Kii 3 Response

Brucemck2

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May 10, 2010
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Recently acquired a pair of Kii 3s with a Control unit for a room with nowhere to place speakers except deeply into the corners. They're exceedingly transparent, with bass that's incredible (down into the mid-twenties with vigor) given their size. Here's the frequency response after using Acourate to tame two bass peaks and create a downward sloping target curve. I haven't yet really dialed in Acourate for this room, but early results are pretty promising:

Screenshot (2).jpg
 
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Diapason

Well-Known Member
Mar 26, 2014
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I'm still intrigued by these speakers, I definitely think they (or something like them) will be the way forward for me when I'm willing to dip my toe back into the audiophile pool.
 

marty

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Apr 20, 2010
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Very interesting. It is rare indeed to see an actual frequency response in these pages. Just as an FYI, I superimposed the "ideal" B&K response at the listening position with the one you obtained. Congratulations. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that your setup provides a very satisfactory listening experience based on this aspect alone. https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/17-197.pdf

overlay 2.jpg
 

DSkip

Industry Expert
Aug 26, 2013
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www.audiothesis.com
Very interesting. It is rare indeed to see an actual frequency response in these pages. Just as an FYI, I superimposed the "ideal" B&K response at the listening position with the one you obtained. Congratulations. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that your setup provides a very satisfactory listening experience based on this aspect alone. https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/17-197.pdf

Off topic, but I'm digging the chairs in the first picture of the attached link. I think I might be a little late in acquiring a pair though.
 

hvbias

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Jun 22, 2012
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If you weren't creating a target curve does Acourate provide any benefit? Shouldn't the Kii Three's various DSP settings be sufficient?

How do you like them so far, and are these your primary speakers? Thanks.
 

Brucemck2

Member Sponsor
May 10, 2010
426
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Houston area
If you weren't creating a target curve does Acourate provide any benefit? Shouldn't the Kii Three's various DSP settings be sufficient?

How do you like them so far, and are these your primary speakers? Thanks.

The various DSP settings help quite a bit. They are in a far from optimal room, so the DSPs are set for corner placement rather than free-field placement. That helps the low end response considerably, but the room is still lousy at the low end. There is a sharp 12db peak around 36hz that's making the low end appear overly high in the 1/6th smoothing picture I posted. Acourate already helped there, a LOT, but I still need to insert a notch filter to tame that. Still, very impressive low end response for such small speakers! If that notch filter doesn't work I will try to integrate the two subs in the room that I use for home theater applications.

Given the lousy room, Acourate helps at the margin to get a similar response across the two speakers through the lower midrange (90 to 200 hz or so) too. My target curve is still way "too hot" from around 150hz and below. That's my next series of iterations, and I'm likely to get a lot closer to the curve Marty superimposed.

These are my primary speakers in this condo, which is a second home where I'm not able to have a great purpose-built room or hide a large number of audio components and cabling. I like the Kii+Control quite a bit in this setting. I am using the XLR analog inputs on the back of the speakers to integrate them into the theater chain (my AV processor applies bass management to integrate them with my two subs, and, applies Dirac for room correction) and they image so nicely that I don't need to use a center channel. For two channel use I feed the Control unit via a tricked out USB chain with Roon and HQ Player upstream and can control the volume right from the knob on the Control unit itself. They also have a nice, small, "modern" footprint which is a huge plus in my Wife's "modernist pretty spaces condo"! They sit directly on a credenza and we drilled holes for the Shunyata Sigma power cords, XLR cables, and Ethernet connections to be nearly invisible. All in definitely a non-Audiophile modern look.

The speakers are incredibly resolving and transparent, which is both a plus and a minus. On great recordings they are really incredible. On lousy recordings they are insufferable -- you hear all the compressors used to drive up volume and drive down dynamic range and easily hear when multiple parties recorded their components in different environments that were later mixed together. I'm considering feeding them via a DAC with a nice 300B tube buffer in the chain, but will have to figure out how to do that and keep them integrated into my theater chain.
 
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inputusernamehere

Well-Known Member
Feb 15, 2016
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Washington DC
Certainly no trolling here! But I do disagree with part of your assessment, Brucemck2. I also own a pair too and I think that they are exceedingly good on well-recorded music, but I do not find them excessively poor on not so good recordings (which, if I'm to be honest, make up the majority of my listening). Oh, yes, you can certainly hear all of the compression and other, assorted nastiness of poor recordings, but I've found that simply judicious use of the volume control can restore listen-ability and even enjoy-ability to these not-so-good recordings. Indeed, when listening volume-limited, I've been enjoying some albums that I'd ling since written off (I'm currently listening to an abysmally-recorded Husky Rescue album as I write this) and am just floored at how lyrics that I thought were forever burred in the fuzz of an excessive noise floor and terrible mic'ing technique are now crystal clear and easily discerned. With the Kii's, following walking baselines, parsing percussion subtleties, etc. are all so much easier (and enjoyable) now than ever before, especially on poor recordings. It's actually pretty great.

Do they make bad recording sound like good recordings? Oh no, not at all!!! But I think the impression that they are from the bad-old days of "ruthlessly revealing" is unfair. I listen to well-recorded (think Sheffield, Linn, etc.) recordings at about 90 on the CONTROL and then turn it down to 75 - 80 for poor/mass mkt. recordings. While I can still certainly hear the compression limiters kick in, for example, I don't find it a "insufferable" experience at all, quite the contrary.

