Kudos Audio - Exclusive Factory Visit, August 2023

Now a very visible and significant player on the international high quality audio scene, Kudos Audio has taken a different approach to producing music for its enthusiastic customers and are actively pursuing new ideas, as I type.

Favourable reviews are now the norm for the company's Titan range, including a number on Audiophile Musings.  Step this way to get a flavour of what the reviewers are saying about the company's products and some of the numerous awards and accolades bestowed upon them:

HiFi Critic Titan 505 

The Ear Titan 606

HiFi+ Titan 707

HiFi+ Titan 808

Hifi Critic Super 20A

What Hifi? Super 10A 

Hifi Choice C10 

Audiophile Musings "Sound of the Show" (Titan 808) and "Highly Commended" (Titan 505) at Chester Show, 2019

Audiophile Musings "Sound of the Show" at Bristol 2020 with Titan 707

Audiophile Musings went to find out what makes the company tick, being invited for an exclusive factory tour in the North East of England, UK - it turned into a 5 hour history lesson, factory tour, Titan 808 listening session, and zero nonsense...

Most of you will be familiar with the old joke:

Tourist: "how do I get to Town X"

Local: "well, I wouldn't start from here if I was you..."

I came away with the impression that the Kudos story has a similar origin.  Derek Gilligan, founder and head honcho at Kudos has a solid background to work from with a family in the music and live music PA business, but the route from there to today took an interesting path. Today's Kudos is a testimony to thinking differently, building a team that incudes family & those you can trust, being obsessive about quality and ensuring the basics are right.

As a fellow Darlingtonian, it was easy to chat with Derek about the pros and cons of "Darlo" and the area in which we grew up.  Different schools though, so not totally parallel experiences. I very much remember my early forays into hifi in the 1980s and they were supported by some canny purchases from used audio specialists in High Northgate, Darlington "North East Audio Traders". Derek became part of the team there and may even have served me in the shop, but thankfully neither of us remember! North East Audio Traders was a novel idea in the region at the time and was reasonably successful. Going to hifi shows to demonstrate their equipment was part of the game, but speaker consistency proved a challenge. Hence the guys at N.E.A.T. put together a small standmount of their own to enable easy comparison between equipment that's just not possible when a stock of used speakers is constantly changing from day to day. Soon reviewers were asking to review the speaker in its very rudimentary form, but were very complementary about the way it performed. Derek was involved in the speaker using a renowed driver from earlier speaker products that needed to be sourced from wherever they were still available from stock. Eventually this driver had to be re-manufactured once the speaker took off in the market. It was partnered with a modern dome tweeter. The NEAT Petite is now a very well known speaker and continues in a revised form to this day, as the Petite Classic.

Original NEAT Petite Loudspeakers

The design process of Petite, based on listening for musicality and a try and re-try approach set the tone for the future. What Hifi? were impressed with the result "as tuneful as they come".  When demonstrating the speakers, N.E.A.T. used the exceptionally substantial Kudos speaker stands...

Derek parted ways with NEAT for a few years, pursuing other activities until he returned for a second stint with the company to work on speaker designs such as the Ultimatum, where we can see techniques such as isobaric bass loading being deployed, as it is in today's Titan range (also used elsewhere such as Linn's Akubarik). NEAT bought the Kudos brand as part of buying up the stock of speaker stands as Kudos' then owner moved on to different products and markets. During this time Derek had developed some design ideas he wanted to try but the opportunity wasn't presented to go in that direction.  Time for a new direction...

So we come to the inception of Kudos Audio as a speaker manufacturer in its own right - a "do or die", "all or nothing" decision for Derek and his wife.  With a good network of contacts in the industry and dealerships, understanding what was wanted in the market and what was possible from a design perspective, the initial Cardea products, although fairly conventional in construction, were very well received and the business was underway.  The basic tenets behind those early designs hold true today - listen, listen, listen, use high quality components, gentle slope crossovers to minimise component count and phase distortion, build in the UK using UK producers and components wherever possible. But the scale has moved on, as has the size and breadth of the product range.

Based in the North East of England (close to Derek's roots) isn't the UK hifi heartland, but everything is within easy reach and, of course, electronic communications mean distance isn't the blocker it used to be.  The company is split across 3 sites on the same compact business park - storage, manufacturing and design / demo buildings. This is the second location for the company and it has grown into the current arrangements organically - annexing a next door unit here, installing a mezzanine floor there, plus the major investment in the design / listening / demo suite. Its a compact, cleanly presented, logically laid out facility. This appears to work very well for the core workforce, consisting of Derek, production manager Mark with Derek's son Louis looking after quality control and his daughter Kay joining the team on the week of my visit to take on office management, accounting etc. after several years experience in similar roles in other companies. The extended team includes another 7 colleagues across sales, marketing and export colleagues based locally or where the dealer network needs them to be.

