Kudos X2 advice

Interesting. I'm also in the market for some new speakers for the Unitiqute. Neat motive 2sx and Kudos x2 are on my list. Kef ls50 were on the list, but they disappoint me.

Maybe run in time?

And your room has almost the same size as my. With wooden floor.

Kudos do recommend 30 hours run in. Also am still furnishing the room and had wondered if the room was still a bit "echo'ey" , however the Ela's didn't suffer the same.....

Why did you choose the Kudos over the Neats?

Have you used any formulaic approach to speaker positioning? Have a look at Focal's site and also Cardas website. You cannot just drop speakers in an enclosed space without the speakers own sound interfering with itself, so best to attempt to minimise the problem. Also I would have thought the X2 would require a bit more powerful amp than a Qute, I tried my PMC 22s with my Qute and it was best described as 'asthmatic', smaller PMCs gave a more convincing result. Maybe running in or a loose connection in the speaker cable? Check phase again, and no, I don't think the cable is to blame, but all things take time to settle, your speakers may be adjusing slowly to your ambient home humidity and temperature.

+1, Focal provide a formula in their paperwork,  if its not on their site and you need it let me know and I'll post it

Although I should probably have added that I was totally unable to apply it in my room!

Most people can if they really, really want to. It just means turning the enormous flat screen telly on its side, which I've found is great for watching 'Spiderman' 

It worked ok for me until the family insisted on being allowed to use the living room too, selfish sods  

Thanks hafler and dayjay.....we all have our own room issues! Spiderman and selfish people aside ...I did follow kudos's own positioning advice and in fact emailed them to ask, before taking delivery. They are about 6 feet apart with slight toe-in at present. I have messed around a bit with position, but am not hearing the lovely open sound I did at demo. Almost want to put my old ones back on!

As for the Qute driving the X2's, this should not be a problem at all. There are many posts of happy Qute and X2 users on here and it seems a well recommended combo. Sure, they are not as efficient as some, but work fine. Not quite sure where to go from here...may speak to the dealer.

Can you move them closer into the room?  I've found with mine its a balance between tonal balance, sound stage (mainly depth) and how much they impact on the use of the room.  The best openness I've had in terms of soundstage have been with them further away from the back wall.  The other factor though is how far away from the speakers you are sitting - if its at the end of 23 feet that golden triangle thingy doesn't apply does it?  

I can move them out a little more into the room, although not too far. I sit about two-thirds of the way down the room I guess.. Just didn't expect such muddled sound. It's not bad when playing a simple track...it's when the music gets going with pace and multiple instruments they seem to lose definition and clarity. Definite bass bloom and vocals seem to almost diminish.....maybe its me ears !!

Worth trying them further into the room and away from walls and see how they sound when they can breath.  I spent the first two weeks with mine weight lifting as I moved them around to find the best position and toe in 

Thanks again dayjay....will experiment tomorrow and let you know...cheers

My spider-senses are twitching that it's a room issue if all the other avenues mentioned so far have failed. Any way you can temporarily decamp to another room? Ask the dealer if they have standard dimensions for setting up (try and recreate it if poss). The X2 may need to sit on some concrete slabs or be coupled via resting the spikes in the heads of large philips wood screws screwed thru the carpet (many plinth spikes don't do a good enough job on their own) Let the dealer know of your travails and see if he will visit, my UK Naim dealers were very helpful.

Arnsider, why did you choose the kudos over the neats?

Easy....to my ears they were more balanced, great pace and dynamics and overall....more musical

Okay thanks, that was in the demoroom. Maybe you have to wait and give them a 50 hours run in time.

Aren't they basically the same?

Maybe worth a power down and unplugging all connections right through, checking and re-checking, making sure all is as it should be and powering back up again.

How do they sound after 2 days?

I've been happy with my X2s although they are not without their shortcomings. But the shortcomings I perceive are very different from yours - lack of bass, and a rather forward treble/upper midrange. This leads me to suspect that your problems may be down to other factors; room acoustics, listening position, system setup? Maybe you should give them a bit more time before you go back to your dealer. 

I managed to improve (or perhaps compensate for) areas that I first thought were weaknesses in the speakers by tweaking entirely different parts of my system, most notably putting my system on a better rack, improving my streamer's network setup, and moving the listening position. 

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. I'm going to throw a curve ball in here at the risk of sounding a bit thick....but here goes...

While double checking the speaker connections I questioned if I had them connected correctly. When looking at the back of the Qute, the speaker connection labeled 'left' is as you would expect on the left...now does this feed the left side speaker as you look at the unit from the front? Or...the one to the left of you as you look at the rear (ie. the right hand speaker if looking from the front)???

Getting this wrong will surely result in phase issues..am I correct?

Sensitively worded answers please :-P

The 'left' speaker simply means the one that appears on the left as you sit and listen to them. If you are in any doubt about them being in phase, just reverse the + and - connections on either one of the speakers. If there's an improvement, they were out of phase and you've just corrected it. If it sounds worse, they were already in phase. You won't damage anything by trying this.

Feeding the left channel to the right speaker and right channel to the left speaker will not result in a phase problem.

The + wire exiting the amp must go to the + terminal on the speaker, repeat for both sides. If you get both channels wrong you are still in phase!

The Naim range is designed to be placed to the left or right of the speakers (not inbetween). Speaker wires will cross if the unit is between the speakers, and will not cross each other when placed outside the left or right speaker, ie. when the Qute is to the right of the right hand speaker (as you look at the front of the speakers and Qute) the right speaker channel output will be nearest the right speaker (and vice verca!) Thus no speaker cable needs to cross the path of the other.