Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews

[firedog]

2 hours ago, input username here said:

 

Yes, I had heard the same thing--and I had also heard that it would:

 

1. Support the WiSA connection (which has been confirmed to be supported by the THREEs already);

2. Have it's own streamer/renderer built-in.

3. Like @firedog I would almost certainly buy it, if/when it comes out

 

So when something went wrong with one of my THREEs about 8-10 months ago, Kii tried to diagnose it over the internet before I sent it to Grace Design, which was the importer at that time, for repair (as it turned out, the power supply bricked and I ended up having to send it in for repair anyway).  However, none other than Chris Reichard was on phone when we were trying to diagnose the speaker.  So decided to take the opportunity to ask him about the pre-amp directly.  He:

 

1. Was willing to confirm that the "big" preamp was on the Kii "roadmap," but could not confirm--or even comment on--when it might be available;

2. Said that the features I listed above sounded more or less right, but he could neither confirm nor deny specific features until the preamp was actually introduced.

 

So there you have it, just how "concrete" that is I cannot say, but that is at least confirmation from the top that it is something that Kii is working on.  Honestly, I'd hoped that they might surprise us all with the big pre at Munich 2020 but, with that being canceled due to the CV, who knows.  And I might have been overly optimistic about that anyway....

 

My conclusion is that I'm not holding my breath for one anytime soon. When a working prototype shows up somewhere, I'll start to consider it as a real possibility. We actually knew the BXT was in development for a long time before it was available, but this thing is still Vaporware.  

[firedog]

2 hours ago, input username here said:

PLEASE HELP ME RE: REW and Kii EQ

 

So, I decided to try and use the new Kii firmware to do additional EQ.  As suggested by many here, I bought a miniDSP umik-1 mic., a good mic. stand and downloaded REW.  Since then, the process has been equal parts terrible and frustrating.  I know that I probably ought to be hitting the REW forums but 1. these forums are huge with no easy indication of where to go or where to begin, 2. they often try and be very exhaustive, which is admirable generally, but not when I just want to do very simple things--like get my mic set up and take a few measurements, and 3. are often very specific to use cases that are of absolutely no interest to me (e.g. using REW as a convolution engine for loading setting sinto Roon, or whatever).  Further, given that some people on this form have used the exact same equipment I have to achieve the exact same results I'm seeking, I thought I might try here first, if anyone would be willing to help. 

 

To begin with, I have downloaded the the correct umik-1 mic cal. file from miniDSP and successfully read it into the Calibration file in Preferences.  As suggested by REW, I selected the ASIO driver for my YellowTech PUC-2 USB-AES D-to-D converter (which goes AES into the speakers) and have left the Sampling Rate at the default 48kHz.  I have set levels to "Use main speaker test signal to check/set levels."  All also in Preferences.  So far, so good, I think.

 

From there my problems include:

 

1. The GUI on both the REW and the umik-1 pages do not match my GUI.  I suspect I have a newer rev. (I have REW V5.19) and, also, I am using WIndows 10 and they seem to be screenshotting Apple OS.  Anyway, with the images completely off, I cannot seem to find simple answers to things like, in Preferences, what does the Input/Output/Timing Reference Output/Loopback Input mean--what is 2: in 2 or 1: Out 1 mean and should I care?

 

2. I play pink noise from the Generator and only get signal out of the right channel.  This doesn't seem correct to me... but I cannot figure out if maybe I am supposed to do one and then the other?  Or, if not, how to even begin to get sound out of both channels.

 

3. When I play pink noise and check it against the levels (following the instructions--as best I can--from the umik-1 page) the sound-meter does move a bit, but although I am supposed to push the sound to about 75dB, mine always sticks around 30.0 - 30.5 dB(z) F/-102 dBFS, no matter how loud (or soft) I turn up my speakers (--or "speaker" since, as I said, sound only comes out of the right channel).  Like I said, it does bounce around a bit, so it appears to be reading something but, whatever that is, it's nothing to do with the sound coming out of my system.

