU to increase isolation and reduce the noisefloor so it’s no wonder the Karousel delivered so much to your ears. Then again so did throwing out my stock Linn felt mat for one of Colin’s red Collaro mats - in terms of bang for buck it was THE best LP12 upgrade I’ve made and it’s far better with these horrible new-fangled heavyweight records because it’s not so affected by static as Linn’s own one.
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Tell me more, speakers aside your system is identical to mine and it’s a move I’m contemplating !
Fair. It has been suggested that many LP12 owners want to keep what they like about it while also making it a lot more like a Rega P10 or whatever- lower noise floor, cleaner extremes and less warm glow. That includes me - it is not a vain hope.
On WH interconnects, there is a separate thread. I am increasingly suspicious that the biggest difference is simply proper screening - if you have really sorted the knitting behind your boxes, you’ll probably hear much less uplift than those of us who can’t/ won’t.
@GraemeH -thanks. What did you have before?
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Some of the replies here show just how different we must all hear things!
The most positive upgrade to any part of my system in the past 40 years was in October 2020 when I had the Karousel fitted to my LP12. The improvement in sound was huge. I don’t like using percentages to describe such improvements but do think they may be a bit more informative than saying ‘a bit more bass/treble/middle etc. etc. I would therefore put the overall improvement at 10% to 15%. Yes, that much.
Having the Kore fitted in 2015 was also worthwhile, say about 5% improvement.
Another major improvement was in 2019 when I made a major entire system upgrade which included a Krystal cartridge & a Rega Aria phone stage which was needed for my then new Nova. Was very happy with the TT for nearly 5 months when I noticed a favourite track with some excellent guitar on the right channel had the guitar coming from dead centre. My dealer discovered that the right channel lead in my Ekos had short circuited to produce mono output only. The arm went back to Linn for a full re-wire & service, came back in full stereo mode sounding better than ever!
I am openminded about speaker lead upgrades. In the early 80’s I splashed out on QED’s 30p a meter Hi-Fi wire to replace my 5p a meter bell wire to really good effect, much to my sceptical minds surprise. Same when I changed the QED for NAC A4 when I bought my first Naim in 1986. A worthwhile improvement. Changed to new NAC A5 when I got the Nova in 2019 & but not compare it with my over 30 year old NAC A4 so I can’t say if the change made much improvement or not.
A year or so before that I attended a Chord demonstration evening at my dealers & several speaker leads were tried in a high end Naim system, a 252 & 300 system I believe. The cheapest Chord cable sounded fine but there was a worthwhile difference going up to Shoreline at about £300 from the cheap cable at about £50. However, going from Shoreline to their most expensive cable at the time, £3,000, showed no difference at all to everyone but 1 out of 8/9 there at the time. He was ecstatic at the changes he heard but the rest of us heard no difference at all. Hence, I am happy with my NAC5 & am not tempted to look elsewhere.
Not being totally convinced on the merits of ‘better’ cables I have been slowly persuaded to try a Naim Powerline on my Nova following all the advocates here. I am having one from my dealer on home trial next week. I am not expecting any improvement at all from the existing Powerline Lite but am also hoping to be proved wrong!
Finally, my worst upgrades & expensive mistakes. In the early 1980’s, at my then home in Norwich, I was convinced big speakers were the only way to go despite having a small lounge containing my system. I therefore bought expensive Ram 80 & quickly followed by Mission 770 speakers. Neither sounded very good although they were both well thought of models. I then found a new dealer who said they were too large for my room & suggested I tried the then new Celestion SL6’s. I knew that speakers a third the size of the ones I had been using would be rubbish but, liking my dealer, I took them home to avoid offending him. They were brilliant & exactly what I was looking for sound wise. The lesson I learned was that big speakers usually didn’t work in small rooms & I made the same costly mistake twice.