We talked through the design and manufacture of the higher, and very successful, Titan range of products to understand the Kudos approach.  Essentially Derek uses the experience of existing designs and applies new ideas to those products or completely new concepts to push the boundaries of what's possible and what's effective - sometimes it shows promise, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it takes very little refinement to be just what he's hoping for.  The exact percentage of those outcomes wasn't shared with me :)  An example is using isobaric loading for the mid-bass drivers in Titan 505, 606 and 707. Basically isobaric means 2x drivers - one internal, the other on the front baffle - linked by a sealed air chamber between those drivers, giving the impression of a much larger single drive unit in a larger cabinet. Its unusual in the industry to use isobaric so high in the frequency range, but Kudos found that allowing a minimal air gap around the voicecoil of the driver, coupled with "back to back" driver mounting reduced the effect of differences between drive units (even very expensive drive units are never identical) to give a better performance over a wider frequency range.

Another example of experienced based innovation is the cabinet construction of Titan.  Its core is a relatively thin MDF structure, the panels of which flex (the deflection is not visible to the eye) because the outer panels of the cabinet, in heavier gauge veneered MDF, are compliantly coupled to damp the flex of the inner cabinet wall. A mix of 2 existing, usually mutually exclusive, philosophies in the industry, but applied in a different way. The composition of the damping disks connecting inner cabinet to outer cabinet and the exact location of the mounting points were subject to the iterative try, listen, change, listen, change, listen approach until the best sounding materials and mounting locations were established. A further example of the design approach is that each panel in the internal cabinet has one of a number of thickness options - to vary the natural resonance of each panel rather than having all the panels contributing one resonance.

Titan 606 Inner Cabinets and Connector / Crossover Panels

Kudos work very closely with Norwegian driver manufacturer SEAS who have been found to be exceptionally co-operative and collaborative on driver design changes - be that cone materials, coil winding, cone shape, doping etc. etc. Only the basic driver basket remains unchanged for mid-bass drivers, everything else is available to change and Kudos exploits that opportunity with drivers going through several iterations before being custom manufactured to their final spec.  The Krescendo tweeter used in Titan is another example of the collaboration with SEAS, being based on a existing metal dome driver but with the magnet from a different SEAS model and the dome using a fabric and shape of Kudos' choice. As a component, compared to those in many other loudspeakers, the Titan tweeter is "reassuringly expensive".

SEAS Mid-Bass Drivers to Kudos Custom Spec

 

We step through the build process.  Cabinets are, of course, Kudos designs, but built by specialist suppliers.  A subject of intense discussion in the UK speaker manufacturing industry right now as one of the major suppliers of cabinets to the vast majority of UK loudspeaker brands has abruptly ceased supply.  For a small company this means a great deal of disruption to source a new supplier, but this looks to be resolved for Kudos and supply will continue to be delivered to customers as there are good stocks of parts in place right now. Every cabinet (internal and external damping panels, stand components etc) are inspected for any imperfections before being accepted and placed into stock. With Titan the internal cabinet remains consistent and the external damping panels bring the differences in colours and veneers. A number of veneers are available as are piano black and white gloss.

Drive units come in from SEAS in batches, passive crossovers are constructed on the production benches. Crossovers for Titan are hand built on the connector panel with components being direct wired (no circuit board) and use very gentle crossover slopes and the natural roll-offs of the drivers in the cabinets as Kudos believe this reduces "stuff getting in the way of the music".  Its a relatively expensive way of making crossovers, but demonstrates the passion for getting the right end result.  All the components for a complete speaker pair - drivers, internal cabinet, external damping panels, crossover, stands, packaging, connector panels, etc, - are gathered together onto a single pallet.  This pallet is then transferred to the build area for assembly by one member of the team. Seeing the details of the drivers, and the layered construction of what look like relatively simple stands opens my eyes to how much effort has gone into the design of Titans, something not at all obvious to the customer. Every pair is then put through listening tests before being packaged ready for despatch. 

Alongside the build area is a newly constructed office unit and the basics needed to keep the team fed and watered through the day.

Titan 808 Crossovers - Bass on the Left, Mid and Treble on the Right

 

We move over to the design / listening / demo suite where, in typical Kudos fashion, we enjoy a straightforward sandwich and cuppa whilst listening to the system currently set up.  At this point we also discuss the "active" option for Super 10A, Super 20A and the Titan range, and why Kudos chose to go in that direction, another distinctive differentiator in the market. It is, unsurprisingly, a fairly simple answer - to get a better musical result.  As an independent manufacturer, with no ties to existing electronics partners, Kudos can work with multiple different active electronics partners with ease.  Linn, Naim, Exposure and Devialet options have been made available and the speakers can be converted to active operation with a simple change to links on the connection panel.  

Listening Room with Titan 808

Kudos have long been a favoured brand of speaker amongst Naim electronics customers and that manufacturer's kit has featured extensively during the development of Kudos products and demonstrations at hifi shows (in passive and active form), along with Linn's Exakt active option. But today we have a system fronted by an Innuos server / streamer, Chord DAVE DAC, Chord Ultima Pre and Ultima Power amps. This was a surprise choice for me, given my past experience with Chord amplification hasn't been so enjoyable.  But this new Ultima range changes that completely, being musical, with coherent timing.  This system was feeding Titan 808s passively through, of course, Kudos KS-1 speaker cables. We range through some church choral recordings (great representation of the space), electronic dance music (great pace, controlled impactful bass lines) and Leonard Cohen (expressive grumbling vocals) and the time passes very quickly enjoying the music (note, the music, not the treble nor bass nor mids!).