 

This should be so simple but, basically, nothing looks or works as it should.  So I haven't even begun to try and tackle  doing an actual measurement.  I cannot begin to say how much I hate this process.  All I want to do is find the freq., Q and magnitude of any room nodes/peaks and program their inverse into the Kii CONTROL's EQ--simple, no?

 

Currently, I am at 100% failure, maybe it's just me.  Can anyone who has used [1. the Kii CONTROL, 2. the Kii THREEs, 3. a miniDSP umik-1 USB mic, 4. REW and 5. Windows 10] tell me how they got measurements so that they could enter them into the CONTROL?  If so, i'd be eternally grateful.  Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

Maybe not what you are asking for, but:

I used Audiolense to map the nodes in my room and make a correction curve and convolution files. Pretty easy. The program isn't free, but it has clear instructions and the whole process took me about an hour and a half the first time. You can also download a demo version and get a temporary license to try it out before you buy. 

 

I also did what you are talking about in the past. This process is more precise and does better quality correction. 

[firedog]

7 minutes ago, input username here said:

Hi @ragwo, unfortunately, I was unable to make REW work.  Given that so many others have, I think that the problem must be with me--not with REW.  I broke down and bought Audiolense a few days ago; I haven't set it up yet.  Maybe this weekend.  Hopefully, I'll have better success than with REW!

You can get support at the Audiolense forum. 

[firedog]

27 minutes ago, input username here said:

 

Thanks @Cazzesman.  There's not much out on the BXT (... maybe because of it's price relative to the THREE?).  Anyway, looking forward to reading.

Unfortunately, the article was mostly technical, and didn't talk much about the sound. I think such an article should also compare the Three's with and without BXT.

I find it interesting that there haven't been reviews of the BXT. You'd think that Kii would want to get them out to reviewers, but it's been a while and they haven't done so, apparently. 

[firedog]

I'm not sure I totally get the picture of what you are trying to do, but I'd be a bit concerned about vibrations to the Kiis from the subs. 

I'd also ask Kii if they have any comments. 

Covid 19 gives us too much time to think - it has cost me a lot of money. Too much online shopping. 

On the other hand, no money spent going out.....

[firedog]

6 hours ago, Cazzesman said:

Like every part of this hobby it is just a hypothetical Work in Progress.     The idea is to free up the bottom end of the Kii 3's.   Provide them some head room and at the same time gain some further bottom end and great SPL overall.

 

Is it all worth the $$$$.  Yeah/Nah; I have no idea, if I'm honest. 

 

Plan B;  is save the money and maybe buy a JCat XE USB card and replace the Sotm PCIe card I have.    Is that worth it?   Who knows???

 

Plan C is to leave the money in the bank and listen to the music.

 

What do we do along the way to the grave?    Take advice, take a chance, give it a go.   Do we reach for audio nirvana or save our money and die a rich corpse.

 

#$%^ if I know to be honest. 🙂

 

It is a strange life.   I could go and buy a Taiko Extreme tomorrow and a pair of BXT's to go with my Kii 3's and yet I do not.   Why is that?

 

If I did, would I be happy with result?    Probably, maybe. could be, don't no.  

 

I'm thinking 75% of us all are just kicking Tyre's along the street, day dreaming about a lot of maybes, from one audio store to the next.

 

What say you all??????

 

Regards Cazzesman

 

 

 

 

If you aren't sure you should spend the money on the BXT's, 2 subs seems like a good idea. I think there are people using mini DSP units to deal with the latency issue and also do DRC on the subs with the Kiis. I'd be very curious to know how it sounds. 

[firedog]

On 7/5/2020 at 3:09 PM, Wazzup said:

Right now i am a little undecided because i am also using deezer hifi which is only supported by bluos devices ) 

Logitech Media Server has a plugin for Deezer and also for UPNP/DLNA devices, so you can connect to many devices, not just those that are desiged to work with LMS - which the Sonore devices are, BTW. 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, a_kraut said:

Hello everybody,

I`m just waiting for my Kii to be delivered in February. I bought Diva II stands from Liedtke here in germany, because I wanted white glossy stands. They are very similar to the Kii stands. But the Kii stands have rubber pads on the top plate for decoupling.

Does anybody know what kind of material that is exactly or where I can get the original ones?

