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Amp for Kans

I believe you Gary, just shows it is mostly about the room. Which oddly means that reporting a subjective experience of anything means almost nothing unless you happen to have an identical room to the person that you are reporting it to. Then it means nothing to anyone else. Which is rather nice as it means that no subjective experience reported in this room means anything to anyone other than the person reporting it.

My experience of Kans is as true as yours with solid floors and three foot thick stone walls using Naim CB and (Farlowe) Exposure amps. I'm using Neat Ultimatums, Epos ES 14s and Quad 57s as a (side by side) benchmark; against those designs the Kans were absolutely dire in my rooms. Now sold.
 
Early Kan's are love or hate loudspeakers

Voiced for Naim amplication of the vintage using turntable and FM tuner only, maybe tape decks

solid wall is mandatory

Not sure about the Mana thing
 
Thanks for the input. My room is 4x4m and they sit up against a solid wall either side of the fireplace, which doesn't stick out too far.

They are currently on open frame stands I use for my Harbeth P3esr, so kind of similar to Kan 2 stands, but no base plate. Not sure if this makes a huge difference, I guess it will have some effect.
 
I believe you Gary, just shows it is mostly about the room. Which oddly means that reporting a subjective experience of anything means almost nothing unless you happen to have an identical room to the person that you are reporting it to. Then it means nothing to anyone else. Which is rather nice as it means that no subjective experience reported in this room means anything to anyone other than the person reporting it.

My experience of Kans is as true as yours with solid floors and three foot thick stone walls using Naim CB and (Farlowe) Exposure amps. I'm using Neat Ultimatums, Epos ES 14s and Quad 57s as a (side by side) benchmark; against those designs the Kans were absolutely dire in my rooms. Now sold.



Indeed, rooms and speakers a lottery, point in case is i recently had some very nice ES14's at my home and they lasted one day before i sold them on. In my room they were not any good at all....
 
....and then there is preference. My benchmarks all are midband transparency masters which is my preference. All the Linn speakers I've ever heard other than Kabers were not to my taste, Briks were especially vile- my God did they cost me some dosh!. It was in the 'when I trusted dealers' days- "ah well sir if you bought a Supercap or Ekos or Akiva" etc, etc it would sort it. Never a murmur about the room or changing the speakers, bastards the lot of them. Mind you, to be fair they might just have been dickheads like me.
 
Actually MVV i'm starting to enjoy the Harbeth Compact 7ES3 for that very reason. A change of amplification and some re positioning has them sounding much better than i first managed.
 
As already mentioned, placement of Kans is king! I mean more than I say however, because not only do I mean close to the wall, I mean close to the wall on Kan stands on Mana sound bases, with glass, with an appropriate interface between the glass and the stand spikes. Let me expand...

My mk1 Kans have been on mk2 Kan stands on top of two pairs of small Mana sound bases (with the aid of an improvised piece of MDF) for a while now, but I recently got some glass made up, ala Mana glass, so I could put the kan stands on glass. Although it tightened everything up and made some aspects sound simply superb, it introduced some very bad stuff as well. Having spikes on both sides of the glass created a sort of harmonic resonance so that certain high pitched frequencies became unbearable, perhaps like having too much feedback from an electric guitar. I was reliably informed having spikes on both sides of the glass doesn't work so I'd need to add an alternative interface between the glass and stand spikes.

The first interface I tried placing between the top of the glass and the stand spikes was bits of silicone and although it solved the wonky harmonic issue, it seemed to slow the Kans down and even muddy the overall sound. I then tried some rubber pads intended to be used as feet on an LP12 and it was more or less the same as with the silicone. Finally, I tried placing some small pieces of plastic (I think that's what it is) between glass and spikes and voila, my Kans are now out-of-this-world amazing. I actually used used 8 pieces of plastic screw covers, the kind of thing used to cover screws in flat-pack furniture, and I now have a system that blows my mind (and ears!)! If I had to put a value on these bits of plastic, I'd say £1k+. Admittedly, I had to have the Mana bases, glass and Kan stands for them to be of value, but seeing as I already do, they're by far the best unorthodox upgrade I've ever done. I guess these bits of plastic are the keystone to my archway of audio nirvana :)

I now conclude that my system lacks nothing (obviously it's bass-lite, but that's par for the course with Kans) and any future changes I make (such as buying a Teddy Pardo amp in the very near future) I'll do so because I want more, not because I think there's something wrong with it as it is. If anyone is in doubt as to the amazingness of Kans, come and visit me (in Glasgow) for a sonic treat - I might even make you a nice coffee as well :)
 
They work brilliantly with beefier old Exposure amps, but absolutely, must, be hard against a supporting wall. I loved mine, but had to sell them when I moved to a house in which this wasn't possible. FWIW, there are better, and more flexible, speakers of their size and configuration, eg Harbeth P3, but they're much more expensive.
 
32 or 72 with 160 and lp12,and very good with linn numerik dac as a source.I had that combination for 19 years.Kan's are magnificent but sensitive to source, positioning and amp,and use it on original stand stands very near to solid wall.I use them in 14,18,24 and 30m2 rooms.30m2 kill's the magic of Kan's,I was desperate about it.I use now Sbl's they are better for big room but I still miss some old days from smaller room.
 
I had a pair on a shelf long ago and they were so so. Last year I heard a pair at Mark's (Gaius) and was blown away at what these little boxes were capable of. Given they were designed at the time of optimal Linn/Naim synergy you wouldn't go wrong with a Naim amp of that era driving them. The number 160 features heavily here.
 
Thanks for the input. My room is 4x4m and they sit up against a solid wall either side of the fireplace, which doesn't stick out too far.

They are currently on open frame stands I use for my Harbeth P3esr, so kind of similar to Kan 2 stands, but no base plate. Not sure if this makes a huge difference, I guess it will have some effect.

I'm using Kan MK1 at the end of Linn Axis → Nait 1 in my 4x4m room.
If you want it really loud Nait 1 is not best case.
I listen at low levels on evening and night so Nait 1 is great for me.

Is it your stands?
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I want something like this.
 
Kan IIs - proper little 'speakers with proper crossovers designed for small rooms.

An Onix would be perfect and likely better than small Nait which is really a bit underpowered for a Kan.
 
Love this thread...being a Kan junky. It’s taken me years of numerous Naim combos nait 2s, nait 1s, 250/hicap/72, 32.5/110/hicap . Cds2, Cdx etc etc only to realise that the answer all along was a Farlowe era Exposure integrated amp. Yes solid walls and in my case Sound Organisation wall mounted brackets with mk1 Kans. Exposure amp and exposure CD player pure bliss. Music is alive and Kans doing what they do best.
 
The most important thing with Kans is to go active, active with Naim Naxo or Snaxo and 2x Nap 110 easily outperform passive Nap 135’s.

When driven active the Kans go deeper,wider faster and cleaner.The speakers “disappears “ and the sound is so amazingly musical.

The transformation when going active with Kans are much bigger than with Naim Sbl’s
 


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