Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews

[Kelly]

Nice review firedog. I will add jmy 2 cents of a review...

 

I have had my Kii Three system for a few weeks now. I came to the Kii Three system (with Kii Control) from a system  that probably cost close to the MSRP of the Kii Threes once you totaled up the cost of amp, dac, speakers, cables, etc. The Kiis are head and shoulders better than any system I have ever had or have ever heard in anyone's house. They do EVERYTHING well, there really are no weaknesses. The black background and startling dynamic capability takes a lot of getting used to after coming from a passive speaker system.

 

To compare with conventional hi-fi systems, I really think you have to break it up in two ways: 1.) compare to what a regular hi-fi can do, then 2.) consider the overall design and how the DSP is integrated into the speaker so that they arrive at a product that cannot be compared to anything except perhaps the uber-expensive Beolab 90.

 

The clarity and precision with which the Kiis present music is at first a bit startling and disorienting. I spent the first few days trying to figure out what their character or flavor is. I honestly still can't really tell you other than they are just very transparent. Mediocre recordings sound mediocre, brilliant recordings will sound brilliant. I think the quality that jumped out at me first was the dynamic capability. I don't necessarily mean just when loud things happen in the music. I mean when a singer comes into a song after the instrumental intro, voices just appear with a purity and rightness, and with a proper placement that is disarming and that makes everything else I have experienced sound tired and muffled. The speakers I came from, Gallo Ref 3.5, were very good in this way, but the Kiis take it to another league.

 

Bass extension and quality is also (for me) initially disorienting for a loudspeaker. The Kii give the kind of clarity and texture in the bass that I have only ever experienced in top notch headphones. This similarity I can only attribute to the fact that the relative freedom from room interractions is something I've only ever heard with headphones, as all other speakers behave in a fundamentally different manner. Up until the Kii Three, the best quality bass I can remember from a  speaker is the Vandersteen 5 at an excellent dealer. The Vandersteen of course has self-powered integrated subwoofers with extensive tunability for room placement. Still, the Kii offers a definition and vitality I don't remember from the Vandetsteens. The Vandersteens obviously had more impact with their opposing 12 in drivers, but it is also a huge floorstander. 

 

So, with the Kii Three you have a not inexpensive, but also not an obscenely priced audio system. As firedog referenced, you can get speakers with far more exotic and esoteric drivers, but as the Stereophile review mentioned, the final product likely won't be any more compelling. What the Kii team has done in my mind is finally deliver on the decades old promise that digital audio can do things that analog simply cannot. Beyond their use of excellent DSP crossovers and driver calibration, the Kii simply energizes a room in a way that makes mores sense than just about any other speaker on the market. On top of that, execution of all the more conventional aspects of speaker design are also carried out with absolute perfection. 

 

If you have read this far then you can tell I am smitten with my purchase. I am looking forward to moving them upstairs into my main living room. Up until now they have been in a smaller, extra room while I have some remodeling done upstairs. When the move into my living they will have to be moved much closer to the back wall and one will even be almost in a corner. With these speakers, I know they will sound every bit as good with this compromised placement as they do in their current room. That is something I couldn't say about any other speaker.

 

[Kelly]

44 minutes ago, ds58 said:

 

Looks fantastic, and great job on the stand for the Kii Control...

 

But this raises a question -- if I understand how the Kii Control works, wouldn't it be more useful if the Kii Control were two components? I'm thinking one near your components and the speakers, and another (hopefully) wireless controller with the source switching and volume control? This would allow you to control volume at your listening position...

 

The Kii Control has an IR receiver on it. I use a cheap, generic $7 Apple remote with it. You can control volume (up and down buttons), mute off/on (play/pause button), and source (side to side) with it. You do have to leave the butt of Kii control exposed or at least direct line of site visible for this to work. 

 

[Kelly]

Has anyone experimented with the digital inputs into the Kii Control? I am figuring to get an optimized USB source but am still somewhat unconvinced that USB offers any great advantage over a well executed SPDIF source (assuming the you don't care about DSD or over 192, which I don't.) The mRendu seems to be a popular choice here, can anyone comment on how  the Kii Control USB interface responds to the various USB tweaks?

 

Also, I noticed the Kii Control screen comes on with only USB port plugged into a computer and no KiiLink cable, so the Conrol must draw some power through the USB port, does anyone know the current draw requirement for the USB input?  Is it a full 500mA?

[Kelly]

On 8/25/2017 at 2:43 PM, input username here said:

Found this new-ish thread and thought I'd put in my two cents; I've owned my THREEs for a little under a year.  

 

...