My two subsequent homes since then, in Manchester & Cornwall (for the past 36 years) both had/have small listening rooms & my speaker of choice since 1990 has been a small stand mounted ProAc. I am sure both the Rams & Missions were good speakers that would have sounded great in bigger rooms that allowed them to be positioned properly but I have been convinced ever since that a small speaker will usually sound better than a big one in a small room. Explains the popularity of ProAc tabs on this forum?
So, like most on this thread, I have had my successes & failures!
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Initial memories.
Biggest: Like a lot of folk, moving from Rega 3 to LP12.
Significant: Naim Aro instead of Akito.
Upgrade to Lingo 1. Still happy.
Cirkus sub chassis to Stack Audio sub chassis. A revelation. Thought I knew my records.
Swapping out a solid state preamp for a Valve pre.
Linn original bearing to Cirkus to Karousel. Each worthwhile and different tonally. Karousel not as big as changing Sub chassis, ( in my system).
Errors; Trying a sub in my system, went back after a week. Tried every setting/level. Wife agreed that off was best.
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Rating one upgrade against another done at a different time is unreliable, especially over a time period of many decades. And of course each would have been in the context of the rest of the system at the time of the change, so if the same change were made with the rest of the system at a different stage of evolution the noted effect might well be different, and not possible to say whether greater or smaller. Bearing in mind that limitation, and is simply a ranking of memory of my impression at the time. Ask me on another occasion and some rankings might be different!
Very big:
- Chord Hugo → Dave DAC (Literally a wow moment, uttered involuntarily by my son sitting next to me, echoing my own feeling)
- DIY reflex speakers (floorstanding 3-way) → IMF TLS50ii
- DIY reflex speakers (2 cu ft, single drive, my very first speakers) → DIY reflex speakers (floorstanding 3-way)
Big
- ND5XS’s DAC → Hugo DAC
- TTs Garrard SP25ii - > Thorens TD150AB
- Cartridges Shure M3D → Shure M75E
Moderate
- other cartridge changes as I progressed Shure M75E - Coral 777EX → A.N.Other (forgotten!) mc with DIY head amp → AT95(?) MC
- Arm Thorens TP13 - Rega RB300
- Each speaker change as I progressed after the TLS50: → IMF RSPM → PMC EB1i → Active version of latter with changed mid and tweeter units.
- Amp changes Sinclair project 60 → Radford HD250 → MF The Preamp 2A+ P170 → MF P270 → Bryston 4BSST
Minor
- Adding XP5XS to ND5XS*
- ND5XS as renderer → Mac Mini running Audirvana + Gustard USB-S/Pdif converter
Not noticeable
- Cambridge CD2 → Shearne Phase 7 CD player - ND5XS streamer (but these weren’t upgrades, being forced by end of life)
*The XP5XS is my only regretted attempted upgrade, being expensive and having been led to expect a major uplift, instead if was trivial. If lasted a month before being sold and the money used for one of the bigger upgrade effects
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Rather than switching the ‘Phantom’ I’d been using back in after trialling ‘Spectre’ I thought I’d try a 5m pair of sensibly priced Kudos KS-1 with Naim plugs at the amp end. They have been running a few weeks now and are absolutely superb. Way more transparent and insightful than anything I’ve used before. Their balance is spot-on and encourage hours of listening as I feel I’m hearing right into a performance in a lovely ‘live’ kind of way.
Signals online had them to me practically the next day…sold the Phantom on ebay for only a small loss due to the 4 week order time.
It may well be the 300DR / Tab 10 Sig combination suits the KS-1 electrically.
G
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Most improvement:
Nac122x to NAC282
Very big improvement:
Nap 150x to NAP300DR
Sonus faber Toy to SF Olympica Nova 3
Big Improvement:
Flatcap2x to CD5x and 122x
Adding Subwoofer (REL S812)
Noticeable improvement
XPSDR to NDX2
Powerlines
No Improvements:
CD5x to NDX2
Made Things worse:
Superlumina DIN-DIN interconnect
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My biggest upgrade of all time by a huge margin was getting a Linn LP12/Baisk arm/Basik cartridge back in 1979. Before that I had a Thoren’s TD160 with SME3009S2/Shure M95ED. It completely changed my whole relationship with music. Suddenly music made sense in a way that it just never had before and I found myself on a musical adventure, listening to all kinds of stuff that I wouldn’t have even considered before that.
