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Kudos Audio announces that Cardea Super 10A and Super 20A loudspeakers are now available

Derek Gilligan, the founder and designer of Kudos Audio, the UK’s Isobaric loudspeaker design and manufacturing specialist, today confirmed improvements to the Cardea Super 10A and Super 20A loudspeakers. The Super 10A and Super 20A are available in White, Walnut, Natural Oak and Black Oak. The Super 10A sells for £4000, €4500, $6000 the Super 20A for £5000, €5500, $7000.      Derek is a great believer of the KISS principle: good choice of materials, excellent drive units, and a crossover that is as simple as it can be to seamlessly knit the drive units together. The revised and improved Super Cardea models follow this philosophy.The Super Cardea models deliver significant improvements over their more classic siblings and are Active Ready. Both Super 10A and Super 20A feature further improvements to the crossover components: the Super 10A and Super 20A crossovers are first-order electrical for the LF utilising a zero-distortion low-resistance Mundorf air-core inductor. The HF is filtered by a second-order electrical circuit using a high-end 400V ICW CMR capacitor, a small Mundorf air-core inductor, and a Mundorf Supreme resistor.      The components mount, hard-wired and well-spaced, onto an HDF panel. The HDF panel is torqued to the rear of the cabinet, ensuring the cabinet remains rigid, whereas a conventional plastics terminal panel would weaken the structure.   The cabinets of the Super 10A and Super 20A are precision manufactured from balanced veneered High-Density Fibreboard (HDF). Unlike the standard almost ubiquitous ‘kitchen cupboard’ Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF), HDF has a more consistent consistency both throughout and from batch to batch.         
  Drive UnitsKudos has always worked closely with SEAS of Norway, the loudspeaker drive unit specialist supplier. Derek’s relationship with SEAS goes back very many years and enabled Kudos’ first-ever loudspeaker, the original version of the C10.Both loudspeakers use a custom 180mm mid-bass unit with a die-cast chassis with large open areas, a coated paper cone, a 39mm voice coil in the Super 10A and a 26mm voice coil for the Super 20A. Both drivers include a copper ring for reduced distortion and increased linearity and a metal phase plug to aid directivity and increase heat dissipation.       Designed for low-distortion, high linearity and low crossover modulation, these are 21st-century drive units. The HF unit is a custom version of the famous SEAS Crescendo K2 29mm fabric dome. Not generally seen on loudspeakers of this price class, the Crescendo is a fabulously natural-sounding and musical performer.        
  Great drive units require a great crossover: Derek’s KISS applies: use the simplest crossover that will deliver the musical message along with a neutrality that allows the speaker to be recording and genre neutral. The speaker that makes the best 10% of recordings sound amazing to the detriment of 90% of a collection is unacceptable to Kudos. Loudspeakers must communicate music from all but awful recordings.The combination of an excellent crossover and superb drive units delivers speaker systems that are easy loads with neither dropping below seven ohms, making them true eight-ohm specification.      The Super 20A’s low-end is tuned with a resistive port into a fixed boundary load which gives a lower LF Q, ensuring better room integration without the potential mid-range restriction of microdynamics that a sealed box can bring.Internal wiring uses Kudos KS-1 cable      Active ReadySuper Cardea models are configured to allow simple by-passing of the internal crossover for active operation with leading electronics, including Linn Exakt, Devialet Expert and Naim SNAXO crossovers. Active operation opens up a wider upgrade path and enables a variety of performance and personalisation enhancing capabilities.   Timing and availabilityAvailable now. All these improvements, in common with the previously announced C10 and C20 speakers, started shipping last year, but it has taken until now to verify that Kudos’ retailers worldwide had the new stock on demo or available to order.2020 and 2021 have been extraordinary years for hi-fi businesses, with those well positioned and well marketed showing significant growth. Kudos is no exception, which explains how it has taken more than a year to catch up fully.       For images, review samples or if you have further questions please contactSteve HarrisAudioPlus CommunicationsTel: +44 20 335 50446Mob: +44 7974 924081steveh@audioplus.co.uk   About Kudos AudioKudos Audio creates exceptionally musical loudspeakers by taking an unusual approach to speaker design.Derek Gilligan Kudos’ owner and designer has pursued an alternative methodology, using music as the primary tool in loudspeaker design and assessment. This departure from traditional approaches takes confidence and a wealth of experience. It contributes towards what makes Kudos different and makes it one of the fastest-growing UK loudspeaker companies in recent years.Derek and his team, based in Country Durham, work closely with some of Europe’s best suppliers to ensure that the best possible components, connectors and craftsmanship are brought together to develop the Kudos range.   Notes on ClarityCap’s CMR CapacitorClaritycap’s unique CopperConnect technology addresses a hitherto under explored area of audio capacitor performance. Dielectric, electrode and lead wire materials have all been extensively optimised over the years.Connection of capacitor electrodes to the leads has always relied on thermal arc spray of tin-zinc, which results in hundreds of thousands of oxidised grain boundaries introducing; distortion and phase shifts at boundary crossings and increasing propagation impedance with diameter. CopperConnect technology introduces an embedded copper lattice to the end connection, dramatically reducing grain boundary crossings and signal path resistance, freeing capacitor designs achieve new levels of audio performance.      CMR employs micro-phonics series film construction and acrylic tube damping. CopperConnect technology dramatically reduces grain boundary crossings in the end connection and enables designs to employ narrower films for reduced capacitor ESR without introducing the corollary increase in end connection impedance. The philosophy of eliminating as many crystal boundaries as possible is extended to the use of premium grade 1.0mm2 tinned oxygen free copper leads.

Ben

I am the owner of Cerebral-overload.com and the Verizon Wireless Reviewer for Techburgh.com. My love of gadgets came from his lack of a Nintendo Game Boy when he was a child . I vowed from that day on to get his hands on as many tech products as possible. My approach to a review is to make it informative for the technofile while still making it understandable to everyone. Ben is a new voice in the tech industry and is looking to make a mark wherever he goes. When not reviewing products, I is also a 911 Telecommunicator just outside of Pittsburgh PA. Twitter: @gizmoboaks

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