2. I don't get quite the great soundstage to which others have alluded.  But I listen in the extreme nearfield (the speakers on on my desktop--try finding any other legitimately full-range speaker with which you can do that!) with the speakers only about 3 feet from my head and 6 inches from the wall behind them.  Given this setup, the soundstanging is much better than expected, but I would not call it "vast."  Also, to my surprise, the soundstange has improved with each step up in my front-end (I'm now using a ultraRendu w/ LPS-1), so maybe the constrained soundstage is not all due to the speaker placement.  I have experimented with the boundary controls and, while they are great at managing bass bloat, I cannot say it has had a big impact on (perceived) soundstage.
...

 

Man, you have these things on your desk? These are pretty huge desktop speakers. Are they just sitting on your desk or do you have some kind of stand or isolation device? I am about to move mine from a Target stand to the top of a console and have been looking for a solution. (Maybe Isoacoustics iso-pucks?)

 

 

On 8/25/2017 at 2:43 PM, input username here said:

 

6. More often than ideal, my DSP goes haywire and everything sounds like it's coming from under water--does this happen to anyone else?  (This only happens when they wake from sleep, not while music is playing.)  It's not too big a deal, I can just cycle the speakers from the CONTROL and everything is 100% fine on reboot but, still, it's annoying. 

 

 

Did it do this from the start? I have only had mine a month or so but it hasn't ever done that. 

 

You said somewhere else that you used a Yellowtec puc2. How does that sound running out of the computer compare to your ultraRendu? Not in the same league? I still have one that I am not using and was just contemplating trying to sell it again. It was a very good device for what it was. When powered with a decent supply it held up pretty well against some of the the much pricier competitors.

[Kelly]

So one thing I haven't heard too many people comment on is just how remarkable the Kiis are in home theater duty. My room is approx 20x35 and the listening area is situated at one end of it. We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (which was actually quite good, if you're into that kind of movie) which has a lot of action scenes and a lot of good music in it. I simply ran the coax from my Samsung BluRay (~$130 from Costco a few years ago) into the Control. Wow they blew out of the room! I think in most of my music listening I hadn't really cranked the Kiis and tested them much in terms of volume and dynamics, they were truly awesome in this use.

[Kelly]

Sorry I was unclear, it was not really HT use, but just watching movies with a stereo set of Kiis. They are very dynamic and their bass power-prowess is excellent for movies.

[Kelly]

On 12/13/2017 at 9:35 AM, patagent said:

One concern I have of the Kii is that certain recordings that I enjoy on lesser speakers were somewhat difficult to enjoy on the Kii (I've seen some owners echo this sentiment).  Audiophile recordings were spectacular.  I suspect that this has to do with the monitoring aspects of the Kii although my exposure to Kii is very limited.

 

On 12/13/2017 at 12:27 PM, simonp said:

I've experienced that recordings which I thought they were less, turn out now to be very enjoyable. The quality of the streamer is of coarse also very important. The kii is sounding very natural...

 

I understand the concern but I agree with simonp in this regard. Anytime you take a sizable step up in resolution and accuracy there is an adjustment period where you have to get used to the new information and things sounding different than you are used to. I have been listening to the Kii Three for about 6 months now, and I have to say that with the Kii you really get to hear the recording itself in total. The speaker can sound flat only when the recording sounds that way. I went on a Sam Cooke binge a few weekends ago and I just couldn't get over how fantastic those 50s and 60s recordings of his voice sounded. Obviously it was old, outdated technology, but his voice was just brilliantly captured on those recordings. When you switch from one recording to another with the Kii the differences are immediately clear. I can only liken it to getting a new prescription for my glasses and suddenly everything pops into focus: it is a higher resolution devic but everything is appropriate, there is nothing objectionable or unnatural about it. In fact things sound more natural than on any system I have had before.

 

[Kelly]

On 12/16/2017 at 3:24 AM, pippenainteasy said:

I wonder how this system would compare to the Dynaudio 200 XD, or even the venerable NHT XD.

Comparison to the Dynaudio 60XD would be more approriate comparison. Three way, price over $10k, and both claim bass extension all the way down to 20Hz.

[Kelly]

That is a bummer for them not to even have an estimate for BT activation. I am awaiting Bluetooth because my wife has recently become addicted to an Amazon echo (don't get me started about allowing a commercial eavesdropping  device into my home. The ONLY reason I allowed it into the house was because it had a camera and microphone OFF switch, which is how it stays unless we are actively talking to it. Bit who knows if it is truly off...) Anyway, ROON is now too fiddly for my wife and she wants to just tell Alexa to play stuff. The Echo dot has Bluetooth out but no other digital out. It seems a horrible joke to play horrendously compressed  music from Amazon thru a $50 transport, thru Bluetooth, then into the Kii Control and one of the finest audio systems available. But such is life...

