Kudos Audio are based in Willington, County Durham. The man behind them is Derek Gilligan and we have known him for a very long time! at signals, we’re proud to represent Kudos Audio in Suffolk and across much of the east of England
The Kudos ‘recipe’ is simple: Uncomplicated design with high quality ingredients. It works for restaurants and anyone who has seen either Derek or me will realise that neither of us are unfamiliar with the concept of eating.
The recipe certainly works here too. The Cardea C10 and Super 10 stand- mounts, along with the c20 and super 20 floor- standing loudspeakers are now the entry point in the range. The more sophisticated Titan series has become the mainstay and all incorporate isobaric bass loading.
All are very well suited to Naim and Linn electronics. Lively, open and engaging. Fun to listen to. If using with Naim, the NAC-A5 or Kudos’ own KS1 cables generally wins hands-down against alternatives – unless you can run to Super Lumina, that is.
The original Titan T88 was a surprising success for us. These were properly expensive speaker and not perhaps the best looking on the planet. Our sales of them ran into double figures. In the world of niche hi-fi this is quite a lot, honestly!
The new Titan T808 again takes us into uncharted territory, this time rather more rarefied than before. They were sort of test launched over 2015 at various shows and events. The ones used at our Audio Show East event in September ’15 were pretty much the finished article. The digital crossover settings for the active set-up in the Linn room at the same show turned out to be deeply flawed. This explained a number of things, not least the endless head scratching and tweaking. It’s a stressful game, doing public shows.
Final production got underway at the end of 2015 and we received our new speakers at the turn of 2016.
As with the Super 10 and Super 20, these can be set for active use. This is where the cross-over comes before the power amplifier and each driver is directly driven by a power amp. Bi-wiring or bi-amping is not an option with the S10 and S20.
The T808 is effectively a two way speaker with an Isobaric sub-woofer supplementing things and the two sections need to be linked for single amplifier use. It can therefore also be passively bi-amped.
Both arrangements work very well. Actually, single wire operation from the Naim Statement works extremely well anyway. It’s safe to assume that we won’t be bi-amping with this any time soon.
Using Likk Exakt, it’s possible to actively power the two or three way speakers and the results are impressive. We’ve been particularly taken with the Akurate DSM / Exaktbox / Akurate Power amplifier combo driving either Super 10 or 20 speakers.
We have three sets of Klimax power amps to use with the Klimax DSM / Klimax Exaktbox and this makes a fine job of driving the Titans now that the software is correct.
The one downside of the slow arrival of new Titans was that we didn’t have the T88 and T808 versions at the same time. With new electronics from Naim (NAP 500DR and Statement) bedding in and the need to run-in the T808 anyway, we missed any clear cut comparison of old and new.
This was resolved recently when a set of T88s were passing through. It has to be said that Derek really has moved the game forwards with the T808.
So, the inevitable ‘what are they like?’ question. Certainly in our current larger demo room, the answer is ‘sublime’. If you are seeking out a killer quality it’s the bass. It’s extended, clean and, even in a room rather prone to misbehaviour, it’s utterly blameless. The coherence top to bottom is terrific too, though. These manage to make the old Titan seem a little spiky and uncouth.
So, yeah, they’re OK!