Chord Stack on the Left In Use for Our Demo - alongside Naim including the active SNAXO crossover option. Another rack in the room contained other manufacturer electronics including Linn, currently being refreshed to Selekt spec.

What of the future?  Well Kudos have lots more ideas to take through their iterative, listening based process of product innovation and improvement. Some interesting ideas on drive units and active options could be on the way if they meet that essential criteria - is it musically more enjoyable than what went before? If today's products are anything to go by, the results will be interesting indeed.

Thanks very much to Derek and the Kudos team for your time, openess, straightforward discussion and hospitality.

It's In The Bag - Semi Portable Music System

Strangely, although I've been using this system for probably 6 or 7 years, I've never written about it here.

When away for 1 night and travelling light, I use a FiiO X3 and a pair of Beyer Dynamic IEMs. Sometimes I'll add the Chord Mojo DAC to improve the sound.  If its a couple of nights or more and I'm on the train or flying I'll add Audioquest Nighthawk headphones for a particular good sounding travel system.

But if I have the car and I'm away for a couple of nights or more then I'll take the semi portable system.

When I first set this up I had a Trends TA10.1 T-Amp to boost the sound from the FiiO X3, which still features as the source.  Later the Trends was replaced by the amazingly versatile Project MaiA DAC / integrated amp.  The Trends was a little more dynamic, but the MaiA is a little more refined and suits the use case better, particularly as it has a weightier bass and less strident top end - perfect to complement a very small pair of speakers. I managed to pick up the MaiA in a sale for £225, a considerable saving on its usual £380-400 price mark.  Its quite a solid bit of kit, so adds weight over and above the Trends, but that was a very simple device with only analogue inputs.

The MaiA allows connection of any standard analogue component using RCA phono sockets - the FiiO DAP, a phone, a TV or whatever.  It also allows a digital source to be connected to its internal DAC by coaxial, optical or USB cable plus I use it to connect my phone over Bluetooth for Tidal or Internet radio listening, particularly late at night so I can control music and volume from the bed - too lazy to get out of bed to switch it off! Carry a 3.5mm to dual phono cable and some hotel rooms will allow connection to the room TV too. A feature that I don't use but that adds to the value is a moving magnet turntable input! Other cables are very standard 42 strand speaker cables fitted with 4mm banana plus, a USB charger and cable and a USB cable in case I want to set up the laptop for some TV catch up or YouTube videos.

Is the FiiO DAC and analogue output superior to using the DAC in the MaiA? I would say that they are on a par, but different.  The MaiA is a little clearer but lacking solidity, the FiiO a bit better with timing and rythmn. Horses for courses.  For sure, adding the Chord Mojo between the FiiO and the MaiA is the best result, but that's more to carry and more time to cable up.  Talking of which, it takes about 5 minutes to set up and about 10 minutes to tear down and pack into the carry bag. Ideal.

Speakers are a pair of Tangent EVO.  I don't know much about the brand but they were about £80 from Richer Sounds around 2010, probably no longer available.

Complete system, a great size for many hotel room desks

The multi-input MaiA amplifier. The Tangent EVOs are fitted with soft foam feet to reduce transmission of energy into the surface - typically a hotel desk.

 

 

 

 

A UK pound coin gives you a good idea of just how compact this system is

The final component of the system is perhaps its most important attribute.  OK, its a very large camera bag, but the whole thing slots perfectly into a padded Lowepro so it can be slung over a shoulder and carried out to the car very easily.

What about how it sounds?  Well, its not a miracle from that point of view, but keep your expectations within reason and its very capable.  Bass goes a little deeper than you might expect and the system goes far louder than I ever need whilst not annoying other guests. There is no doubt the Chord Mojo /  Audioquest Nighthawk is a far superior listen, but the freedom to move around the room and lie in bed without the restrictions of headphones compensates nicely.

Bristol Hifi Show 2020 - Highly Commended Award - Totem (with Chord)

The performance per $ and per sq m of floorspace occupied is Totem's new compact standmount speaker, the Skylight's target.  Presumably derived from the very well received and very musical Sky standmount, Totem have done a great job again.  It was good to see these partnered with the very compact Chord Hugo electronics and the whole thing was lively without being shouty, punching above its size in terms of bass output and musical enjoyment.  Very much worth a listen at this price point and this level of space efficiency - electronics and speakers.

4 Lots of Kudos in One Night - Passive and Active

Kudos' Titan 808 has been around a few years now, and has given a great account of itsself at multiple shows 'musings has attended in the UK and Germany.
Most recently with the rather good Naim SNAXO active system at the Chester Hifi show earlier in the month.  I also chose a Linn Exakt driven pair when presenting a "MyTunes" playlist evening at Manchester dealer brianandtrevors, where they were augmented by a pair of REL No 25 subwoofers.

