Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews

[TheStupidOne]

My pair also did that about half a year ago. First one went clicking in a repeating cycle, then about a week later the second one did the same. 

 

The speakers went back to Netherlands, got stuck in the customs and currently I'm still waiting to get them back. While my case is certainly a freak incident with the customs that could have been avoided, it's clear that Kii should focus on licensing a few repair shops around to deal with this kind of small warranty stuff in the future.

 

The explanation was that something went wrong in the assembly line for the amplifiers. A quick peek at Hypex-forums shows this to be a common problem for Ncore-modules, hopefully from the same line of production. Otherwise it's likely it could be an inherent problem with the amplifier design, possibly related to regular cyclic overheating due to improper cooling? Just speculating here.

If my speculation holds any water, I fully expect my Kii's to come back with several holes and a massive fan 

 

Reading the forums for Hypex it looks like most issues with the amplifiers are easy fixes, but it's not a particularly good strategy to have customers having to fill out papers, deal with sending big boxes (if they still have them, which I did not), wait for weeks or months for the return and then having to deal with the fear of having to do it all again. 

 

In reality this is a small problem, an easy fix made complicated by a lack of local service centers, so I don't see it as a serious issue other than the inconvenience of it. For me this scenario was a part of my analysis before deciding to buy such an advanced and complicated package from a new company just starting up, so no surprises or concerns raised by a few troublesome units from this part.

 

 

 

[TheStupidOne]

To make it abundantly clear, you will absolutely need room treatments if you want Kii Three to sound anywhere near its potential. Here is what the Kii offers by its own;

 

- Adjustable output below 40 hz to compensate for boundary reinforcement (proximity to walls).

- Adjustable output in the bass, midrange and treble area in any combination - more detailed and adjustable via Control.

- Cardioid dispersion above 100 hz which reduces (but not eliminates) output behind the speakers - and thus reduces the interference level from front wall reflections, meaning you hear more direct sound.

 

What the speakers can't do;

 

-  Room correction. The speakers doesn't measure or account for the room and its acoustics.

-  Reduce reflections from sidewalls or backwall (wall behind head) - meaning peaks and nulls in the frequency response.

-  Reduce modal build-up in the bass.

-  Reduce time domain issues that comes from asymmetrical placement. 

 

In short, Kii Three uses its DSP to correct for inherent problems in any speaker as well as to provide a controlled dispersion pattern that results in a more homogeneous sound in the sweet spot than most other speakers, making them sound better than most in normal environments, but not in any way immune to the effects of physics.

To make it clearer I can provide a measurement that demonstrate the effect of the room even with Kii Three;

 

 

 

[TheStupidOne]

That would be a waste of money if the intention is better sound quality. But the standard cables are quite long.

 

If better sound quality is the aim, I would start with perfecting the placement of speakers and listening position to get the bass response and sound stage as good as possible. This takes time, and so does tweaking the settings in the Control. When you start fiddling with those settings you'll find out that cables will never change the sound in a reliable way like a quick eq of any frequency of your choosing will do.

[TheStupidOne]

4 hours ago, Mazza said:

Has this been asked before? But is there any point whatsoever of using an external dac with the Kii’s?

 

from day one I have just fed them direct from my digital source but I am curious what an external dac might do to the sound sig ... I have no compunction to change but I am curious nonetheless

Only if you like the sonic signature of a particular dac, because the extra conversions will obviously not improve the sound in theory. The signal goes through the internal ADC-DACs in Kii regardless.

 

I tried Hegel HD20 dac while I was waiting for Control, and that worked just fine. The sound improved by including the Hegel P20 pre-amp, noticable by a somewhat softer and more comfortable sound.

The clarity and impact improved with Control without suffering anywhere, so I'd say keep it simple.

 

1 hour ago, Gastronaut said:

It is not a waste of money changing the Ethernet cables. However, playing with the Kii control and changing the power cables should be the starting point.

In addition, I have tried Wireworld Platinum USB cable from my McBookPro, but did not liked it. It muffled the sound in lower spectrum.

Depending on the goal of the purchase, it may or may not be a waste of money.

