Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews

[Rubysea]

On 12/1/2019 at 12:03 AM, Cazzesman said:

...

I have set some adjustments on the Kii's top end and mid bass.    I was thinking the 22D was a simple way test the room and set up some curves.   I have a fair amount of room treatment at 1st reflections and rear corners.   I left the treatment in when I got the Kii's because I think it actually helped in the room.

...

Regards Cazzesman 

Hello community!

@Cazzesman : "A simple way" to better and cheper adapt the Kiis to your room is using the Kiis themselves 🙂 With the current firmware (v1.0.7) you have control over a lot of recently introduced new filters (w. 1.0.5): Low Pass, High Pass, Low Shelf, High Shelf, Notch, Parametric EQ with a constant Q, Parametric EQ with a proportional Q in the range of +3db to -24db (and that per channel/ Kii Master - Kii Slave)

I've tried that myself and with a UMIK1 + the Kii Control directly linked into REW I have done a lot of measurements and immediate corrections and thus could completely tame a terrible room mode around 40Hz.

I guess you should get in contact with Kii (Tom Jansen) to get access to the updated FW (and change log). An Update-tool is available for Win and Mac in case you don't alreadyhave access to it. The FW also updates the DSP and Kii-Control (where on the Apple remote you now can also switch between presets instead of only sources previously 🙂)

BR Rubysea

[Rubysea]

Hi Stephan,

no, it is not available on their homepage. As mentioned before: try to contact Tom from Kii. From him I got a link to the software/ firmware. I think they are planning on having it available enventually on their HP, but I don't know when that will be. I've done several update(s) using the MAC version and that works just fine. You install the SW-Tool, connect your Kii-Control to the laptop/computer and then you go. You'll find a confirmation screen at the end of the update.

Rubysea

[Rubysea]

Quote from one of the recent change logs:

You can set up to 8 individual 2nd order filters per speaker in range of (Freq 20hz - 20kHz, Q 0.125 - 31.3, Gain +/- 6dB) to one of the following types:
Low Pass
High Pass
Low Shelf
High Shelf 
Notch
Parametric EQ with a constant Q
Parametric EQ with a proportional Q

R.

[Rubysea]

Thx Stephan for clarifying w/ Tom. Can't be too long then...

[Rubysea]

Yes. Apparently it will.

Bluetooth APTx and AAC Audio support are supposed to become available.

[Rubysea]

As you can see in the screenshot above, the most recent (beta) version of the Kii Control Firmware is version 1.8

[Rubysea]

Well, I think we are ready to go now with the update tool for the Kii Three.

On their website is a new section, called SUPPORT from where you also can access the update tool.

So have fun!

R.

[Rubysea]

hmmm, I think that section has been taken offline now.....

But at least it seems to indicate that the release of the tool is coming soon

[Rubysea]

yes, it seems to be available again, and also the FW is newer than this morning.

The tool is now version 1.0.9 with the firmware for v2.0.

There is als a new nav section on the left now for operation of KC with firmware version 2.0.

Maybe you have to be quick before it gets taken down again....

[Rubysea]

yes. they are apparently working on these new support pages with changing/updated content. So I assume they are in their final stages and maybe in a few days (before Christmas?) the support section is up and running with everyone being able to DL the lates FW.

[Rubysea]

2 hours ago, atletico said:

I downloaded the V1.09 Kii updater on my MacBook pro. It says it connected to both speakers with usb but it crashes at once I push "update" button in the KII Updater application. Can't do any upgrade.. 

@atletico, on wich FW version currently is your Kii Control? I did a few updates recently on a Mac and all went fine (maybe I was already at a (much?) higher version). What happens if you press the other button "send system report to Kii Audio"?

[Rubysea]

@atletico: maybe try again first sending the report to Kii and then try the update. I rememer that they once told me I shoud first do this and then run the update. But maybe that has been changed in this latest version. But to try again can't do any harm... maybe it'll work

[Rubysea]

@atletico...and well, you never know: before you execute the update procedure you might also first unplug the Kii Control (restart it) and then re-set each speaker (and then verify if both speakers are playing correctly (ie. real stereo, I had problems therer a few times after re-setting them). Maybe that makes a difference?

[Rubysea]

@ragwoIn KC: Main Menu > Setup Menu > IR Remote Settings > Channel Buttons: Preset

That should do it.

Regarding filters: I doubt that there will be an interface for the near future. And yes, it is a bit fiddly AND you should note down or take pictures of your filter settings bec. they might get lost after another FW update. But they had also stated that on the support pages (which are currently offline again)

 

[Rubysea]

Currently FW updates seem to be possible again (for how long?)

Also again a newer version of the Update tool is available (v.1.1.0) and @atletico, it might fix your update problem? Probably worth trying again...

