Nova + 250DR Speaker change?

What I am saying is if they sound good enough for me with my set up and its restrictions that is me happy. I am sure that if they got set up as per the manufacturers recommendations they would improve considerably.
I have found the input from forum members very useful and it is greatly appreciated. I started liking the simplicity of my setup and the design of the Sonus Faber speakers and thus far I have found for me they sound fantastic but are probably too big in my room .

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Hi,

Well, it’s not too adventurous to say that he knows better what suits him than the manufacturer or the other members of the forum do.

If he says that the Nova + 250DR is good enough for him, I don’t see why his point of view would be invalid.

For speakers positioning, the manufactures give general indications but it’s not an absolute science : they don’t categorized all room shapes (regular or not) / fournitures / materials, the type of music you are listening to, your personal tastes
etc. For instance, I have a Sonetto 2 (front event) and Sonus Faber provides some indications (lateral positioning, distance from the wall, distance between the speakers, equilateral schema) but for my listening, I prefer parallel disposition and they aren’t at 100mm from the end wall and that works best for me (I tried many dispositions).

Surprisingly, Sonus Faber seems less angry about the freedom customers exercise than you seem to be, as they clearly stipulate in the manual : « There are no fixed and universally-applicable rules for every environment. »

Best regards

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It doesn’t really bother me at all. If someone spends £12,000 on speakers, that’s £2,000 in VAT for public services. All one can do is give advice; people can take it or leave it. So long as they are happy that’s all that matters.

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Hi @mrd ,

Only notice this thread right now. I owned the Kanta 2 and combined them with initially a system around 282/ndx2/250 that step by step evolved in my current system. A year ago I replaced the Kanta 2 by the Sonus Faber Nova 3. The Kanta’s were stunning and to my opinion great value fo money, but I thought they were “too in the face”. I completely fell for the “silky” and very balanced sound of Sonus Faber. I think there are some threads here were I wrote in more detail on the differences.

Iver

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From my modest experience, I am encline to think that the electronic is more important than the speakers (both are, but a better electronic can make you exploit a « modest » speakers at their best, while the opposite could be frustrating regarding to the immediate result). But, I don’t agree with the approach consisting on matching gears by price criteria as some products are just better value than other, and the final price is sometime the consequence of criteria that have less to do with SQ (production costs, volumes, place of production
etc.). Noting that the cost of gears can be sensibly different from a country to another (where I am McIntosh is lot more expensive than Naim, while in North America it seems to be the opposite.).
I know that the Atom for instance can handle brilliantly some speakers that are out of his league better than more expensive amps from other brands. I don’t have any rational explanation for that regarding to the price / specification but it does, so maybe the Nova / 250DR can too.

The OP has already a 250DR and a Nova, so if he feels in the futur that he is missing something, he already crossed half the path to a very qualitatif separate system (a pre-amp and a better Dac). If he feels it


Best regards

A look at @IvdZ ’s system shows the sort of setup that works with the Nova 3. In my view, if the OP isn’t going there, they should probably go elsewhere.

Yes Iver its going to be hard to go back to the Kanta’s now after listening to the s/f 3’s even on my Nova 250 setup they sound amazing and well worth the additional spend , Ive just got to overcome the increase in size although very similar its the extra depth on the s/f that is causing me problems .
day 2 on my demo and they just get better.
cheers
Paul

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Thanks for the information. Probably too big for my room too then.
B88

It’s not an easy discussion at all and I perfectly understand why you like the speakers, @mrd 
 on the other side people do have a point here discussing a “balanced”. Maybe a thing to consider: if you do go with the set-up you describe, prepare for a feeling your journey is not done yet. The Nova’s will really start shining if you’d invest in separate source and probably separate amplification
Iver

The journey is fun! . perhaps I should have asked what speakers can I buy to replace my Kanta 2’s that will offer the best upgrade to my Nova dr250 setup that I wish to retain .

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I don’t think what people are saying is necessarily about which speakers. They are very fine speakers and will sound better than lesser speakers, also in your system. It’s more that Nova/250/SFO3 is a 24K investment and applying this sum differently, with more weight towards the source, may give a better overall result

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I have no doubt and have tried the multi box route and didn’t like it .
I just want a simple setup nova dr250 its not about bang for buck its a simple system with the best SQ I can get kind of quest
Thank you Suedkiez
Paul

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I know, that’s why I said from the start that I wouldn’t try to talk you out of it. Just saying where others are coming from - it’s not about the choice of speakers as such.

And therein lies the crux of the debate. It’s not a rule of law rather just traditional thinking on this forum, other hifi forum don’t see things the same way, that the balance of the investment should be towards the front end.

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SN3/ Ndx2/ SF speakers would give better results , for same number of boxes
Or DCS Bartok into ATC 40a , 2 boxes

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In your opinion.

I didn’t want to enter this debate at all, like I wrote twice I understand where mrd is coming from and won’t try to convince him otherwise. I just posted because I perceived a misunderstanding in mrd’s post.

(But apart from that, I am also quite sure that a different allocation of funds would lead to a better result, because I know what a difference my new system made with the speakers I have. I am currently auditioning new speakers, including the SF ON3, and they make less of a difference than the system made)

It is of course not a rule of law, but is often a more reliable way to build a satisfying system. Source first taken to extremes is unlikely to give as good a result as something more balanced for a long term system, but rarely goes wrong when upgrading. So if you have a nicely balanced setup and want to move to something better, you’d upgrade starting with the source, then the SMPS, then the speakers.

I’d gently suggest that you may be taking this ‘anti-source-first’ thing a little too far in this case - surely nobody with any experience of building satisfying systems would suggest that fronting speakers such as the Nova 3 with the streamer and preamp from the UnitiNova is remotely sensible as a long term solution? It is one thing to have such a system in the interim while moving to far better electronics, but as a ‘permanent’ setup it makes no sense. Anyone saying it does is being just as extreme as the most rabid source first aficionado.

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I would keep the Nova as is and scale right back on the speakers to something much less demanding. If introducing the 250 however then i think one might want to also include a NDX 2/ HiCap DR/NAC282 to rebalance things as a minimum before moving significantly forward else-where in the chain.

Urm not sure on that one HH. It just seems to me that whenever anyone comes on here suggesting that they optimise their system with the best speakers possible they get jumped on. My view has always been that there are numerous ways to build a good system and for the person who has a Uniti Nova or Linn Selekt and doesn’t want a multitude of boxes and wires can improve their listening by getting the best speakers possible then that is exactly what they should do. So in that context having heard heard both the Selekt and Nova paired with Kudos Titans and how good both pairings were and a considerably richer more insightful performance than with Kudos S20s I really understand why some folks would choose to follow that option. Would either sound “better” with say a NDX2/XPS/SN3? Yes in all likelihood. But would a NDX2/XPS/282/250 with S20s sound “better” than a Nova/Kudos 505s in my experience that really is a matter of personal judgement.

Regards,

Lindsay

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