But there's more to Kudos than their well received top of the range T-808.  There are entry level "X" models, mid-range "Super" models and 4 different interpretations of the Titan formula.  So what's the rest of the range like?  To find out, 'musings returned to brianandtrevors for an evening of Kudos discovery.  The evening followed a fairly typical approach for a joint dealer / manufacturer evening - gradually stepping up the range, but perhaps with a little twist tonight.  To allow the comparison of the speakers, a pretty much "no compromise" system was put together from Scottish manufacturer Linn:

A largely Klimax level LP12 - Radikal PSU (in the Akurate casework), Ekos SE2, Kandid and a booplinth.  Onboard was a Urika 2 phono stage which fed an Exakt signal to a Linn Klimax DSM acting as pre-amp and streamer.
Initially the KDSM ran with its internal Katalyst equipped stereo DAC to a Linn Klimax Twin/D stereo power amp.
I/C cables were Linn silvers, with Chord Music making sure there were no compromises on the speaker cable side.

That's quite some front end to feed into the first speaker we heard tonight - the diminutive little Kudos X2 compact floorstander.  Bear in mind that, at £1600, it was being fed by a system that included speaker cables that come in at (assuming they were 3m in length) 4x the price of the speakers.
It has to be said that these little speakers probably weren't designed for use in a room the size of tonight's dem room.  Before they were played, Kudos' Dave White introduced himself and the company philosophy - keep things simple and use the best quality components and cabinets that can be achieved at a price point.  Drivers all come from SEAS, modified or created to Kudos's own requirements.  So until the top of the range, simplicity means 2-way designs, uncluttered crossovers and quality cabinet veneers.  So the little boxes played and did a pretty good job.  Yes, there was a looseness in the bass, which goes surprisingly low, there was some vagueness in the treble but the music was flowing, feet tapping, even the room joining in with some modes didn't detract from enjoying what was going on.  It would be great to listen to these in a smaller room, where I'm sure they'd work pretty well.  We listened to a few tracks from the streamer then moved on with a 3x price jump to the middle of the range Super 20 speakers.

This is another 2-way floorstander, but around 850mm high and sporting significantly higher quality components.  Again the finish is superb with matched veneers on the baffles. Well, this was a significant step-up in the musical presentation to match the price change.  The SEAS tweeter in the S20 is several steps up from the X2 in terms of detail, definition, believability and control. Similar improvements come from the mid-bass driver. Curiously the initial impression was of a speaker producing less bass output than the baby floorstanders, but in reality its just hugely better controlled and keyed into the hooks and rhythms of the tune.  The treble presentation, whilst far more refined, is just a little to forward in the mix for my personal taste, but there's no doubt the others in the group of 12 were enjoying what they were hearing.

The next step up was 2x on the price-o-meter and takes us into Titan territory.  We didn't hear the 505 standmount tonight, going straight to the first of the floorstanders, the 606.  This is similar in height to the Super 20, but the cabinent is very differently constructed.  Dave introduced the isobaric mid-bass driver and the thin-walled inner cabinet which is surrounded by heavy MDF side panels that are connected to the inner panels with damping material.  The tweeter too is from SEAS's upper end Krescendo family, amended to Kudos spec - the tweeter alone costs more to Kudos than all the drivers put together in a pair of X2s.  They're very substantially built speakers, needing a trolley to move them around, even though they're still under a metre high.  And how was this?  Well, it wasn't all a complete step up from the Super 20.  Bass a little deeper, treble that much more clear and definitive in the way it starts and stops, vocals carrying more emotion, along with tighter imaging, most if it was good.  But for me the Super 20 won out on the bass lines keeping pace with the rest of the music, and providing that foot-tapping drive.  So not a complete success for me.  After a short break to refresh glasses, along came the "twist" of the demo.  The Kudos Super and Titan ranges have a little trick up their sleeves - they have a clever but simple connection panel on the rear that means they can be converted to work in active mode - that is, effectively removing the internal passive crossovers to allow power amplifiers to be connected directly to each drive unit with the splitting of the frequencies delivered by an active crossover in front of the power amps.  This works with Naim analogue active crossovers and with Devialet and Linn digital crossovers.

So the Klimax DSM changed its role from digital to analogue converter, to one feeding a still digital Exakt feed to a Linn Klimax Exaktbox/1.  The Exaktbox does the digital to analogue conversion, along with some clever stuff such as phase correction of the drive units (and no crossover phase distortion), time aligning the drive units and adjusting the speakers' output to counteract room modes that normally causes "boominess".  Because each drive unit now needs its own power amplifier channel, an additional Klimax Twin was pressed into action, along with more Chord Music speaker cables.  Now the Titans are singing. This is a massive step up in performance for these speakers, much as we've experienced before when hooking the Super 20s up to an Exakt system back at 'musings base.  The reservations with the 606 in passive mode are almost gone - there's still a little reticence in the bass lines, but its very minor now and allows the other elements to shine through.  The live Eva Cassidy track we started with on the X2s is now in a huge venue, the soundstage goes back a long way beyond the speakers, Eva's voice is full of emotion, inflections and phrasing details. Nice.  We listen to a good few tracks from the streamer. Interesting set of feet on the 606s tonight, seem to tackle some of the shrillness I've heard from these speakers when sitting on standard spikes. Other than understanding they have some Sorbothane de-coupling, there wasn't time to discuss further tonight.

