Kudos C30
Kudos Cardea C30
The
loudspeaker market is probably the most crowded and competitive product
in the world of Hi-Fi audio. To make your product stand out you have
to design something a little bit special that sets it apart from a
saturated market place.
When designing a new loudspeaker it has to match a few criteria's, firstly, it has to sound good, no scrub that out, it has to sound more than good, it has to sound exceptional, good isn't good enough because the market place for loudspeakers is full of good sounding speakers, any designer can make a half decent sounding pair of speakers in the hope they will sell, but for Kudos and the new C30 good just wasn't good enough for them, this speaker had to be innovative with ground breaking sonic improvements.
Secondly, it has to look the part, speakers today have become part of the home furniture, so criteria number one is, lets make the best sounding speaker we can and really make it stand out from the rest sonically, and secondly lets make it look visually appealing.
So Derek at Kudos Audio put his pencil in his hand and let the work commence. Derek wasn't seen for a long time, for many a day and many a night he beaverd away as his burnt the midnight oil, his friends and family by this time had become quite worried about Derek and were wondering what on earth he could be up to, they knew he had the knack for designing state of the art loudspeakers but this was something else!.
Time passed by, then one day, Derek popped his head out the door, tired and unshaven he cried out in a loud voice, EUREKA!! I've done it, and the Kudos C30 was born.
Since
it's introduction to the market the Kudos C30 has had heaps of praise
bestowed upon it both by the specialist audio press and audio enthusiasts
from all over the globe in recognition of the superlative performance
these loudspeakers achieve, in fact Paul Messenger a very highly respected
journalist from the UK upon hearing the Kudos C30 decided to use them
as his reference loudspeaker replacing some B&W 800 in the process,
a true testament to just how good these new speakers from Kudos Audio
are.
Taking a closer look
The enclosure of the Kudos C30 is over a metre tall, its width only 20cm wide and the C30 comes in at 27cm deep, so overall the shape of the C30 is quite compact making it very room friendly.
Finishes for the Kudos C30
Standard finishes are cherry, sycamore, walnut,
rosenut or oak plus now available are some exquisite luxury alternatives
including rosewood and ebony.
An elegantly shaped, black lacquer finished plinth, separated by spacers
to make room for one of the ports, provides secure spike accommodation
and ensures fine stability for the C30
The C30 drivers are flush-mounted and two small and thick-frame grilles are supplied with each speaker. One for the treble and mids and the other grill covers the bass driver.
Driver enclosure
The enclosure is subdivided internally, so
that each cone driver is loaded by its own separately ported sub-enclosure.
The ports themselves are large and flared, to avoid generating distortion
even at high levels.
Kudos works closely with Norwegian drive unit specialist SEAS and
the C30 uses the latter's most costly Crescendo tweeter.
The bass/mid driver has a 120mm paper cone stiffened by Nextel on
the outside and a damping compound on the inside. It also has a complex
and advanced magnet structure, with an extended pole-piece and copper
rings to improve linearity and distortion.
The crossover network is deliberately kept as simple as possible and
uses top-quality components from companies like Clarity Caps, Volt
and Music First. Two pairs of Michell-sourced terminals are mounted
through a solid recessed panel.
Attention to detail
What really distinguishes the Kudos C30 from the more common and cheaper ranges of loudspeakers, is the obsessive attention to the very finest details Kudos paid to during the development process in designing the C30
Here are just some examples of the attention Kudos Audio went to. The enclosure carcase, built from 18mm HDF (high density fibreboard), uses different proportions of resin for different panels in order to help damp and control resonance's.
Extra internal bracing is used behind the tweeter, as this is the most critical part from a performance point of view. And the plinth is a complex and inert tri-laminate affair, combining HDF with a thick steel plate and a low viscosity membrane.
