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Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews


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  • 2 months later...
3 minutes ago, Rubysea said:

... and besides the Kii then re-samples every signal to an internal sampling rate of 93.75 kHz....(same as the Grimm LS1 I think....)

(https://kiiaudio.com/media/GENERAL/docs/reviews/kii3hfn818lowrez.pdf)

 

 

You're right yes, sorry, I thought it was 192 kHz - so the HQPlayer guys should really target 96Khz then perhaps . . 

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  • 9 months later...
20 minutes ago, Yellowspider said:

Kii Three and Turntable

 

I am little bit concerned about the performance when using my turntable with my Ki. Compared to the digital source, Auralic Aries Femto, this digital source is in most cases sounding better. Analog Source lacks space, the virtual stage is smaller. Tried it with different phono pres. (Einstein turntables choice, Tube Pre by Ampearl)

 

When changing to my analog setup (Pair of Magnepans powered by odwright integrated) there are all those things, we love our turntables for. Space, dynamics, pressure. The digital part is done by a Meitner MA1 in this setup, should not be too bad ;-). But no chance against the turntable...

So it seems that the A/D converter of the Kii takes away some of the benefits of analog music reproduction. What are your experiences?

 

Merry Christmas

Stephan

 

 

 

 

 

I suspect the issue is more to do with comparing two very different types of speakers and speaker technologies, rather than comparing the reproduction of the analogue source per se.

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  • 4 weeks later...
10 hours ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Someone would need to come up with a pretty good reason to justify using the Kii's analog input from any DAC.  I cannot think of one....off hand.

 

+1 to this. I can't understand why anyone would voluntarily add a DAC ahead of a pre-existing ADC-DAC stage. That is only ever going to achieve additional signal degradation - whether that is audible or not, is a discussion for another thread, but one thing is certain the additional DAC-ADC-DAC conversion will not improve the signal or resultant musical output.

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5 minutes ago, firedog said:

Do you really know this? I thought the internal DACs were software based - at least partially.

 

I wasn't aware a DAC could be software based (beyond its control software and potential digital pre-filtering) - by definition the signal needs to transition from the digital to the analog domain.

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  • 1 month later...
1 hour ago, ntpaledo said:

UPDATE: I just called Kii directly. They confirmed that there is a backlog and that the speakers are currently in production. They should be finished in a week, then go to production testing which lasts another week, then will ship them. They have to work under unprecedented circumstances and production time has gone back. They were estimating they would be out of it by now, but unfortunately, there is still backlog. I had a great conversation with them and I can empathise. Now I have to deal with the incompetent merchant who doesn't know how to follow up. Hopefully I will have the speakers in 2-3 weeks. Will post again then

 

Hi everyone, following up on this topic, mainly to vent. I've had an abysmal experience with the shop I bought the speakers from. On the 15th December 2020 I ordered the Kii 3 in glossy white along with a Digital RCA SPDIF cable. The store advised me that delivery time will be six weeks. That meant that by the end of January I would receive the speakers. Time passed by and I received no communication from the store. On January 15th I called again and the team informed me I would receive the Kiis mid February. Time passed by and I received no further communication from the store. On February 17th I called again and the team informed me they got official confirmation from Kii that the speakers will be part of shipment to my country last week of February or first week of March. Time passed by and I received no communication from the store. On March 2nd I called yet again and the team informed me the speakers will be here by the end of March. When I disputed the date and explained what had happened before, the employee informed me that they would reach out to Kii and they would contact me the next day (today, March 3rd). No one called me today, so I called back at 5pm, before the store closed. The employee told me that someone will call me back because they were currently with a customer. No one called me back. It has been 3 months of false promises, no follow up and terrible customer service. At this point, I am thinking of cancelling my order, because, mainly,  I have no trust that the store can withhold any customer agreement, technical support, after sales service or honour any warranty. The most insane part is that we are talking about a 10k Euros purchase. I have never received such abysmal experience as a consumer and this is the most expensive thing I've ever bought. It's definitely the store's fault for not understanding basic customer service, or even decency, principle, but I'm wondering how much of it is Kii's fault as well. Should I stay away from this manufacturer? Has anyone had any issues with their speakers, did they have to service them / replace them and did they receive bad service? Thank you all in advance for your replies.

 

You can't really blame Kii Audio for bad dealer customer service, but if you are based in Singapore, why did you not order the speakers in Singapore - they have a local distributor?

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26 minutes ago, ntpaledo said:

Unfortunately, I ordered them from their official distributor in Singapore... There is no one else to go to

 

Oh, that's even worse then, A distributor should be actively promoting Kii's products - sorry when you said they were 10k Euros, I assumed you were buying them from Europe.

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
59 minutes ago, H665 said:

I haven’t really noticed any HMI improvements. And the analogue clipping warning was there already i think. At least it kicked in when I was fiddling with the phono gain of my new amp.

 

Now wouldn’t it be great if you could change Kii settings using a software app where the settings are visualized and that you can upload into the control. Kind of like what Linn *cough,cough* uses for their Space optimisation. Makes for a much more user friendly experience imo.


Yep agreed - buying the Control shouldn’t be a requirement to access the internal features.

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  • 1 month later...
33 minutes ago, Rubysea said:

Curious to know how they will be doing this. Did they get any formal service training by Kii how to do so?

 

It's fairly easy, if they can get the front aluminium plate off which is stuck down with some adhesive, the LED module is just a round plate that unscrews with a small serial connector plug on the back. I would assume that Kii would provide them with some adhesive to stick the plate back on afterwards.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 year later...
14 minutes ago, fpalm69 said:

Any comments would be appreciated.

 

I've gotta be honest -Kii Three's in surround positions will be a complete waste.

 

If I were you, I'd sell everything except the main Three/BXT pair, and use those funds combined with your existing budget to buy a good quality neutral surround speaker (JBL 708P etc), and use all the left over cash on a top quality processor like a Trinnov Altitude 16 which will replace your streaming box also if you are a Roon user, and give you a digital output into your Three's along with SOA room correction.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 2 months later...
3 hours ago, fas42 said:

 

Impacts on SQ from tweaks in the digital area are never anything as obvious as "altering the bits" - while we stay in the digital world everything will run exactly as intended, unless there is an extreme issue. However, unfortunately, at some point a conversion to the analogue domain occurs in virtually every setup, and here's where digital 'noise' does the damage ... IOW, jitter and variants of such, can very easily, and in fact nearly always degrade the perceived quality.

 

The answer is, "best quality" digital signal handling minimises the indirect corruption of the waveform in the analogue stages.


But none of that DA conversion happens in the KControl, it’s all happens inside each of those those hugely vibrating and reverberant speakers, and yet it doesn’t aplead to impact sound quality?!

 

To avoid being disingenuous, I don’t actually own a KControl (I run directly into a Trinnov Anethyst), but I’m glad I didn’t buy one to be honest if it is so badly engineered that sticking a couple of chunks of overpriced “hi-fi” rubber underneath it has such an influence on its sound quality!!

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