Another break follows, and the final set up of the evening is rolled into the room whilst more wine, coffee and juice is sorted out for the audience of a dozen or so listeners.  In the break we swap system information, who's interested in what and why Kudos is of interest.  Most have Linn front ends of some sort - vinyl and streaming, there's a few Naim front ends (streaming and CD) mostly Linn amplification but also Naim and a few others.  From a speaker comparison perspective, Linn, PMC, Kudos and others are in use.

Back to listening and we're now at the top of the Kudos range with the Titan 808.  Unlike last time in this room, the 808 was not supported by the big REL subs.  They had to fend for themselves.  It turns out that they're quite capable of looking after themselves thanks very much, and I ended up enjoying them more on their own.  The sense of scale of the Eva Cassidy venue is stunning on the 808 and they punch hard and fast.  Unlike the 505, 606 and 707 which have slightly (intentionally) leaky isobaric chambers, the lowest bass driver, in its separate box, is a more conventional sealed isobaric.  The 808 is a 3 way design but described as 2.5 way by Kudos by which I think they mean the lowest bass driver augments the lower end of the mid-bass rather than delivering a completely separate set of frequencies.  So this top-end speaker needs 6x power amp channels and as such another Klimax Twin and pair of Chord Music cables were helping out in this final system configuration.  The same tweeter is featured across the Titan range yet it somehow seems clearer and smoother in this configuration, but its the clarity, transparency and realism of the mid-bass combined with the sheer kick and tightness of the lower bass that stand out here.  We listen to lots of tracks and the LP12 is pressed into action for a few songs, including an album by one of my current favourites, Bob Moses from Canada.  There was some boominess with this system, Linn's SPACE optimisation wasn't in use until later in the evening, after the formal presentation has been completed.

What did we learn?  Well, in passive form, mostly spending more gets a better result, but not always in all areas.  But once Exakt was deployed, the whole experience was a huge improvement in performance and consistency. And, yet again, the 808 produced a great result - personally I think they performed better than with the REL subs in this room - not quite so jaw-dropping in terms of sheer power and impact, but more musically satisfying.  The X2's are good for their price and did a reasonable job of filling the big room.  But then again there's no real substitute for box volume, driver quality, cabinet construction and, most importantly, a high quality front-end active system. It would've been nice to hear the Super 20 moving from passive to active, but you can't fit everything into one evening.  I do wonder about those in the audience who might've been contemplating the 606 - were they satisfied, or do they now spend a longer time saving for the 808?  But then again, there's the 707 in between, and that's definitely worth a listen. I won't be changing my Twenty.26s for the 606s as they didn't do absolutely everything comprehensively better.  Perhaps the 707s?  Will have to leave it until another time to find out.

Thanks once again to Brian, Trevor, Dave and the other attendees for another enjoyable and instructive evening.

My Tunes at brianandtrevors 14 March 2019

The House of Linn, aka brianandtrevors, is a hifi dealer in Manchester.  The ex-Linn team started out as House of Linn then expanded into a parallel business that stocks non-Linn gear.  I've spent a few evenings there for demos and we've done some business together, on the Linn side of the house.  Its a fine old high ceiling end terrace with 3 dem rooms, a workshop and, perhaps most importantly, a kitchen for brewing tea and dispensing wine.

Most of the evening events have focussed on a product launch, or a manufacturer visit. Quite a few times B&T have mentioned having relaxed music only evenings and finally, they've kicked off a new series dubbed "My Tunes".  The idea is for a customer or other visitor to play some tunes, chat a little about them whilst enjoying the afforementioned tea or wine.  And that was the brief I was given when invited to be the "selector" for the first of these evenings.  Play a few tunes and tell the group a bit about why they were chosen.

I only had one request, that I could choose the system we'd use, and fortunately B&T are now Kudos dealers so it was straightforward to ask for something interesting, but more of that later, there was some planning to do.  What to play?  I do have a collated album of around 450 "favourite" tracks saved on the Melco NAS so I headed there and started to think about what to play and what to say.  It takes a bit of time to whittle it down, try and think of a good variety and then think back to why the track was in the main list, how it came into my life, and how to frame the story.

Eventually there were few enough tracks to put into 2 slots of about 50 minutes each, to allow for a break part way through (to recharge glasses of course!).  The first track was easy - play the first record I bought for myself - and then I remembered that there is a little box of singles in the house, so a quick check and there it was - the original copy of Solid Gold, Easy Action by T-Rex.  Glam rock!  I think it cost me about 35 pence, probably quite a few weeks of pocket money back in 1972.  It then occured to me that it might be worth not only talking about the music, but my hifi journey too, given the location.  So I tried to mix the two things along the way - a bit about the music, a bit about the hifi.

