Article: Kii THREE Loudspeaker Review

[ednaz]

Great review! First speaker review I've read in a long time that's going to make me seek out the speakers to listen to them. My favorite speakers have a similar sound radiation pattern and philosophy - Gradient Revolutions. Cardioid tweeter and midrange, open hung woofer. I got them during a long term assignment to Singapore, where my apartment was a total nightmare of curved walls, marble or teak floors, walls of windows. I tried several speakers and they were all horrible... but the Revolutions sounded excellent. And, sounded excellent almost without paying attention to placement. (almost...) The sweet spot was also really big. In the traditional location, yeah, it was perfectly balanced left to right etc, but off axis, it was pretty much like sitting in the side sections of a concert hall versus row H center. Over and over again, over the years, I've had people explore that, without prompting... wanting to see what they sounded like HERE, and THERE, and OVER THERE.

 

When I came back to the US, these speakers performed beautifully no matter how imperfect the listening room. Yeah, they're light on bass, and don't reach very low. A subwoofer fixes that. I've gone through a few different speakers in the 15 years for other rooms in my home and studios, and I've not found many with the imaging and clarity and lack of fussiness of the Revolutions. I've got GoldenEar speakers for my home AV system, and they have some similar characteristics - an enormous amount of the energy that the speakers put out comes from side radiators, which (for me, YMMV) makes the sweet spot bigger, makes the sound stage rounder.

 

My studio system is all compromises, particularly the speakers. Your review makes me think these may work.