[Rubysea]

https://kiiaudio.helpdocsonline.com/home called up via their website for me currently (still) does show a nav entry for FIRMWARE UPDATE

[Rubysea]

regarding Kii update without KC: I doubt that this is possible without having direct access to the Kiis (either via Dealer or sending them in). You somehow need to get physical access to the RJ45 jack (on the Master Kii) to update settings for DSP/PIC which also get updated. Via KC this is "easy", the very old way via direct remote session from Kii (Tom) and now with the available tool. "Temporary" access to a KC (via your dealer) would also do the trick.

[Rubysea]

Since just before Christmas and now there have been 3 further beta updates (23-DEC, 15-JAN, 23-JAN).

Latest version of the firmware sets the system to: KC v2.3, Speaker PIC v3.8, Speaker DSP  v4.8

So I guess they are still fine-tunig before eventually going public with general firmware availability.

Soon we'll know (or not)

 

[Rubysea]

Great news. So it will be interesting to hear if updating generally goes well or if numerous attempts will show problems. I hope not.

Good luck for everyone!

[Rubysea]

@Yellowspider regarding auto turn-off: it could be possible that for the XLR the auto turn-off does not work because the Kii's still might receive a signal. In case you have connected an phono preamp to them there might still be a signal "leakage" in case the preamp is not switched off.

However, there actually might be a problem with the current FW version.  his morning I found my Kii's still powered on from last night (and I was using the toslink input), but the previous times I used them, they auto powerd off (toslink and spdif).

[Rubysea]

hmm, that seems to be very strange, that you even can't switch them off manually. For me that at least works.

Have you tried to unplug the KC and reset the speakers or even completely unpluged/restart everything?

[Rubysea]

completely agree with @firedog
Besides, what should these sonic changes be, for a speaker that is designed to be a neutral monitor and whose overall characteristic (eg. time alignment, cardioid radiation pattern, etc.) is fully matched for the individual drivers used and so stored as inherent DSP setting(s).
Why should they be changed by Kii? We as users/ listeners can do this now with the new EQ settings, if we haven't done so already with other software/hardware.

[Rubysea]

When the EQ filters were first introduced during beta FW end of September last year I also didn't know too much about them. But at the time I was already interested in room correction methods (via other HW/SW) and was very glad to find the possibility to tackle that topic then without any further "big" initial investment.
What each filter does is fairly easy to research on the web. To try them out of course you would need to "see" and hear what they can do. So here I took a rather small investment for a MiniDSP UMIK-1 microphone and a mic stand and downloaded the REW software to start measuring the Kiis in my room.
The REW manual is a really good starting point for initial steps of room correction.
In sum it says: "The best we can do is deal with the broad, shallow dips and work on the peaks" and " We can use the equaliser to help tame the peaks, and the lower down they occur, the better the results we are likely to get".
If you stick to these statements for the beginning, you already can make huge steps.
Like fpalm69 stated above, I also had a similar strong room mode around 40db (>20db!) that I did tame initially, which was already a big step forward.
Now I use a combination for a boundary setting for one speaker, and individual EQ settings for each speaker (Advanced Filters >> Link all with master: No).
So you need to take a lot of measurements and a lot of experimenting (when you are new to this topic like me), but this can yield rewarding results and you will enjoy the music even more 🙂
And the topic of a house/target curve I haven't even touched because for that I would like to consider some other room treatments first like absorbers/ diffusors (which is on my agenda)

[Rubysea]

@input username here
ad 3/3,5: yes, this is what you basically need to do if you want to use the new advanced filters of the Kii (and not other SW/HW).
You measure in REW and then experiment with the Kii filters. For my bad room mode I tried a notch filter first but then opted for a PEQ prop. Q setting. This all involved a lot of measurements and filter re-adjustments.
Otherwise you bypass the Kii filters and let REW (or ohter measuring software) calculate the filter settings (via txt file) for eg. ohter MiniDSP Hardware/Software which then does the filtering and passes on a filtered/corrected audio input signal to the Kiis.

ad 4: What you can do here is also a matter of experimentation. The boundary setting I took for my right speaker I similarly could have achieved with a low shelf filter. I assume the boundary filter setting basicly is a low shelf filter.
OK, the way of measuring, manually adjusting the filters in Kii, re-measuring, readjusting filters, etc, etc. is tedious, but will lead to some results without further need to invest more money (but its fun and you can learn quite a bit).
If you already have other SW/HW in place, that can calculate the best stettings automatically or import such calculations, then there is no need to utilize the new filters of the Kii
 

[Rubysea]

Yes, using presets is the best way when using different sources, especially as for TV you will need to set the preset to minimum latency for better lip-syn accuracy.

However, if one preset is fed by a EQ-corrected source (eg from Audiolense via Roon) only that preset will profit from the correction. The others won't.

And setting up any of the Kii advanced filter EQ settings in this scenario would then correct the Roon fed preset/ source twice, as the Kii advanced filters are universally applied to all presets