If you spend money on Ethernet cables expecting better sound, you will have spent money to test the effect of expectation bias, and nothing else.

 

Power chords might be a different matter, but Ethernet cables either work or they don't.

[TheStupidOne]

"Not really impressive" might actually be a good thing in my experience. It's very common to be initially impressed with products only to find the impressive part gradually become annoying.

 

It took a few days of listening to Kii before I really recalibrated properly and started to gel with that clear and clean sound. I'll admit it took me some time to get used to the non-existent artificial warmth that comes from excessive energy at and around the port frequency of a normal ported speaker. Now I call that "warmth" rumbling.

 

That being said, the Kiis aren't immune to acoustics and will appear bright and anemic if the room allows them to. I have measurements that directly compare my Kiis to Phantom Silvers placed at exactly the same spot in my room, and while you clearly can see how the cardioide dispersion throws more direct sound and less reflected energy at you, the frequency response shows that they are prone to sounding bright due to less smearing and bass exaggeration- if the room allows it.

[TheStupidOne]

@fdsIf so, it's definitely room-related. Kii being phase coherent with perfect step response and with textbook off-axis response means that those things are a given if the room acoustics allow it. Unless they messed up with the bxt system, of course.

 

[TheStupidOne]

Like every other show, the opinions vary extremely for all rooms. Why? Most likely it's a combination of acoustics, seating placement, taste, bad music and possibly levels of ear strain at any given time. 

 

Other people's experiences may or may not be relevant for us, who knows? I think the biggest concern for any audio show is the lack of good acoustics for all listeners. Imagine sitting in a bass null while the wall treatments are only effective at high treble frequencies, how shit will that be? Any system will then sound like a laptop speaker.

 

While I certainly appreciate that honest speakers like Kii will always split opinion, I encourage everyone to give all systems a fair shot in a known environment before concluding.

[TheStupidOne]

BXT system isn't a subwoofer system, it's a bass system. The difference is that they play all the way up to 250 hz as confirmed by Bruno. This is significant in the sense that they will considerably increase the sense of impact in the upper bass as well as reduce the impact of floor reflection in the bass range.

 

While I understand what you mean by the revealing character of studio monitors, I'd like to point out that it's very simple to tune the Kiis to suit the taste with the on board dsp through the Control. If the possibility is there it's strange not to take advantage of it.

[TheStupidOne]

3 hours ago, sapporo said:

If BXT goes all the way to Schroeder frequency that means they attempt to fight room modes with it. I wonder how it is done, especially with the units radiating from the same spots as the mains. And what happens with the mains? Is there a crossover between the two units? If so, it’s poor engineering to put all that bass capacity in Kii Three and then cut it off. If not, more questions...Before reliable tests it’s hard to say what’s going on there. There is a lot of research on bass and modes; Welti, Toole, Geddes among others. Seems like Bruno Putzeys is doing some new things here, again. My audio hero BTW. 

As for tuning the Kiis to lose their studio monitor character, isn’t it easier and cheaper to get non-studio monitors in the first place?

As Bruno says, the goal is to provide a line-source concept up to 250 hz with the benefit of reducing floor reflection in the bass range, to produce a greater wall of sound and to increase spl capability in the low range. 

Room modes can only be fought with subs placed at different places or acoustical treatment.

Expect Kii to remain full-range in order to ensure the cardioide dispersion and an even wall of sound.

 

Regarding your last question, yes it's cheaper. If you don't want or need cardioide dispersion, a plug and play system with fancy dsp or don't care about sound accuracy, Kii might not be for you. They are expensive and they can be bettered for the same or less money if you're up for the challenge.

 

But I will say that it's quite possible that you end up compensating for bad mixing or bad acoustics with lesser speakers if you don't know what's causing the problems in the sound. That's why I recommend fiddling with the eq settings in the Kiis so one can experience how massively different one can make a speaker sound in a second

[TheStupidOne]

The best advice I can give is to measure the response in your room so that you can see if there's something going on that you really shouldn't blame speakers for. Since Kii have the possibility to compensate somewhat for room placement/acoustics, it's well worth to invest in the means to measure what you should compensate for.

