I have Fact 8s in a room smaller than yours and they work very well indeed. Kudos 505s are consistently well reviewed so must be worth an audition. Both have gone up in price greatly in the last couple of years so they do seem rather expensive now. Not sure if they remain good buys?
This may be an option
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I am with Broomy, I tried pmc twenty5.24i for a few weeks- very nice uplift on my faithful ProAc Response D15’s, nearly ordered a pair until a friend put me in front of pmc twenty five.26 (pre ‘I’)- these wowed both myself and Mrs… we bought a used pair £3500 and have not looked back- urge u to try heat a pair - I have heard many way more expensive speakers since and am always left disappointed in them
Your post made me think of this recent pst of mine:
Another thumbs up for the Spendor D7.2’s. I have a similar system and love them. At least put them on your audition list if you can.
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The Fact 12’s are without doubt a superior speaker at sit near the top of PMC’s domestic range, beyond these the figures start getting silly for most of us. At the right price you can’t fail to be impressed, not sure how easy they are to drive?
Got to try ATC SCM40. Best speaker I have heard for the money. Absolutely love mine.
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If you like the sound of your PMCs then its likely only the bigger PMCs or the Kanta will be to your liking/ears. However, definitely worth auditioning the Proacs and also the ATCs as recommended above.
We all love to recommend our own choices (mine being Dynaudio Evoke 50’s purchased in October), but there are a veritable feast of good speakers out in the world these days.
Some very niche (Rosso Fiorentino) to the offerings from many of the forums favourites (B&W, ATC, PMC, Neat, Sonus Faber, Dynaudio…etc)
They are all good products that suit different individuals needs & hearing & space.
Home Demo is a great way of making the best decision and I would HIGHLY recommend it.
ENJOY the experience, I did and I am really enjoying my new Dynaudio’s (although they could easily have been ATC SMC 40’s🤷🏻♂️)…
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That’s what I would do too. An NDX2 would slot in nicely and the lad can have a nice pair of older used speakers.
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I’ve looked at @Gazza19 's first post again Richard, and he names his streamer as a “NDx S2”.
I read it as ND5XS2 when I first glanced at it. Now I’m not so sure!
Profile says ND5 XS
I think it’s probaby an ND5 XS2.
Assuming it is then I do think it’s an excellent streamer having heard it in a better system than convention would say to put it in.
However given the fact that the OP’s speakers are aready pretty good I would be looking at a source upgrade first.
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Ah, I made the schoolboy error of not looking at chap’s profile.
It is a ND5 XS2 sorry for the confusion.
I had looked at upgrading it to the NDX2 but looking at numerous discussions on this forum approx half of the people either couldn’t discern much aural difference or didn’t think the cost difference between the 2 were worth it.
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The NDX2 is certainly a worthwhile upgrade to my ears, but of course you need to listen and decide for yourself.
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@ChrisSU is dead right on NDX2 imho, but adding an eBay nDAC will get you to about that level for less cost. He is also dead right that your ears may not agree with his or mine.
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Hmm, not sure about that - the ND5XS2 is certainly not a bad source, while the Twentyfive.22 is quite a limited speaker. At most I’d say they’re on a par, though in my book the speakers are more lowly than the ND5XS2 - but more significantly, as the speakers have a bigger effect on the character of a system’s sound improving them could make a far more noticebla and satisfying difference. However if the OP doesn’t find speakers sounding significantly better to his ears then indeed improving the source would make sense - e.g. keep the ND5XS2 as a front end doing the rendering and add a DAC (I did that when I had the original ND5XS, adding a Chord Hugo, and the sound was transformed, becoming much more natural sounding, albeit that I hadn’t thought it unnatural before.
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Indeed, there is a whole world of ND5XS2 DAC upgrades to explore. NDAC and various Chord DACs have long been popular around here, but there are a lot of good DACs out there these days.
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I think that I will end up upgrading the speakers and the streamer in due course.
Just not sure which will be first, I suspect it will be the speakers. I’ve asked my dealer for a price to upgrade my streamer as well so I’ll have some costs.
A DAC is a very safe s/h purchase, if that helps, and easy to audition.
Given the number of good speaker choices and the fact that you will want to audition at home, that may be a longer process.
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