BTW, Good luck in Houston with the weather, some things are (MUCH!) more important than audiophilia.
 
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Marcel073

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Oct 29, 2018
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Hi @Brucemck2

I found this thread via a Google search on the use of the Kii Three in a Home Theatre setting.
Apparently that is what you have done.

Sorry for the late reply ...

First and foremost I would like to point out that I would like the best of two worlds, i.e. a proper 2-ch for stereo and a proper multi-ch setup for movies and multi-ch music. The room dimensions (in meters) are: L x W x H = 6,00 x 3,85 x 2,68.

Browsing the web for many hours I currently have two scenario's:

Scenario 1 - Using separate components
This could look like using a Mola-Mola Tambaqui (which is a high-end DAC plus a Roon endpoint) and feed this into two Mola-Mola Kaluga mono block power amps. The power amps would feed the "main speakers", i.e. speakers that will be used for the 2-ch music listening and as Front Left and Right in a multi-channel setting.
As a HT pre-amp / processor I'm looking at Trinnov Altitude16 and the soon to be launched Emotica RMC 1. Assuming these have HT bypass I would use the bypass when in 2-ch setup. In movie or multi-channel music I would use the DACs that reside in the Trinnov or Emotiva.
Main speakers I'm currently looking at are the Kaya 45 from Vivid Audio (I've heard them with the M-M gear) and the Boenicke W11. Obviously I still need to sort out the Centre, Surround Left and Right, Atmos and sub(s). It could be Emotiva too. All speakers except the FL and FR will be driven by a decent multi-ch power amp. This could be the NAD M27 or one of the Emotiva models.
The HT setup will be a 5.x.4; x = number of subs, still to be decided.

Scenario 2 - Using less separate components and include powered speakers
This would include decent powered speakers for 2-ch music listening such as the Kii Three or the Dutch & Dutch 8c. Both get rave reviews and seems that the difference is merely a matter of personal taste. Admittedly, though I live in the Netherlands I have not yet heard a demo of the D&D 8c ... The Kii Three I heard and I was impressed.

Reading your thread I saw that you use the Kii Three in a HT setting.

I would like to understand how that works.

Would the setup be as follows?

Kii Three as FL and FR which replaces also the Mola-Mola Tambaqui DAC and M-M Kaluga power amps in scenario 1.
Then I still need a power amp that drives all other speakers and a surround sound processor.

Would it also be possible to use powered speakers as Surround Left and Right (or would that be overkill?) in combination with passive speakers for the center and atmos channels?

Is a (or more) sub still required?
Or could one extend the Kii Three with the BXT module?

I would appreciate your feedback on the use of the Kii Three - or powered speakers in general - in a HT setup.
Any general feedback on both scenario's is also welcomed.

Thanks,
Marcel
 

Kal Rubinson

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May 4, 2010
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You can use powered speakers anywhere in place of a conventional amp and speakers. The only issue arises when you are using powered speakers with built-in DSP, like the Kii Three and the D&D 8c, which add considerable delays to the sound processing. With those, you will need to add audio delay in the other channels to match what the DSP speakers insert and to add video delay to synch sound with image.
 

Marcel073

New Member
Oct 29, 2018
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Hi Kal,

Thanks for your reply.

I read about the 80 ms or so of delay the Kii apparently have, but they do have a low latency mode too. I'm not sure how low that is, but let's assume it is 20 ms.

Do you know if SSP's such as the Emotiva with its Dirac correction or Trinnov with its own correction system can correct/compensate for this?

I guess for the audio signal it would not be a problem, but how about video?
(my source is an Oppo 205 or downloaded / streamed signal)

Thanks,
Marcel
 

Kal Rubinson

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May 4, 2010
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I read about the 80 ms or so of delay the Kii apparently have, but they do have a low latency mode too. I'm not sure how low that is, but let's assume it is 20 ms.
Yes but there is an attendant decrease in audio performance.

Do you know if SSP's such as the Emotiva with its Dirac correction or Trinnov with its own correction system can correct/compensate for this?

I guess for the audio signal it would not be a problem, but how about video?
You would have to consult Emotiva and/or Trinnov.
 

morricab

Well-Known Member
Apr 25, 2014
9,391
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Switzerland
Very interesting. It is rare indeed to see an actual frequency response in these pages. Just as an FYI, I superimposed the "ideal" B&K response at the listening position with the one you obtained. Congratulations. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that your setup provides a very satisfactory listening experience based on this aspect alone. https://www.bksv.com/media/doc/17-197.pdf

View attachment 34527


Again, another example of how psychoacoustics matters when designing the "perfect" response. Most speaker manufacturers would cringe if their speaker measured with such a slope...
 

JackD201

WBF Founding Member
Apr 20, 2010
12,308
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Manila, Philippines
They would cringe if these were anechoic measurements. These are not. Pull out your phone app, put on some pink noise and see more or less what your inroom measurements look like. For kicks now put on music, set response to slow and see what you get on your system.
 

damic

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Apr 27, 2014
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From Gearslutz

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/high-end/1048540-kii-three-have-you-heard-them-49.html
 

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