[Kelly]

After 5 months of flawless operation, my Kii Control has stopped responding to my Apple remote. I have changed the battery and no help. I tried to imprint the remote again and the control is acting strange. If I try to scroll thru which type of remote it does not alternates between RC5 and none selected, then maybe 1 time in 10 it will show Apple. If I attempt to manually select this it just goes back to "none selected." Has anyone had any sort of erratic behavior like this? I reset the Control to Factory settings with no change. I am hoping I don't have to send it in, but I will contact my dealer tomorrow morning.

 

I should add I have tried two different Apple remotes to no avail.

[Kelly]

I don't know that I have an RC5 remote. I did just for giggles try all of my other remotes with no success. I have written them and will see what they say. My dealer doesn't even keep demos around anymore so isn't any real help. I am hoping it is a firmware something that can be reset. If I have to send it in I will be super bummed.

[Kelly]

I am curious what these will offer. The Threes already go down to subsonic frequency with little roll-off. I am guessing these would allow you to adequately compress larger rooms, go louder overall, and probably add some sort more tangible "jump" that seems to come from systems with forward firing woofers. The only other thing I wonder is if the additional bass drivers and their varied vertical heights gives the system more degrees of freedom with which to control the bass radiation. The Three by itself only directs the bass radiation in the horizontal plane, they had talked about a later system having more drivers to control radiation in the vertical plane to limit floor /ceiling reflections.

 

The power spec is a bit concerning, I wonder if you could start popping circuit breakers pretty easily at least in the US. I wrote Kii asking about power draw on the Three prior to getting an online UPS. They said a single Three speaker had been measured at drawing 1400W at a peak, so at least double that for a pair. You might theoretically need a special appliance line to run these things with the BXTs. Then again, you might blow roof of your house at 25% volume...

 

I am still waiting for them to activate Bluetooth. And they still haven't ever gotten my Control IR working. Grumble, grumble...

[Kelly]

On 5/9/2018 at 8:17 PM, PleasantSounds said:

I wouldn't worry too much about blacking out the prowe grid when you turn the BXT on. 

 

If the Kii3 itself is any indication, then all those kilowatts of power refer to the total power rating of the on-board amps, but the power supply draw is much lower: Kii3 has 6x250W amps but the power supply is rated 200W. You may get a burst exceeding that several times for a few milliseconds granted by onboard capacitors - that's probably how they measured 1.4kW.

 

This is not true. I asked about this specifically when looking for a UPS. I had made the same assumption as you. The response that I got from Kii is as follows:

 

The 800W UPS will not be sufficient to power the Kiis.

They draw 40-50 watt when powered on and in idle (no music), we have indeed measured power draw spikes (short term, depending on the volume and the dynamic of the input signal of course) of about 1500 watts max.
The 200W on the back is a standard rating for active speaker systems (which is defined as ca. 1/8th of max peak rating)

If you look for a UPS, I would recommend at least a rating of 3000W for a pair of Kii THREEs.

Hope this was helpful, if you have any more question please let me know.

Cheers Tom

[Kelly]

Something must have definitely been off in the room, or else they haven't gotten the DSP right to integrate the BXT with the Three (highly doubtful.) I appreciate the natural ease and precision that comes from time/phase coherent speakers, all of my recent speakers have prioritized this (Vandersteen, Gallo Ref3.5, Kii.) The Kii is definitely the most precise speaker I have ever owned.

 

I still wonder about the power draw of the Kii Three with the BXT. Under normal volumes I guess it wouldn't really tax a normal power outlet, but if really cranking then the power draw of the BXT could become quite significant. If the power was inadequate then anemic would probably be the result, perhaps the show was taxing the power at the facility, leaving some rooms with subpar power? (Just a wild guess...)

[Kelly]

Here's a bit of a different Kii topic, how to do the absolutely least ideal installation possible...

 

So I've had my Kii's since 2017. I initially had them on stands in the room in a very audiophile manner. That same year I had my first child, and this year I had my second. We live in a small house and I don't have a dedicated audio room that I can keep the kids out of. Furthermore, I'd rather have them in the main family room anyway, where we can use them. Obviously, a stand-mounted mega heavy monitor like the Kii's is a toddler death trap, and it has no protection against flying nerf balls etc. 

