Article: Kii THREE Loudspeaker Review

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I have been test playing Kii 3 for some weeks now and they are very good speakers indeed.  The bass is adequate but not top notch though. Better results can be achieved with distributed subs (Geddes) or dipole (Linkwitz) bass. Linkwitz claims superiority of dipole over cardioid patterns in rooms. The vocals are very good but somewhat forward. When compared to good planars/dipoles they sound like a mono source sitting fixed between the two speakers. Also the musical space is restricted between the two boxes, you do not get the feeling of a live performance in your room.* The Kiis seem to be very good monitors for near/mid field listening in the sweet spot. Not so for a bigger audience sitting unrestricted. They otften underimpress in public presentations. Kii Control improved things ergonomics-wise but it needs the ethernet cable. When you place the Control away from your seat you have no feedback on the listening volume setting. I tested DEQX with some good speakers and compared with Kii in front of several golden ears and the jury is out. DEQX advantage is much lower latency (max 20 ms vs Kii 90ms) which means the time coherence magic is preserved for movies and live/tracking applications. 

* Chesky Records Ultimate Demo disc has a drums solo that shows Kii’s limitations comparing to some really good time coherent setups which don’t even use DSP.

 

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"Reasonable price"? Depends on the reasoning. Kiis with Control are 15k, with presumably "impactful " Kii BXT bass  - 30k. My tested DEQX setups were cheaper

"Contained"? Yes. But you trade wires at the amp for power, ethernet and signal cables elsewhere.

"Small"?-  70 pounds/pair without stands ( BXTs another 100 or so pounds). 

"Convenient"? Active, DSPed, tech-fidgety  tuning, even with Control-- depends on the definition of convenient. Not for the average Joe LeAudio who wants to power his sources.  

Haven't heard about any studios  going crazy about them either, and it's been some years...

 

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DEQX is 4-5 k depending on model. The balance 10k can buy a match for Kiis.

I think a talented DIY designer could put together a matching setup for 15k too.

Home music producers buying 15k monitors? Wow.

I am not putting down the Kiis. I just dont’t think they are the best universal audio system ever - in that price range. 

 

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That’s not what I meant. One of the most useful interface features of any amp is to see, not only hear, the current  volume level . Apple remote won’t tell you that.

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SonS mentions 4 alternative brands in the same category. I am basically saying the same thing: Kiis are good but not the end of audio history.

 

 

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According to HiFi News review the internal sampling frequency is 93.75 kHz.

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Make sure the output is LPCM stereo and not bitstream surround.

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DSD is 64x or 128x 44,1kHz. 

44100,  48000 and  93750 divided by 147,   160 and 312.5 (respectively) give 300.

To establish internal sampling at  93750  the master central clock must be scaled down

to exactly 12Mhz (eg Analog Devices https://wiki.analog.com/resources/tools-software/sigmastudio/usingsigmastudio/samplingrateconsiderations#setting_non-standard_software_sample_rates )

Perhaps some DSP engineer can put it together and tell us what/if is going on.

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https://www.grimmaudio.com/site/assets/files/1088/speakers.pdf

 

5.2 Clock

The clock circuit is the same as that used in the CC1 except that the sampling rate is set to 93.75kHz instead of one of the more traditional audio rates. This is specifi- cally done to improve the performance of the SRC chip. An uncommon clock frequency reduces the odds that mix products between the incoming clock and the internal clock fall inside the PLL loop bandwidth of the SRC.