The Kudos Cardea range since its introduction has undergone some slight cosmetic and evolutionary changes, firstly Kudos decided to change the styling of the front grills losing the tear shaped front grill for a grill that is now far more attractive, in fact we recommend that you remove the grills when listening, but becareful of little fingers. Secondly a new base plinth was introduced similar in design of that which is found on the Kudos C30. Thirdly and finally the speakers are now single wired with bi-wire being an option, Kudos felt this gave a better sound plus it suited some amplifiers better.
Our listening views
One thing for us that makes a speaker truly gifted is it's ability to time correctly, if your system can't manage to time you might as well pack it up and mothball it in a cupboard somewhere.
So what about the Kudos C30? for over 5K your thinking it better well do, right? sure when you spending this kind of money your hoping your going to get something pretty special as 5k isn't like some lose change in the bottom of your pocket, when your spending this kind of money you want to make sure you get it right and it sounds just right.
The Kudos C30 is a tall speaker, but it is also thin, so even though it looks imposing it's not actually taking up a great deal of real space in your room. As per usual the build quality is first class, the cabinet is absolutely rock solid, try to tap it with your knuckles and the cabinet sounds dead and inert, excellent, the workmanship of the cabinet is also first class the kind of finish you'd expect for the money. The drive units are beautifully finished and fit the cabinet precisely, once again inspiring confidence in the speaker. Eden Audio must say we love the Kudos logo that sits in midrange unit, this gives them a real nice touch and adds an air of class to them.
Derek at Kudos told me they would sound a bit wayward at first so I was expecting a rough kind of sound. I was going to run them in with the Huygens Audio MHz Class D mono block amplifiers along with the AstinTrew AT3500 CD player. Right from the off I knew I was listening to a very special speaker, I've read a few comments about the Kudos Cardea range sounding harsh, all I can say is don't blame the speakers, if this is harsh I'd hate to know what smooth is, the sound is fast, lucid and open, which matches perfectly with the superbly open and detailed treble, the bass we find to be fast, not massively deep, but well controlled and nimble,
The first thing you do notice is that the C30 has much more bass than the C20, this is to be expected as the speaker is larger and has a dedicated bass driver, this gives the effect of a much larger sounding speaker, in fact we was worried that it would boom and over power our demo room, how wrong could we be, I've come to the conclusion that as long as the room is acoustically treated a big speaker can and will work in a smaller room, get your room tested and treated, experiment with positioning and you may find yourself pleasantly surprised at the results you will be able to achieve. Only on some really deep bass did it very slightly upset our room, but once run in the speakers bass becomes far more settled and tuneful.
About that bass, boy, it's wicked, and we just
love it, why? because as we said at the beginning these beauties know
big time how to time, they time absolutely spot on, the bass unit
just starts and stops, it's tight, it hits you it the pit of your
stomach, and it will get your footapping, it's sublime, the bass on
these babes is breathtaking, stop start, stop start, no over hang,
no boom, just bass done properly.
Most people think bass is just one note, or that it sounds like a
blur with no definition, but with the Kudos C30 the bass is deep,
it's rich and it's downright tuneful, you can hear the bass player
actually playing different notes and tones on the bass guitar, it's
wonderful, it's like being at a concert, it sounds like real bass
with each note sounding different to the one that went before, marvelous.
If you appreciate bass matched spot on timing then the Kudos C30 has
all bases covered in this regard.
After giving the speakers a months worth of run in time, the bass has become more richer, greater colour and tone to it, The sound to is more open, and a bit more smoother, they are ruthlessly revealing of the rest of your gear, from amps to your source to recording production quality,
OK, they are not the cheapest pair of speakers
you can find, but then quality never is. When you look at the components
Derek @ kudos has used and you see the prices of those components
on other brands then the price makes much more sense, the build and
general fitting is of first class standards.
T hey will give owners many hours of great pleasure listening to them.
How do you tell a great speaker from a average one? with a great speaker
you listen to your CDs all the way through. That's what happens when
listening to the Kudos C30.