Really interesting thoughts on Kudos 606s.
It’s my understanding that the Titan range was developed with Naim gear (I’ve read NAP300 at least). I have both and sound amazing.
I wonder if the new classics won’t fit well with Kudos, because they weren’t designed/tweaked for that sound?
I only say this, as I’ve just added a fraim glass shelf under my NDX2 and the leap in performance is jaw dropping. Why? I assume through all the demo and testing, the NDX2 always sat on a fraim glass shelf. It was designed to sound best that way…?
I’ve also struggled in the past mixing and matching slimline and classic series gear (because they are not really designed to go together, even though they can)
My take home is - stick with components that were designed to be together (it saves future headaches)
yes understand, but over the years now I find that A/B differences are also quite revealing, once the technical difference between the components being compared are understood.
It does take a lot of listening tests though to reach A/B conclusions. The way I look at it, if it doesn’t give that big difference then it may not worth the money spent on upgrade.
a 552 blows away a 282 sonically during A/B testing and easily justifies it’s scary price tag difference to the 282… I am sure you would agree as you are a big fan and owner of a 552.
And if you look at the screws by the digital inputs, one (to the right of the optical cable) is the same as the not-countersunk one next to Preamplifier, and three screws (around 3 & 4) are different fixings and also not countersunk.
Doesn’t look like there is any issue here, just different fixings for different purposes. And it’s distracting us from the critical Slovenia vs Slovakia debate!
Luckily the postman doesn’t have to drive through the fields. We have a paved driveway, although by this time each year the potholes are getting pretty bad thanks to delivery vans and our Italian tenant neighbour for whom there’s only one speed up and down the driveway - as fast as possible!
Mine will rise rapidly again next month.
I always slow down through November, December and January because of Christmas & my Birthday, as Mrs QS gets very cross if I buy things that she had tagged as presents from her and other family members.
All bets are off though from February…
You might be right there. Although I f you are, I guess we’ll need to wait a while for speakers that are “designed to work with” the new classics. That said, the b&w speakers we used for the rest of my demo sounded like a fantastic match to my ears (and maybe it’s just what I’m used to).
I am not great at describing hifi, but to me, when the 606s were connected to the 250 and 222 it was like they were a formula one car but being driven by a rally driver. They needed some serious “reigning in”. But like I said, lots of extenuating circumstances and my (less than perfect!) ears.
It will be interesting to read any shift in consensus on here in the coming months as to what speakers match well with the new gear.
Had a great few days trying some new speakers on my new classic series.
I have had the focals for couple of years on my Nova / 250dr theynhave been great and I will be sad to see them go via that well known listing site !
The Team Fink Kim I have decided to have mostly because the wife wants a change ! the things we do…
The new 250 has similar DR PSUs to the 250DR, just a few nudges here and there. They are also at a higher voltage to achieve the higher power output.
FYI In the DR PSUs (such as NPX 300, XPS etc) we use a DR module. In the power amps we integrate the DR PSUs directly onto the power amp circuit board. This way we can get a very low impedance connection to the power amp. This direct connection gives a cleaner voltage on the amp under high current situations (This is the same for the last 3x NAP250 models).
Yes the Focals are great it maybe the blue in her lounge ! although I think they look as beautiful as they sound. TBF to Focal the Kim"s are +£3k I found it hard to hear an improvement in SQ hope I don’t regret then leaving .
30/1/23 As an update to my post and reply
I have today re-boxed the Team Fink Kim speakers and will be returning them
tomorrow as after listening to them over the weekend they are to my ears
not as good as the Focal Kanta 2’s I would rate them if the Kanta 2 is a 10 the Team Fink Kim is a 7.5. so they would have cost 3.5K more to buy and didn’t
for me do it.
