Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews

[H665]

On 3/22/2021 at 8:49 AM, PCmusic said:

 

 

Good decision. This is exactly what I did for my 8c as well. I wrote the rationale in my subjective review in the speaker forum here. I totally understand why you did that. It isn't good for speakers with non-uniform directivity and many feel bad looking (read from forums). I agree I need time to accept, but now it's very ok to me.

Extreme toe in seems to work well with speakers that utilize wave guide units. But is does look rather unorthodox. I’ve noticed it creates a larger sweet spot. In the end it’s all up to what you prefer, not what someone else thinks. 

[Rubysea]

When I experiment with speakers and toe in I usually start with Q-Sound recorded albums because of the phase effects used in mastering.
Example here is always Roger Waters - Amused to death (or some songs on Sting's Soul Cages work very well, too).

I vary with toe in until the sound effects are coming from their correct location at the listening position.
From there I experiment further using other recordings. I usually find this an easy (and mostly reliable) way to start.

[Beren]

Hey guys, I need some advice regarding EQing. I'm thinking about two different ways of doing EQ with the Kii Three:

 

* Using the built in PEQ to flatten the worst peaks in my measurements, then using the EQ in Roon to do some fine tuning

 

* Using the built in PEQ do get just the bass near perfect, then using Roon to treat the rest of the spectrum

 

Any thoughts or recommentations? How do you guys do it?

[firedog]

19 minutes ago, Beren said:

Hey guys, I need some advice regarding EQing. I'm thinking about two different ways of doing EQ with the Kii Three:

 

* Using the built in PEQ to flatten the worst peaks in my measurements, then using the EQ in Roon to do some fine tuning

 

* Using the built in PEQ do get just the bass near perfect, then using Roon to treat the rest of the spectrum

 

Any thoughts or recommentations? How do you guys do it?

I use the PEQ to reduce a really large peak in the  bass, then use Audiolense Room correction (at the server) to further improve the room response and flatten that peak.

 

If you don't want to use DRC, no reason not to do what you propose with Roon. I'm not sure I see any difference between your 2 options. Just use whatever combination seems to work best.

 

 

[Rubysea]

My approach in this respect is the similar to Firedog's. I use a combination of individual boundary settings per Kii ("low shelf filter") and a PEQ filter to eliminate a particular strong bass room mode and another bass peak for one speaker. On top of that I apply Dirac DRC through a minidsp shd.

I probably could have done everything in Dirac/minidsp, but as hardware based DRC implementations like minidsp usually can't apply that many filter taps to do the room correction I used all resources I had an hence split up the correction work (eg. see this article & comments section by mitchco:)

 

[Beren]

Thanks for your answers.

 

My music server is a Zenith from Innuos, so Audiolense etc won't work for me - Roon is the only option to apply some EQ besides the one inside the Kiis at the moment. I already thought about getting a miniDSP SHD Studio, but I'll first try to get the best out of Roon with the help of REW.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Beren said:

Thanks for your answers.

 

My music server is a Zenith from Innuos, so Audiolense etc won't work for me - Roon is the only option to apply some EQ besides the one inside the Kiis at the moment. I already thought about getting a miniDSP SHD Studio, but I'll first try to get the best out of Roon with the help of REW.

Not sure that's correct. If you are using your Innuos server as a Roon Core, you should be able to use the convolution function in Roon. It means using a laptop or other PC with DRC software loaded to measure and create convolution files. Once you have the files, you just point Roon to them and Roon will apply the DRC. 

See this: https://community.roonlabs.com/t/convolution-filter/50007/11

[Beren]

Thats exactly what I'm doing, using REW and my Umik-1.

 

At the moment I have created some PEQ and a shelf filter in the Kiis to get the worst modes out of the way. After that I measured and creared a file for Roon with some fine tuning.

 

The only problem is: I can't do any control measurements with the Roon EQ on.

[ragwo]

On 4/4/2021 at 9:17 AM, Beren said:

The only problem is: I can't do any control measurements with the Roon EQ on.

I believe you can. REW can generate sweep files which can be imported in Roon. Play the file in Roon with the EQ on and you can control the correction with a new measurement. 

[Beren]

Thanks for the great tip, this really works!

[ntpaledo]

On 3/4/2021 at 3:16 PM, ntpaledo said:

Spoke to the distributor. They apologised for the lack of follow up. Manager committed to provide me personal updates. Let's see. Looking forward to receiving the speakers

 

Alright, after 4 months of waiting, speakers have finally arrived. First impressions are very impressive and I'm looking forward to spending more time with the speakers to break them in and fine tune the sound output. My setup is quite unique, as I'm trying to get the both of both worlds and connect the Kiis as a L + R speaker in a 3.1 home cinema setup but also take advantage of all integrated amps and DACs in the Kiis as a dedicated stereo listening pair for music.

