Active kans

Firstly a bit of history and explanation of how I got here. I’ve been running kans for about 10 years and in my old flat they worked brilliantly. We then moved house and it was a disaster for my HiFi. The lounge is an echoey cube with stripped floorboards and no obvious flat walls for the kans. I tinkered for about 6 months to no avail, the kans always sounded like a transistor radio. I headed off to Infidelity and Simon advised a pair of neat petites on the slate stands. I borrowed them and order was restored. Although they were still very sensitive to location they worked in a much wider range of areas so I bought them. I’d also bought a big Turkish rug which helped damp down the sound.

All was fine until our little boy arrived and at about 10 months old started climbing the speaker stands. Now grill-less Neats on very sharp slate speaker stands are the most kiddie-unfriendly speakers you could imagine, hard, sharp, delicate, top heavy etc. So they were quickly retired to the attic and out came the old kans. I got hold of some Sound Org wall stands and set about getting the best out of the kans. At this stage the kans were still sounding nowhere near as good as the neats had, which I put down to their location. However as I thought I’d be stuck with the kans for a few years (when do kids get controllable? 7years, 15 years, 25 years….) I decided to get the best out of them. Its for this reason that I’ve ended up with a bit of a mullet – LP12, Aro, Troika, Armageddon, 82, 2xHi, Naxo + Hi, 2x250 – if I’d been more convinced the speakers were working well I’d have gone for a supercap or 52 rather than the 2nd 250.

I once heard kans running actively and was blown away by the massive sound from such little boxes. So when I got a HiCap for my 82 and the seller asked if I wanted his naxo 2-4 for an extra £100 I went for it.

One long week-end I got out the tools and set to work. Getting the grills off wasn’t too hard, I squeezed a wallpaper stripper between the grill and wood and just levered away. My kans were pretty old so I think the glue had gone brittle. Getting the drivers out was much more tricky. They’re a really snug fit into the baffle and I could only just get a thin knife down the gap. I tried various implements before I accepted that I’d just have to live with the damage to the baffle. I stuffed the strongest kitchen knife I could find down the crack and just lent on the knife handle. The drivers gradually lifted up.

I’d got replacement flush 4mm plugs from Maplin (my mk1 kans had binding posts), remembering to get the longest body ones I could find (the wood on Kans is thick after all). I’d also got some new A5 intending to rewire the kans. This proved to be a mistake as it’s soooo stiff. I split the two cores apart, soldered it to one of my new 4mm plugs and fed it from the back into the speaker. I then soldered it onto the drive unit and as I pushed the driver into place because the wire is so stiff it either broke the solder joint on the driver the plug or once broke the tag off the rear of the plug. I managed to get one done successfully but for the 2nd kan I found some naim A4 and used this. I couldn’t face pulling apart the 1st speaker so I have a slight mismatch between my kans. To re-glue the drivers into place I used some blue engine gasket sealant from Halfords – this is what Infidelity use for kan repairs.

After all this how does it sound – in a word fab. There’s still the characteristic kan sound, and I’m now even more convinced that I don’t yet have them working as well as possible – the sound hasn’t yet quite escaped the boxes, but its getting there. The overriding adjective is “control” especially the bass. Everything is so much crisper and more transparent - but not in a clinical way, the detail is there is spades, but only if you listen for it. My wife loves the way voices are so much more believable. At one point just before going active I’d plugged in the 2nd 250 so that I had one 250 on the left and one on the right (not biwiring, just using half a 250 per side) and although everything got better I had a nagging feeling that the rhythm was over-emphasised, that feeling has now gone although they still time wonderfully.

I wouldn’t say it’s a particularly logical thing to do if you’ve got speakers working well, source 1st would say that I should have got a 52 or prefix, but now I think my speakers are transparent enough to justify me doing that next. Ho Hum – more expense!

Phil