 

In my room I have excessive energy in the 400-1000hz region due to glass windows on one side wall. I could solve that by finding speakers with poor off-axis response in that area, use Dirac correction or I could just turn down that area by 1 dB directly in the Kiis.

It sounds about the same fixing that with Dirac as it does directly through Kii, but it sounds even better fixing that with absorbers in the reflection points.

 

The point is that I could easily blame this excessive energy on the speakers, making everybody reading on the internet sceptical about the quality of the speakers when in reality the problem is elsewhere. 

 

Edit; That being said, music is all about enjoyment, so if you feel you get more enjoyment with different speakers/set-ups you should go for whatever makes you happy. Speakers are just a part of the chain, not the chain itself in that respect.

[TheStupidOne]

Personally I've gone for two subwoofers placed midwall on opposite walls with dsp to rectify the room problems. One sub plays in opposite phase on a limited range (40-65 hz) and the other is crossed over at either 100 or 120 hz to smooth out a few nasty dips between 100 and 200 hz. Here are with Kii only and then with two subwoofers (very cheap, one 15" Argon Bass15 @500$ and one 10" xtz sw100 I bought for 25$)

 

In my experience there's no best way to do this, it depends on the room and the possibilities the chosen dsp gives you. I used Minidsp 4x10hd with digital out to Kii.

 

Edit; I'm sorry for the brainfart of not using the same time window on those two, but the essence should be clearly visible regardless.

 

 

[TheStupidOne]

It's a common misconception that bigger speakers perform worse in a small room. Given that the BXT doesn't extend the low range further down than the Kii itself, it shouldn't matter acoustically (in the resonance-sense) if Bxt is used or not - unless you play very loud and thus bring the extended headroom into play.

 

The benefit of Bxt is reduced cancellation due to the floor bounce because of a more even waveform, but the room will still resonate all the same. It can be argued that the cleaner low end with the Bxt might move the focus of attention higher up in the range and thus explain some of the feedback, but I suspect it's more about the fact that smaller rooms need some careful fiddling with the high-shelf functionality to reduce the output in the high range, because in a normal room with little dampening and a fairly close listening position, the flat frequency response as standard in Kii will be perceived as bright by most (and clear by some) but in general we will prefer a falling in-room curve.

 

I would also expect the side windows to wreck havoc in the 500-1000 hz range, not only making the sound bright and piercing but also uneven in tonality between left and right speaker. 

 

Pretty confident those factors account for most of the lackluster feedback, so wouldn't worry too much about the Bxt performance. 

[TheStupidOne]

Yes, but unless you play loud enough to draw advantage of that spl capability it doesn't matter. On some tracks where there's information below 30 hz you might trigger the first standing wave enough to become audible with Bxt and not with Kii alone, but most likely it's not a big issue in reality.

[TheStupidOne]

Other than that Bxt plays up to 250 hz, I haven't seen any specs. I want to know how loud they can play at 20 hz continuously and how hot they get at, say, sustained 85 dB over a period of time.

 

I'm not overly confident that passive cooling is sufficient when the top plate is covered by another heat source (Kiis) and I'm certainly not confident that my living room will be survivable when another 8-16 amps start throwing heat around.

[TheStupidOne]

On 10/10/2018 at 5:07 PM, barrows said:

Hmmm?  Do you listen to music with a constant 20 Hz drone at 85 dB?  This is a really weird request.  Indeed it would take some energy to produce that level at 20 Hz, constantly, in room, but consider that the class D amps used are around 85 % efficient.  Now, consider that if you wanted to create that same level using class A/B amps, which are around 50% efficient at best, you can see that the class A/B amps in a conventional system would heat up your room much more than the Kiis, so I am not understanding what your concern really is?

Just because Kii uses many small amps to produce the SPLs does make them produce more heat, many small amps will work no harder (total output watts) to produce a given SPL than one big amp.

 

On the other hand, it sounds like you might be looking for a PA system rather than an audio system: are you looking to DJ with them for dance parties in convention halls or something?  Then get a PA.

No, I don't listen to a constant 20 hz drone at 85 dB. What a weird question. ?

 

I want to know what output they can do at 20 hz because I want to know if BXT can replace the need for subwoofers in a dedicated room; tilted room-curve, ear sensitivity and headroom all taken into consideration.