 

After a lot of thinking, I finally decided a console was the right choice. I emailed the people at Kii and they said that a side table type installation would certainly work very well and sound excellent, So, I wanted them to be usable in a hidden protected position, but still be easily usable in a more ideal orientation. Furthermore, my wife was very adament they could be completely hidden. Anyway, I build this console with the Kiis in the outside "cabinet" with lifts and cutout in the counter for them to rise out of. The following is the result, the "cabinets" on the end have grills instead of inset shaker panels.

 

Down position with Kii control mounted on wall, hidden behind the TV (funny enough, the Apple remote still works perfectly, even with the TV on.)

 

Up with Kii Control down from behind TV:

 

 

Cabinet open to show lift:  The lift has over a 100 lb capacity, I have each speaker with 4 isopods underneath it, separating it from the lift platform.

 

 

So, how does it sound?  Well, in the down position, there is still nearly the minimum dimensions to the sides and more than enough to the back of the speaker for the cardioid projection to work. It actually still sounds shockingly good even in the down position. Bass is not nearly as controlled obviously, and it is low to the ground, but it still sounds way better than I thought it would. In the up position, it sounds great. I haven't A/B'd it with free stands, but it satisfies me. 

 

Again, obviously there is a lot not ideal about this setup, but it sounds fantastic, and the Kii's can be in a down, child protected position, (the cabinets lock.) I did run cables through my wall to get up to where the Control comes out, but other than that everything is in the console. 

[Kelly]

Yikes. I bought mine in 2017 and so should be approaching the end of my warranty period. I hate to think how much that will cost after the warranty is over… I notice that mine both give a little click when turning off and on. I’m completely used to it now but it was unsettling at first. It seemed harsher than I would have expected from such an otherwise refined product.

 

I had an issue with my Kii control a few years back when it stopped responding to IR remote. I ended up shipping it to Grace Design who was doing the tech support then in the US. The tech there ended up having to resolder something to the board.  

[Kelly]

Too bad about WISA. I was wondering if/when that would be activated. I find it hard to believe they can’t make that work. 
 

I am running optical Toslink from my TV to the Kii Control and that is the extent of my home theater. Just curious, is your TV sending 2.0 signal from the TV to Control or is it stripping the L/R mains from surround sound?

[Kelly]

17 hours ago, ragwo said:

@Dave71

I believed WiSA was all about wireless high resolution home cinema. I thought the Kii/Control only had BT as wireless connection or is there an inactive wireless chip somewhere that can be activated with a firmware update? 

 

I don't remember it ever being advertised or on their website, but Kal made reference to it at the end of his Stereophile review: 

https://www.stereophile.com/content/kii-audio-three-loudspeaker-page-2

[Kelly]

Finally got a chance to hear the bxts. I helped someone setup a new set that replaced an ancient (and well loved) Vandersteen/ARC system.  It was in a very large room with main listening positions being about 16 feet from the plane of the speakers. Their power is no joke. They can absolutely blow your head off. They are dangerously easy to get to crazy loud volumes and sound completely clean. We experimented with various room positions and tone eq and found that we preferred the tone roll-off prescribed by mitchco (-4db at 2500hz.) The speakers ended up about 6 inches from the back wall due to practical room considerations. Boundary adjustments were a snap.

 

In addition to the lowest bass improvement, improvements in the mid and upper bass is significant. There is a bit more flesh on the bones, things marginally just a bit fuller sounding, especially at higher spl. The audiophile cliche “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo” is well served by the bxt. The tone and texture of Victor Wooten’s bass is more convincing than even the best headphone systems I have heard. Bass drums sound just a little more real and hit you harder than the Kii Three alone.

I would say that some claims of the BXT sounding like a completely different speaker system from the Three are a bit overblown. Coming back to my system, I have a small-ish room and have very rarely encountered the bass limiter, and that was basically when I was intentionally pushing the system looking for it. I don’t feel the need to add the BXTs for more than double the money. I really don’t even feel the need to add subs. The improvement is real, but the Three performs well enough for my use that the deminishing returns returns curve would be difficult to rationalize. For someone that has a huge room or needs high SPL, it is perfect (if costly.)
 

[Kelly]

https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/kii-bxt/
 

A new review of the Kii BXT from a 6 moons affiliate. Nothing particularly new here, but a good read if you’re interested. 

[Kelly]

I did notice that review said the Kii contained Purifi modules. Did they change the internal electronics? The Kii website says “Full Custom Class D.” 

[Kelly]

Crazy good deal on a full Three/BXT system…

 

https://reverb.com/item/68991404-kii-audio-three-bxt-premium-monitor-system-used

[Kelly]

I ended up with a Sony instead of the frame. My wife still doesn’t let me forget how much more she would have rather had the Frame. Looks totally great!