In '87 my system wss Lp12/ittok/Asaka 42.5/Hc/110 Kan, the latter and Asaka freshly acquired. A weekend was at Audiotech shop, the former Linn/Naim agent for Italy. in Pisa, a charming location,in a ancient palace near the famous “Torre Pendente” The system they had on demo was LP 12/ittok with the newly introduced Troika, 42.5/Hc/250 and Kan. The room was really big, with arched ceiling and very thick walls. This has been One of best demo every in that days, the presence dynamics and scale were nothing less than astonishing. This moved me ti swap my new Asaka for the Troika a few months later, unfortunately my smallish room at home was nowhere as good as the above. However a few years later, i moved the Kans from the short Wall to the longest 3.00m vs 4.80m and this change was absolutely transformational, much more than every piece i change before. All of a sudden my system had much bass extension, scale and soundstage
Corry,
As rsch describes, which accords with my own experiences when I had the Kans, much depends on the actual room and precise set-up details. Getting the Kans set up properly was of absolutely critical importance in my experience. Much more so than any other speaker I’ve come across. The proper stands were essential, spiked to the floor and on the top and adjusted so that there was absolutely no rocking. Also they needed to be really hard up against a solid wall - as close as the rear connections would allow - otherwise the bass would simply go AWOL. Get any of this wrong and the whole performance just collapsed.
The other essential was that your LP12 set-up needed to be absolutely spot-on, otherwise again the whole performance fizzled to nothing.
I do know what you mean about the fatiguing relentless quality and this is one of the reasons I moved on from them in the end. They were the sort of speakers that made great demands on the listener in terms of accepting their idiosyncrasies, but if you were able to then the reward was addictive music making like nothing else.
rsch,
This is exactly in line with my own experience with the Kans. As I mentioned in my reply to Corry set-up details and the room are absolutely critical with the Kans. With most speakers they will still sound OK if you don’t get the postioning spot on or if you use less than ideal stands. But the Kans are incredibly demanding of everything being ‘just so’.
The LP12 set-up is also of critical importance. I wonder how many people dismissed the Kans as rubbish because the LP12 being used was less than optimally set-up.
Your talk of Italy brings back such happy memories of our honeymoon in Sorrento!
There was an article in Hi-Fi Review (possibly written by Malcolm Steward) that was all about how to get the best out Kans - proper stands, as close to the wall as possible, everything scrupulously tight and level, and the spikes sitting on screws in the floor. I went to town with all of that, and got some worthwhile benefits. If I wasn’t living in rented accommodation at the time, I might even have cut away the skirting boards, as there was maybe 3/4" “extra” space behind the plugs.
I had some moments with them, and I still remember the way they could get right to the heart of the music like no other speaker, but I eventually tired of the austere quality they had. I found the Epos ES14 more straighforwardly enjoyable and would have bought them in a heartbeat if it wasn’t for their size and their requirement to be clear of the wall (I really wanted a speaker that would work in any room). If I had known then that you could get them nearer the wall by partially stuffing the ports, my hi-fi journey might have been quite different.
Hi Corry,
I didn’t see that article but I would have been fascinated to read it. The skirting boards in my parent’s house which is where I first had the Kans before I got married were quite deep. Had I thought of it back then I may well have asked my dad to cut them away! Not sure how he would have taken this but he was quite understanding! One thing I did do was to wedge wine corks between the speakers and the wall after reading a recommendation from Alvin Gold I believe. This certainly helped firm up and tighten the sound.
I think I felt exactly like you did. The Kans got to the heart of the music like nothing else I’ve heard before or since, but in the end I just couldn’t take the hard relentless ‘hectoring’ quality that always seemed to be there. I ended up with Naim IBL’s which I had for 17 years and which were far more civilised. We live and learn!
I never heard about the wine corks tweak. An easy one to try - an opportunity missed!
I will have nsats
I have n-SATs/n-STANDs/n-SUB all in piano black and in mint & unmarked condition - by far my most enjoyable loudspeaker system i have ever owned and i have no desires of changing them anytime soon. I run mine from a SN3 with great success.
Lucky you
“Lucky”? Really?
I’ll bow out now very kindly. Enjoy. Thank you.
I’m glad you have your speakers sorted out. Those New Yorker cartoons have always been a great source of amusement BUT should be supplemented with a double blue book (not for political purposes) of Gary Larson’s “Far Side” . Between those two sources of amusement and some good music, you’ll have a true safe haven.
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