Why continuous output? Because I want to know the real-world performance; thermal compression, thermal distortion and heat protection included, not the hypothetical best-case scenario.

 

Why continuous 85 dB sound level? Because I listen to music mostly around 70 dB on average, maybe 75 dB when I get frisky. Taking the tilted room-curve I like (roughly +6 dB from 200-20 hz) into account and allowing for some headroom for electronic music and movies where there can be sustained low frequency output, I'd say 85 dB for reference level is quite reasonable for a bass system. You can actually barely hear 20 hz at 85 dB.

 

Why worry about temperature? Because Class D amplifiers, although efficient, still emits about 2-3 % of their rated power output as heat - at idle. I don't know if there will be 4 or 8 amplifiers per side, but there will nevertheless be quite a few heat-sources within a confined cabinet without active cooling. Heat will not be dissipated as quickly through passive cooling inside that cabinet as it would be if the amplifiers were out in free air, so heat will build up to a certain extent and - disregarding concerns about over-heating - will act as two more ovens in the room.

Of course, this issue is no different from the Kii Threes themselves, but I'm concerned it could be one of those things that builds up to become a problem. With more heat emitting from the surrounding airspace, passive cooling will become less effective, which will lead to more heat build-up which will lead to even less efficient heat dissipation which will... possibly make it damn hot in a room.

 

So that's the practical part of the equation, the theoretical part has to do with thermal distortion. Considering the price, I need to compare BXT to other solutions which may or may not give more for less and I need to do it by getting some facts I can work with.

 

[TheStupidOne]

There's a self-protective circuit on board protecting the drivers from exceeding their limits, so that shouldn't really be a concern. 

[TheStupidOne]

If you only want to know the maximum driver excursion possible, then you can calculate the maximum output at any given frequency from the parameters of that circuitry, yes.

 

But I didn't ask for theoretical best-case scenario, so that doesn't really help me.

[TheStupidOne]

There's no question that several distributed subwoofers will outperform BXT in out-and-out bass performance with the added benefit of dealing effectively with the room modes, so that in itself shouldn't come as a surprise.

I've already shown in this thread how much better two cheap subwoofers + Minidsp placed on opposite walls perform in-room vs Kii Three alone, but I don't think I mentioned that a single 15" sub far outperforms them in sheer output and physicality because it kind of goes without saying.

 

If you are considering BXT then you should consider the benefits (better sound due to less floor-bounce reflections, more punch and more dynamic capability) against potential downsides (might vary depending on perspective) and price.

[TheStupidOne]

I've never seen the blinking red light in my living room, even when I tried to force it. It gets too loud to endure in a normal living room. My guess is that you played extremely demanding music or that someone has cranked the bass up via the Control. You can turn up the bass output up to + 6 dB I think, which quickly will lead to those limiters at low frequencies.

Because you need so much more cone travel to reproduce 20 hz than 40 hz, you can't really compare Kii to those Genelec's based on overload-limiters alone and decide one is more powerful than the other.

From a pure power perspective, there's no comparison - Kii all the way.

 

If you disregard those low frequencies that Kii produces that 8351 doesn't, Kii is rated to a maximum of 115 dB to 8351's 111 dB.

Both should be plenty sufficient unless you have a very big room (or unless you're completely insane). Both will need subwoofer(s) if you aim to reproduce low frequencies with any kind of realistic authority. 

 

In general I think you need to dial down the higher frequencies a bit with Kii because the cardiode dispersion will make midbass and upper bass less "warm" - actually just more correct - which tend to move our focus more towards the upper frequencies, where most of us prefer a slowly downwards tilted response anyway;

 

 

 

"A -4 dB shelf at 3 kHz was all it took to achieve my preferred in-room measured frequency response of 20 Hz to -10 dB at 20 kHz.  

The boundary eq is so good, I did not need to make any additional low frequency adjustments.

Folks can adjust to their own preferences without the measurement gear. The Toole/Olive research shows there is a direct correlation between an in-room measurement and the preferred frequency response that subjectively sounds neutral to groups of people, myself included." 