A good size audience of 15 joined the evening.  B&T introduced the idea and myself and that was it, get on with it!  Something I really appreciated, and hoped the audience did too, there was no mention at all of the kit in use, except to answer questions during the break. So no selling as such, a nice relaxed approach.  But we'll cover the system now, because it was something that I'd wanted to hear for a while and something I hoped would work really well.

We started the evening with that very old and pretty well worn T-Rex single, running on an almost full Klimax Linn LP12.  So a Radikal motor and PSU, Ekos SE, Keel, Urika II phono stage, Kandid cartridge and the one deviation from Klimax - B&T's own bamboo based booplinth plinth.  Brave of them to let the Kandid track this old single.  It sounded a bit thin, but remarkably free of pops and crackles, but clearly showing signs of stylus damage.  For the rest of the evening we played the tracks from the Innuos Zenith through a Chord Music ethernet cable into a Linn Klimax DSM - but using the Exakt outputs tonight.  The Exakt signal travelled down a Cat 7 ethernet cable to a Klimax Exaktbox/1 (that's the Katalyst version).  This was on a small rack near the speakers which also accommodated three Linn Klimax Twin power amps, each driving one of the 3 drivers in each Kudos Titan T-808 speaker, via Chord Music speaker cables.  So that was the system I'd asked for, but B&T threw in a couple of Exakbox sub boxes and a pair of REL No 25 subs at the back of the room.  All the electronics were supported by Quadraspire racks.

Click on the images for larger versions:

Kudo Titan 808 speaker along with a stack of Linn Klimax ingots - one Exaktbox, 3 Twin power amps, and a couple of boxes not in use tonight

From the top: Linn LP12 turntable in a booplinth, Linn Klimax DSM streamer / pre-amp, Innuos Zenith NAS, Linn Radikal power supply for the LP12 all on a Quadraspire X-Ref rack

Chord Music Cables

View across the largest of the dem rooms

Before the guests arrive we chewed the fat on the latest in hifi stuff and more, then had a listen to the system - just spending a little time tweaking the volume of the subs down a little to get the best balance.  SPACE is in play on the system and, as is often the case now, with the latest software versions, the default setting in a Exakt system is pretty much spot on.  And the system was sounding fantastic, pleased to say that its probably the best system I've heard in the house.  Full of detail, speed, tuneful bass lines, crisp, clear, beautifully resolved and emotional vocals and slam like I've never heard in the house before.  Fantastic.  I also spent a bit of time listening to a pair of Titan 505s in the smaller upstairs dem room, being driven by Linn Akurate Exakt electronics.  That was a good listen too - the Titan range seems to be a good design.

Below is the list of tracks I went with.  I have to say, I'm not sure its the right list, or the best list, or whatever, but its the one I came up with for the evening.  I did put some time into it but I didn't over think it or spend time putting tracks in and out of the list. Maybe I'll get invited back in a few years time and I can go with a completely different list.  So in there there are some older tracks, some new stuff, electronic music, jazz, americana, folk, covers, punk and rock/pop.

You can click on the image for a larger version:

I was hoping to put together something that some people would know (Teenage Kicks, of course), some tracks known but in new versions (Ever Fallen In Love, Don't Go Breaking My Heart) and something that would be new to most if not all (Pitch Black, perhaps Fink).  During the break it would seem that the balance was OK for most, but I've no doubt there were some genres missing or perhaps too much of one genre for others.

The audience were very attentive, there was some banter during the introductions, hopefully the little stories were interesting, but mainly, I hope that the music was of interest and enjoyable.  Certainly that system did it all justice.  If nothing else, I enjoyed the evening!

I'm looking forward to the next time B&T organise a session - it'll be interesting to be in the audience and hear someone else's selections and stories.

Thanks to B&T for the invitation to "select".

B&T have made the most of this post for their newsletter  :)

Exaktbox Comparison. Something to Consider When Choosing Which Exaktbox To Use: Stereo or Dual-Mono?

EDIT, 2018:  PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POST WAS WRITTEN PRIOR TO THE /1 UPGRADES FOR AKURATE AND KLIMAX EXAKTBOXES - THE "KATALYST" VERSIONS.  THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE RELATES TO /0 EXAKTBOXES AND IS NOT RELEVANT TO /1 EXAKTBOXES

How exact is Exakt?  Well, you’d think, from the branding, that it would be as exact as Linn could make it.  A recent online “conversation” revealed that all is not exactly as it might seem.  And its all down to processing power.

A quick review of Exakt – it’s Linn specific set of processes in the digital world that changes the signal being fed to a digital to analogue converter (DAC) specific to each driver in the speakers to allow the sound coming out of that driver to correct for room nodes (like boominess), for manufacturing tolerances (in the higher range of Linn speakers), time for the signal to travel to the listening position, to make sure that driver only gets the part of the frequency range particular to that driver, to correct for phase alignment issues between drive units at the crossover point and to correct for phase errors within the drive unit itself.  All very much in real time (it takes about 45ms).  Clever stuff.  But that takes a fair amount of processing power, something that happens inside a Linn Exaktbox which takes a feed from the Linn digital streamer / pre-amp, does all that processing and feeds the signal to multiple DACs – one per speaker driver – which then feeds to the power amp per driver and then onto the speaker driver.