 

My setup:

 

Denon AVR-X3700H Amplifier

Dali Opticon 6 L + R speakers

Dali Oberon Center speaker

KEF Sub

Rega Planar P1 Turntable

LG GX TV

Cambridge Audio CX VN2 Audio Streamer

 

My NEW setup

 

Replaced Dali Opticon 6 L + R Speakers with Kii 3s and connected them via pre-out

 

 

Connected an XLR adapter to connect to the back of the Kiis

 

 

After calibrating sound levels between center speaker and Kiis and home cinema, the output works great. We had to increase the level for the Kiis all the way up to 10 and reduce center speaker output to -2 in order to calibrate the volume from all speakers when paired in a home cinema setup. I ended up removing the sub all together from my setup and instead, used the full range of the Kiis. So far, great results with nice crisp dialogue and an "integrated sub" experience right in the L + R speakers. 

 

 

For music, I connected the streamer directly to the Kii Control via a Coax cable, bypassing the streamer's DAC and instead using all of Kiis integrated magic. Sound imaging is second to none, feels like you're in a concert front row. My only gripe is the fact that I used to able to control everything via 1 remote, now the volume for music when playing through the streamer has to be controlled either by the Kii control or a separate remote control.

 

Look gorgeous in the space and accidentally matches the ps5 as well.

 

 

 

[ntpaledo]

Question for other members:

 

My left speaker (which is also the Master in the interspeaker connection) only has 1 light on (green) when the speakers are on, in comparison the right speaker (which is the Slave in the interspeaker connection) which has 2 lights on (green and blue). Is this expected behavior?

 

 

[Rubysea]

I don't think so. Usually all 2 lights should be constantly on. Does it behave/ play normal? Did you try to reset the speaker (or both)?

 

Kii- Backside Panel: P/R button - (RESET)
Press and hold the button for 5 seconds, this resets the speaker. (The front LEDs will indicate this by blinking violet and yellow)

 

[fpalm69]

Be aware that when you reset the speaker the volume will default to zero attenuation - FULL on volume will result.  After the reset turn the volume knob to readjust the volume to a more suitable level or else it will blow you away and maybe your drivers too.  Found out the hard way....sounded like two gun shots, right then left.

[ragwo]

@ntpaledo

Any update on the faulty led? 

[ntpaledo]

Seller said they contacted Kii and Kii is sending them a replacement LED module for them to install on my speakers. The weird thing is when the speakers are off, both lights light up red, so I know there's power going through the LED module. I noted that to the seller and they said it's weird behavior and that they would replace the LED module and see what's going on. This will happen in 2 weeks. Will keep you posted

[Rubysea]

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

[Blade1001]

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.

[Matias]

Before and after recording of Isoacoustics Gaia feet with the Kii Three + BXT.

https://youtu.be/k3ExWnCN5kU

[fpalm69]

Anyone with BXT's tried isoacoustics Gaia?  They recommend either the Gaia II or III for the 112 Lb. speaker.  Cost doubles as you go from the II to the III.  Any comments on using these with the Kii Three/BXT?

[Emlin]

26 minutes ago, fpalm69 said:

Anyone with BXT's tried isoacoustics Gaia?  They recommend either the Gaia II or III for the 112 Lb. speaker.  Cost doubles as you go from the II to the III.  Any comments on using these with the Kii Three/BXT?

 

Avoid snake oil, please!

[kamil]

Reaching out to Kii users....

 

Can anybody tell me why my files streamed via USB at 384khz sample rate  (viewed and verified on another dac) shows 192k in my Kii Control?

The reading is here:

Main Menu>Setup Menu>About>About Main Speaker>Samplerate>192000

 

Does Kii Control down sample to 192k before sending the stream to the Kii speaker?

 

Are my settings wrong or can any other Kii user help verify this.

 

Thanks!

[firedog]

1 hour ago, kamil said:

Reaching out to Kii users....

 

Can anybody tell me why my files streamed via USB at 384khz sample rate  (viewed and verified on another dac) shows 192k in my Kii Control?

The reading is here:

Main Menu>Setup Menu>About>About Main Speaker>Samplerate>192000

 

Does Kii Control down sample to 192k before sending the stream to the Kii speaker?

 

Are my settings wrong or can any other Kii user help verify this.

 

Thanks!

I have the same thing: 4x rates show up, 8x rates show as 4X. Don't know what it means. The Kii system resamples everything to 93.75 afair, so I'm not sure it matters if it does one step inside the Control first.

[Mazza]

1 hour ago, kamil said:

 

Does Kii Control down sample to 192k before sending the stream to the Kii speaker?

 

maybe …. AES/spdif is limited to 192k so it might be down sampling? 
 

All incoming signals are resampled anyway to 93.75k as part of the DSP

[kamil]

Thanks guys. I guessed as much... was hoping to take advantage of some of the latest  technology sample rate converters but I guess 192k is the actual limit.  I do believe hear a very subtle but probably insignificant difference between sample rates on the Kii.

 

Here’s a tip though for those without BXT. I use this between  speakers and stands .. Not so cheap but they work very well for me.

 

https://taica.co.jp/gel/en/product/vibration_damping/sn_sheet.html