 

 

[TheStupidOne]

What you should do with speakers this expensive is to try them home. You need time to re-calibrate and time to settle down so that the act of critical listening for flaws and strengths doesn't influence how you perceive the sound.

If you can't try the speakers at home for at least a full weekend - preferably a week or two - find another dealer.

 

For what it's worth, I still love my Kiis after almost two years of fairly constant use. If I would have to buy something again, I would perhaps buy Dutch & Dutch 8c instead of Kii only if I were to use separate dsp with volume control like I use now. If not, the convenience of an Apple Remote to control Kii will always prevail over fiddling with a phone and app to adjust volume.

I lived with Devialet Phantom Silver for a few months and due to that experience I absolutely despise the concept of app-only.

[TheStupidOne]

This took a weird turn. The gentleman is concerned about frying the Kii's due to the ease of which he can provoke the limiters.

 

At those levels I'm pretty sure the limiters only act upon the bass, not higher in the range. Nevertheless, register the speakers on the website and get 5 year warranty. Then try to kill your speakers for as long as you like.

 

If you test the speakers from above 200 hz and up instead of full range, at ehat point do you see the limiters kicking in? That's the answer you're looking for.

[TheStupidOne]

Like I said, I've never seen the flashing red light on my set. Nowadays I use two subwoofers to remove the ringing in the time domain at lower frequencies in my room, so I won't bother to change the set-up to test specific songs just to see if I can get the lights to flash. I know they will flash eventually because those little drivers are not able to reproduce 20-30 hz at high spl levels due to physics.

 

If they flash at 80 or 85 or 90 on the display, what difference does it make? If you need to reproduce very low frequencies at high spl, you need subwoofers- end of story.

If you try to push normal passive speakers as hard as you do with Kii now, you'll end up with blown drivers. Passive speakers doesn't have driver security measures, so whether you call them Wilson, Focal or any other name, physics will not care and you will end up with expensive repairs sooner or later when the speakers are forced to reproduce low frequencies at too high spl.

 

A single 15" woofer will easily surpass Kii when it comes to bass output. Cost isn't even very relevant, any decently designed subwoofer will do just that.

 

If you don't need subwoofers in the small room you use now (you do if you care about sound quality and have no room for bass traps), wait until you actually get them in the big room to see if you need more spl capability then. Then you can spend a few hundred bucks on a minidsp and a couple of subwoofers and never worry about it again for the rest of your life.

 

The whole secret to get good sound is to acknowledge what particular needs you have. I think you failed in your analysis before you even considered Kii, because if you had thought about what you (think) you need, small speakers wouldn't even have crossed your mind.

 

Bxt system might be enough to your needs, but a couple of big subwoofers would easily beat even Bxt easily for pure spl capability alone. And would be cheaper.

[TheStupidOne]

The dsp doesn't pay attention to what room you place the speakers in. The settings for such are completely manual. 

[TheStupidOne]

59 minutes ago, fpalm69 said:

Has anyone successfully integrated a subwoofer(s) with the Kii Threes?   

Yes, I use two 15" subwoofers with the Kiis. Even cheap and ported big subwoofers like the ones I use will provide a significant upgrade in punch and foundation, if properly integrated.

 

For this purpose I use Minidsp 4x10hd which has the capability to go digital in and digital out to the Kiis while going analog out for up to 8 subwoofers.

This device can also be used as a pre-amplifier so that you don't have to worry about having to adjust the volume of the speakers and subs separately.

 

Minidsp 4x10hd is cheap, effective, simple to use and is fairly ok to use as a pre-amp. It isn't perfect because there's limited amounts of resolution to its dsp-capability and isn't perfectly transparent, but in most cases a minidsp 4x10hd and a couple of subwoofers (plus a few days of time to fiddle) will substantially increase the performance of your system. Even if your system is the Kii Three.

 

Questions? Shoot!

[TheStupidOne]

Not possible to adjust for the 90 ms delay, max delay in 4x10hd is 15 ms. Absolute phase coherency isn't possible when you have separated sound sources in a room anyways, so it's not really a concern in other areas than around the crossover region to the subs.

 

Do you hear any difference in SQ when you go from minimum latency to exact mode?