So all of the above, applied to a pair of speakers that have 3 drivers per speaker (known as 3-way), requires 6 channels of processing and DACs.  As this is a particularly good “use case” to illustrate the differences between stereo filters and dual-mono filters, that’s what I’ll step through in this post.

Linn make an Exaktbox that has 6 channels (in fact, there are 2 of these, one at Akurate level, the other at Klimax level).  So, that it makes it very easy to choose an Exaktbox to suit a pair of 3-way speakers right?  3 drivers x 2 speakers = 6 channels.  So Exaktbox 6 (Akurate or Klimax level) will do the job.  Well yes.  And no.  Why not?  Well, we need to take a look at what’s in each of those boxes.  Exakt processing is done in a processor called an FPGA, and the number of FPGAs you get per Exaktbox varies according to which version in use.  Take a look at the diagram below.  On the left, Exaktbox 6 (Akurate or Klimax, for this discussion they’re identical on the Exakt processing side), and on the right the Akurate Exaktbox 10 (actually called Akurate Exaktbox without the 10, but lets not get into branding choices here!).  Clearly, there are 6 DACs in the Exaktbox 6 and 10 DACs in the Exaktbox 10.  But, more crucially for this post, the Exaktbox 6 has 1 Exakt processor, the Exaktbox 10 has 2 Exakt processors.  Note that these diagrams are simplified for the purposes of illustrating this comparison and test (for those who are really interested, in Exaktbox 6 there is a "Master" processor and 1x "Slave" processor, in the Exaktbox 10 there is a "Master" processor and 2x "Slave" processors).

Now, the Exaktbox 10 has to be capable of running 2 speakers of up to 5 drivers per speaker (5-way).  So, for the sake of argument, lets assume that a 5-way speaker will use 100% of each Exakt processor in the Exaktbox 10.  This might not be true, but it keeps the discussion relatively simple – believe it or not! So, with 2x mono Exakt filters – one mono filter per speaker – both Exakt processors will be fully busy:

 

But we’re talking in this post about 3-way speakers, which probably need less processing power than a 5-way speaker filter.  Again, using an assumption that is purely that, I’m going to say that a 3-way speaker will consume 3/5s of the processing power of a 5-way speaker.  So then we have the 2 Exakt processors in an Exaktbox processor, running a pair of mono 3-way filters might look a bit less busy than the above example.

Now, if we take those left and right Exakt filters out of the Exaktbox 10 and put them into the Exaktbox 6’s single Exakt processor, what happens?  Well, it gets a bit over full.  I know these are all approximations and assumptions, but its just to illustrate what’s going on here.  The principle applies, regardless of the precise percentages of capability.  So we then have an Exaktbox 6 single processor that’s too full, you can see here that stacking up the 2x mono filters into the single processor doesn’t fit:

So what to Linn do to make it possible for an Exaktbox 6 to support 2x 3-way full range speakers?  Well, they don’t run the 2x mono filters like the Exaktbox 10, they run a cut-down stereo filter.  In order to achieve this, the stereo filter does less complex (and therefore less accurate) processing so it will squeeze into the space available in a single processor:

 

And what does that mean for sound?  Well, it’s less accurate, as you might expect.  Hence, Exakt is sometimes less exact than it might be.

Experiment

Its taken a while for this experiment to happen in Musings’ listening room.  Why?  Well, it took a while for Linn to get around to releasing the “dual mono” Exakt filters for the PMCs amongst others such as Linn’s own Keilidhs.  So if you were running an Exaktbox 6 or an Exaktbox 10 for PMCs back in May 2016 (like me), then you’d not hear much of a difference between them as they were both running the compromised stereo Exakt filters.  In fact, the Exaktbox 6 sounded slightly better due to the greater space and better circuit layout inside the box.  But this was a small difference and has nothing to do with the Exakt filters in use.

Let’s be clear here, even the compromised stereo Exakt filters, with my PMC Twenty.26 speakers, Exakt brought a step change in performance to the system.  See my review here of my first impressions of these speakers with Exakt.  Those impressions were written with stereo Exakt filters in an Exaktbox 10, per the diagram below:

But a few weeks back, Linn finally released the dual-mono Exakt filters for the PMCs.  So the system was set up with stereo filter in the Exaktbox 6 and dual-mono filters in the Exaktbox 10.  As below:

Everything else in the system was kept the same – same Akurate Exakt DSM source, same Chord C-Stream cable for the Exaktlink, same 6x Linn silver interconnects and same 6x channels of Akurate power amplification and speaker cables.  The same SPACE Optmisation settings were applied too, leaving only the stereo vs dual-mono Exakt filters being the only difference between the 2 set ups.  Yes, there’s the better layout of the circuitry in the Exaktbox 6 to allow for, but earlier testing has shown that as being fairly minor (worth having, but not worth trading equipment for, if you already have an Exaktbox 10, IMHO).