My worst upgrade, sadly, was buying a CDS3/XPS2 and 252. Before that I had a CDX/XPS and an 82. I was never entirely happy with the CDX. Great dynamics and ‘boogie’ but I felt it had a digital glare and edginess to it that I could never quite come to terms with. It never seemed to have the sheer musical and organic quality of my previous CDI.
Stupidly I bought the CDS3/XPS2 and 252 together without bothering to audition. I just thought it was the obvious next upgrade from what I had and I couldn’t go wrong. I found that it just took everything in the opposite direction from what I had expected. All the boogie had gone, replaced by a flat uninspiring silky smoothness which, whilst agreeable enough, was hardly what I was into Naim for. I just made the best of it - life was very hectic then with my wife and I working full-time and having little leasure time for ourselves. There just wasn’t time to start auditioning other stuff and frankly I couldn’t be bothered. An expensive mistake that taught me an important lesson. Try before you buy.
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Best:
- LP-12 on a Mana table.
- Everything else on Mana. Are Naim racks better? I don’t know, and I wouldn’t pay the money at this point in my life.
- Linn Ikemi to CDS3/555PS.
- Power strip upgrades.
Most disappointing (but not very):
- Linn Karik/Numerik to Linn Ikemi. Better, but not much better.
- Weekes-modified Lingo 1 to Lingo 3 to Radikal. Likewise.
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I was about to post his.
Best: Mana to Fraim, and dedicated earthing and radial supply.
Worst: LP12 to Roxsan Xerxes (around 1990).
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My worst was my Linn Lk1 / Dirak / Wakonda / Lk100 (Wakonda replaced Lk1) amps, on their day could be totally captivating with the “right” music.
On other days awful, just no joy whatsoever. Probably system matching but also found them very susceptible to being affected by other household appliances.
Best was the amp that replaced it, apparent downgrade to a Densen Beat b100 integrated amp. Total opposite to the Linns, made everything sound great and totally epitomised Thomas “head honcho” founders belief of “life’s to short for boring hi-fi”.
Adding the b200 power amp and bi amping into B&w 805’s was sublime.
Different presentation but find my SN3 and Cdx 2 have the same spirit of the Densens and nothing of the Linns.
Still have the Densens in my alternate system.
Kudos ks1 speaker cable would have to be near top value if it wasn’t for the remarkable Yamaha wx-ad10 streamer, ridiculously good.
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Thank you for starting this discussion.
Very Big
- Upgrading from Harbeth C7ES-3 Speakers to Graham Audio LS5/9 BBC Monitors
- Upgrading from two Power Bars to an Audioquest Niagara 5000 Power Conditioner
Big
- Adding a CISCO 2960 Switch to my system
- Upgrading from NDX with XPS to NDX 2 with XPS DR
Real, but not huge
- Upgrading from stock DIN Interconnect to HI-Line Interconnect
- Adding HiCap DR to NAC202
- Upgrading from NAC202 to NAC282
- Adding second HiCap DR to NAC282
- Upgrading from “Amazon” Ethernet Cables to a full loom of CHORD Epic Streaming Cables
- Adding IsoAcoustic GAIA isolation footers to speaker stands
Returned to dealer
- Power-Line (Note: I didn’t mind the Power-Line on my power amp, but I thought it over excited my preamp and my source. I would like to try a full loom some day.)
- Both the Innuos PhoenixNET switch and the Silent Angel Bonn N16 LPS switch went back to the dealer. Both of these audiophile switches over excited my system. I went back to the CISCO 2960 with CHORD Epic Steaming Cables.
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