I read the discussion about the cables in this thread. Nevertheless the question: Is here any Kii owner, who noticed improvements in sound from other ethernet and power cables? And please no policy debate and only Kii owners.

Thank you!

Used a couple of different ethernet cables and noticed no difference. The ones that come with the Kii's included in that group. Power: I haven't tried it, others have claimed it can help. YMMV.

[firedog]

18 hours ago, fpalm69 said:

Here you go:

 

What size is the room?

[firedog]

There's nothing wrong with what you are thinking of doing. It should work fine. I'd suggest you try it for a while and see if you are happy with it.

If you decide you want a dedicated, specialized device just for feeding digital from the network to your Kii Control, there are endless options. Anything from a $50 Raspberry Pi (which works fine) to a 5K hi-end network bridge - and everything in between. 
 

It's not clear a dedicated streamer will sound superior. And you might need to spend really serious money to get something that is noticeably better. Again, try what you've got to see how happy you are. 

You say you are unhappy wit your units streaming app. Adding new playback/control software that is much more user friendly would be a  good reason to move on to a dedicated streamer that gives you that ability. That alone makes you listening more pleasuraeble.

 

With the Kii Control you can also go direct USB from your server if it is close by. Works very well. The Kii has a very good USB input.

 

As far as MQA, I wouldn't call it critical. I'd find units that fit my needs for other reasons, and then if one has MQA, maybe that's a factor in deciding which one to buy. BTW, you can get a free trial of software like Roon or Audirvana that will enable you to play the "first unfold" of  MQA. Listen and see what you think. If that doesn't do a lot for you, then there's probably no reason to care if you have MQA equipped HW or not. Note: many MQA albums play louder than non MQA counterparts, and that fools you into thinking that the MQA is better. Volume matching is important.

[firedog]

5 hours ago, ntpaledo said:

 

Thank you for your reply @firedog. Why wouldn't a dedicated higher end streamer sound superior than an integrated streamer with multiple components and cheaper construction cost? I'm new to this world so don't know how all the details and I'm purely going off perception.

 

Audiophile convention says so. Doesn't mean it's true. Try for yourself before spending the money.

5 hours ago, ntpaledo said:

What do you mean Kii Streamer?? Is Kii Audio releasing their own streamer???

Rumor , hints by Kii have it that Kii is releasing a bigger Control/streamer. Rubysea many know something he can't reveal. Or not.

[firedog]

3 hours ago, Rubysea said:

Besides, the minidsp and the Kii to my knowledge use the same brand of AD (and DA) converters (AKM Asahi Kasei Microdevices)

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

[firedog]

16 hours ago, MarkS said:

I’m thinking hard about this speaker system. Anyone using a high end server (e.g., antipodes, Innuous, Taiko) to go single wire AES into the “master” Kii. I am a 100% digital source person, so I am not sure I need the Kii control, unless there is an advantage to the Kii control thst I am not understanding.  

The Kii Control gives you three main abilities: a) remote volume control; b) source switching; c) no need to play with settings behind the speaker-they are all on the control. You also get much finer control of the settings, and additional settings like PEQ and presets with the control. 

If you don't need a and b, and think c will be rare, then no, you don't need the control. 

[firedog]

5 hours ago, MarkS said:

What is your basis for that conclusion?

 

4 hours ago, Emlin said:

 

Perhaps you are confused by the fact that the Control can be used to change the volume, EQ, etc.

 

In fact the Control doesn't do any of these things within itself, all it does is send signals to the speakers so that they can do it themselves using their internal DSP.

 

Emlin is correct. The control is a digital input and control console. It takes digital inputs and can send the inputs plus commands (like EQ, boundary definitions) to the speakers. It doesn't change the stream itself. That's all inside the Kii's.

[firedog]

13 minutes ago, ntpaledo said:

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.

Your should send this directly to Kii and see what they say. You need to know if you are being lied to, and Kii needs to know how this dealer is operating.

I'd cancel if I was you. You can find another dealer who will give you better service.