Although it takes about 10 minutes to swap all the interconnects over between the 2 boxes (and power up each drive unit one at a time, starting with bass and working up the frequency range to ensure all the connections are correct), its pretty easy to hear the benefits that dual-mono filters bring.  As is often the case, its not that easy to describe, especially given how good the stereo Exakt filters are. But lets say there’s just a lot more of everything without adding any clutter at all.  What you think is very stable imaging, becomes even more stable, wider and deeper too.  What you think is lots of space between and around instruments is a good bit better defined.  Bass appears to go a bit deeper, but room nodes are not excited any more than they were.  Some sounds evolve with even greater texture through the lifetime of a note.  There’s another improvement in the flow and effortlessness of listening to the music and following the tune – without thinking about it.  Are there any downsides?  Not that I’ve noted, its all good.  At least its all good if you don’t think too hard about the financial implications, or the idea that, with even greater processing power in future iterations of Exaktboxes, that there might be yet more to come.  But let’s not go there just now!

So what is the conclusion?  Well, Exakt isn’t always as Exakt as it could be.  And if you’ve got 3-way full range speakers like me, the Exaktbox 6 isn’t necessarily the “lower cost” route it might’ve been, as it involves a level of compromise.  But its also worth saying that the benefit brought by dual mono filters is worth having – if I knew this when starting out with Exakt, I would’ve saved up for the Exaktbox 10 over the Exaktbox 6.  It just so happened that the ex-dem Exaktbox available to me was the 10 channel version and it was part of the purchasing choice for a different reason – the option to go to the 5-way Akubariks, had I wanted to do that at some point in the future.  What does that mean for choosing an Exaktbox for other systems?  Well here’s the run down, as it stands at the time of writing, for a stereo pair of speakers:

• 1x Majik Exaktbox-i – 8 channels – 2 Exakt processors – capable of running stereo or dual-mono filters up to 4-way
• 1x Akurate Exaktbox 6 – 6 channels – 1 Exakt processor – capable of running stereo filters up to 3-way (and for some small 3-way speakers, that might be as much as is needed as the stereo filter is as good as the processing is going to get)
• 2x Akurate Exaktbox 6 – 12 channels – 2 Exakt processors – capable of running dual-mono filters up to 6-way (actually, this might be up to 5-way as that’s the maximum number of channels in currently released Exakt filters, but Linn would have to confirm)
• 1x Akurate Exaktbox 10 – 10 channels – 2 Exakt processors – capable of running stereo or dual-mono filters up to 5-way
• 1x Klimax Exaktbox – 6 channels – 1 Exakt processor – capable of running stereo filters up to 3-way
• 2x Klimax Exaktbox - 12 channels – 2 Exakt processors – capable of running dual-mono filters up to 6-way (actually, this might be up to 5-way as that’s the maximum number of channels in currently released Exakt filters, but Linn would have to confirm)

Some observations / thoughts:

• Linn should update the Klimax Exaktbox to further differentiate it from the Akurate Exaktbox 6 by adding a second Exakt processor.  The idea of a 6 channel Exaktbox that could run a pair of 3-way speakers in dual-mono is very attractive indeed and would be something to aspire to.  Currently, the cost of 2x Klimax Exaktboxes to run dual-mono 3-way speakers is just financially so far out of reach.  Or maybe produce another model called the Klimax Exaktbox 2 with 2x Exakt processors, priced slightly above the single processor version.
• The Exakt part of the Konfig interface doesn’t tell you which filters your Exaktbox is running.  Exaktbox-i and Exaktbox 10 will run dual mono filters by default, where they are available.  They will run stereo filters if dual mono are not available.  Multiple Exaktbox 6s will run dual-mono if the user / dealer install the mono filters into each one.  Either way, Linn really needs to make it obvious in Konfig precisely which filters are in use.
• Should I stick with dual-mono filters in the Exaktbox 10, or take the plunge and go with 2x Exaktbox 6s to get that last chunk of performance?
• Does a Klimax Exaktbox running stereo filters sound better or worse than 2x Akurate Exaktbox 6s running dual mono filters?  Maybe there’s someone out there with deeper pockets than me (or a dealer with the boxes to hand) who would like to experiment?
• Thanks to MaH at the Linn forum and some pointers to comments made by Linn's lead speaker designer, its clear that not all 3-way speakers will benefit from dual-mono operation over and above stereo filters.  For smaller speakers that don't need such a wide range of low frequencies to be corrected, then the stereo filter is all that's needed and Linn won't be producing dual-mono for those (an example might be the Majik 109).
• Does this apply to 2-way speakers?  Or does the lower processing requirement of 2-way speakers mean the stereo 2-way filters are just as comprehensive as dual-mono filters?  The bullet point above suggests that small 2-way speakers will probably have only stereo filters, but maybe the larger ones, such as Kudos Super 20 will still benefit from dual-mono filters due to their greater bass extension.

Conclusion

I like the effects of dual-mono filters in the Exaktbox 10 and will be sticking with them for the time being.  I was very happy with the system before the move to dual-mono, its just a very substantial layer of icing on my system cake!  I’m off to consume another slice…

FYI, for those systems using speakers with built-in Exakt processing and power amps, none of the above applies – this is because each speaker has its own Exakt processor on board and therefore, by definition, are running a mono filter each.