Kudos Titan 606

They don’t. Sometimes it just happens!

Bart, I had a similar experience many years ago. I’ve used Monitor Audio, Mission,Epos,Heybrook and Spendor speakers in the same listening room with Naim kit over the years with great success.

When I was using a 82/Supercap/250 the dealer at the time suggested an upgrade from Epos ES14s to SBLs and they sounded awful in my room so it does happen.

Do you think that 250 dr is not enough to open the Kudos 606 or perhaps was room is too big for these speakers ?

My room isn’t big at all, but it does not “pressurize.” (It’s open at 2 ends.) And the 250 DR shouldn’t have been THAT under-spec for them; not at all. I have no idea really.

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I will be difficult for me to choose these speakers without hearing them at home. I thought they were room friendly…

The Kudos are flavour of the month and people get overexcited. But they can’t work miracles. My room isn’t large either but we have massive fire doors and it pressurises very well. Turn it up to 60 and it’s pretty amazing. Even with manky old Naim speakers: at least look ok and don’t need to be banished to the garden.

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HH posted,The Kudos are flavour of the month not that long ago it was PMC what brand next Focal maybe

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Hi @Bart/@frenchrooster, I class them as room friendly because they are not fussy about being close to room boundaries providing the boundaries are solid. If walls are stud and plaster then that may be more of an issue.

I understand your comments on them sounding bass light as did I in comparison to my normal speakers. However, on direct comparison I see that my normal speakers make bass noises whereas the titans play bass notes. There is no artificial bloom at all. Double bass has tremendous timbre and you can easily follow what is going on.

Electric bass and kick drum sound like electric bass and kick drum! The 606s are very engaging and musical speakers.

Some tracks can sound a little thin but this is usually down to the recording quality. I don’t listen to much heavy rock anymore but do have a liking for AC/DC’s Let there be blood live album. Crank it up a bit and it sounds excellent on the 606s. The same is true for Deep Purple’s Made in Japan.

My SN3 drives them very well so I can’t imagine the 250 being a slouch!

Obviously these are my findings with my ears in my room. I would highly recommend a home demo for anyone seriously considering buying them. You may not like them so do take time to assess properly - it is a lot of money to get it wrong!

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Did you have those put in for acoustical reasons Nigel or were they a result of renovations elsewhere in the house that mandated them ?

We had them to reduce the impact of music on the rest of the house, which they sort of do, as a lot still goes up through the ceiling. The previous doors were those super cheap hollow hardboard things.

Thanks Nigel - good point about sound transmission.

Did you buy a flame coat at the same time as having the massive fire doors installed? :smiley:

I’ll get me coat… :wink:

I’ve had my son and family this weekend because my centenarian mother is very poorly and frail, and then we have some decent tv drama on Sunday evening at the moment.

I did touch the delicate subject of some fine sounds coming at the recent Factory demo from the speakers that shall not be Naimed!

There are common themes of some liking a speaker and others not. Comments about lack of bass etc. and others the contrary. My experience is that there is a need to understand how to optimise a system. Mains is an important part of it.

For instance, on the MusicWorks threads we have had some useful exchanges. My contrarian one is that existing setups can be improved by plug order of the important boxes. Darke Bear has shared his findings as have I. Every box combination probably has a different optimum. As a ex-scientist (I did research at Oxford) I think in time we will understand what goes on. A systematic approach is needed and maybe even the MusicWork box has a role.

So now even my speakers produce beautiful sounds across a diverse range of music. They sound grotty when the system is not optimised (including uncontrolled bass), but why condemn the speaker for something that is not it fault! Interestingly @MichaelF reported that his 500 runs cooler than mine based our touch temperature test! This may mean that his optimisation might be different to mine because his 500 draws less current than mine.

The history of science is full of stories of this kind. Eventually an understanding of the phenomenon emerges. I know what side I’m on!

Phil

Is Nova sufficiently capable of driving 606s?

What also puzzles me is that 606 are 84db whereas the 505 are 87db?!?

The 606 speakers have an easy load, 6 ohm minimum which is based on the tweeter. The 505s share the same drivers so I suspect that their impedance would be similar. Therefore the 505s would need slightly less power than the 606s to obtain the same SPL.
The only way to be sure is to trial but I suspect they can be driven well by the Nova just that you couldn’t expect it to eke out the max performance of the 606s.

While the Nova will get sound out of them, matching a £9,000 speaker with a £4,000 all in one is far from sensible. There are far better systems for £13,000 when assembled in a balanced way.

Bart, similar experience here with a pair of the original Titans (when all the rage). We moved them here, there and everywhere along the firing plane of a ~6m long room, and varied the listening position. Very similar outcome. The dealer involved was also very confused.

Having demoed both the 505 and 606 they do take a bit of driving and as HH says you will get a sound out of them but it won’t be anywhere near the sound they are capable of, much better off getting a more balanced system.

OK, all of my assessments have been carried out with NDX2 and SN3 - I have not had to turn the volume control up much and also, the 606s sound very good at very low volumes. I could be wrong but have always assumed that difficult to drive speakers would have significant issues at low volumes i.e. not integrated from top to bottom.

You mentioned that you auditioned Kudos 606 in your home and I notice your from Boston. Is there a Kudos dealer near you?I’m not aware of any. Thanks