[firedog]

On 3/20/2021 at 1:56 PM, Rubysea said:

I assume the upcoming streamer will feature Kii settings management, too. But it remains to be seen whether the settings can also be changed via a remote UI conection then or if this only will hold true for the streamer audio UI (which most likely will not be a proprietary Kii implementation)

I'm starting to think the Kii network device is mythological/vaporware.

[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.

 

 

[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

[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.

[firedog]

1 hour ago, Craig1512 said:

Damn, been after one of those coffee mugs and a Tshirt for ages.  Kii have been promising to send both down under, looks like something has to go wrong with my Kii threes to get a mug and tshirt. Should be a mandatory accessory with every Kii three I reckon.  If Kii audio are reading this, I can go one better than ragwo’s sensational product placement pic with some real aussie bush and ridgy didge gum trees, I’ll even ask the local koala if interested in getting in on the shot.

I heard you have to buy the BXT to get them....

[firedog]

3 hours ago, Kelly said:

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.  

One of mine totally burnt out on the inside (as Schiitt described it), so Schiit replaced them both so I'd have a matching pair. 

But as with electronics in general, usually if it survives the first few months it survives for a long time.

It would be interesting to know what the expected life of the system is. 

[firedog]

8 hours ago, 6o4o said:

Hello guys

I also own a Kii Three system since 3 years. Got it 2 repaired so far and always took 1-2 months, but otherwise love my system!

Running an Elac DS-S101G with the Kii Control via SPDIF but I am really getting tired of the Elac, it's just a pain. I have to reset it about every day or it just stops playing music and restarts after few minutes. And the updates are non existent for this Roon Essential system from Elac. 

 

So my question: looking into buying a simple NUC and install Roon ROCK on it. It only has an USB output. Any of you think it would be a bad idea to connect it to the Kii Control? I read many things about ground noise, glitches etc and to have some fancy stuff in between, but as electrical engineer a digital stream is a digital stream as long it's not so much disturbed that it becomes corrupt. So I would guess it should work as good as my system now?

Any experience with that?

I've connected a NUC to the Kii Control. I think it will be fine. The Kii isn't very sensitive to USB sources IME.

[firedog]

48 minutes ago, Emlin said:

With Bruno Putzeys as the designer, I would suggest that it has no susceptibility whatsoever to any problems with any USB source that isn't totally broken.

I think you are probably right, I just don't want to make an absolute statement about it. I haven't found that the Kii Control needs any "help" to improve the sound of the USB input. 

[firedog]

11 hours ago, simonp said:

 

I have discussed this with Bruno, he estimates that with a nuc or standard source you get 90% out of the Kii. I think that percentage is lower. I've used several sources here and they all sound different. I'm using an OpticalRendu now.

But then the question is this due to USB implementation vs optical, or some other aspect of the source? For instance are there USB sources that equal what you get with the optical?

 

I don't know how Bruno or anyone else arrives at a 90% percentage, but that seems VERY low. 

 

If I reduce the fidelity of my system by 10%, it should sound awful, not just a little worse. When I used the NUC instead of a high end streamer, I didn't hear that kind of difference. 

I think 98 or 99% is a more realistic way to put it.

And I think some people won't hear any difference. 

 

[firedog]

5 minutes ago, Rubysea said:

Last week was Kii Audio's Open House Week in their new facilities in Germany.
You could go there and visit the production location and meet the whole team. Also Bruno was there and you could talk to him.
You could get a guided tour and of course could also listen to the Kii + BXT in their new listening room.
What I found interesting is that at the end of each Kii Speaker assembly the speaker get's measured on a measuring stand by 2 microphones with a sweep (all takes around 40 sec.) and then gets a correction file for the DSP that sets every (driver) setting according to a narrow specification bandwidth (+/- 0.5 db). So basically every speaker is/sounds the same.
That stand is in the middle of one of the production halls and is run by a software/script that Bruno has specifically written to complete the task even within a "noisy" environment, so that there is no need for an expensive anechoic chamber to measure the speaker.
The speaker is put on a stand, then gets lifted up to the level of the second microphone, and measuring can begin. All is done from the desktop workplace you can see on the left within the picture.

Cool. Still haven't heard the BXT. Am afraid I will want it once I've heard it.