Another wonderful Kii THREE review from an actual user, courtesy of 'gearslutz'
End of day 1 with the Kii's. They have exceeded my expectations.
In every way they are just "right" to my ears. Hard to put into words how extraordinary that is for me.
Love the tweeter. The mids are open and detailed. You can hear into them like they are a great 3-way without being at all midrange forward. (I view the Kii's as being a 2-way+sub) Sub lows are tight and controlled and ridiculously extended. Kick drum punch at 90-110 hz is great and exactly what I would want.
Records across all era's and styles sound exactly as I have come to know them to sound. The Kii's don't impart their own sonic agenda.
Orchestral recordings are easy to hear deep into the tone of the hall. (amazing how many good speakers color the room tone and make different records sound more similar than they really are). Phase is astonishing and a bit disconcerting at first. Records that are muddy sound muddy. Harsh records sound harsh. and F'n massenburg, fillipetti, cherney, etc etc - sound amazing, as expected.
Overall Kii's are extremely neutral speakers. Beautiful to listen to.
A simple summary would be that if you are looking at speakers in this price range, they are worth the small investment in shipping costs to demo them in your room.
couple small points I'd like to add -
- don't let speaker threads induce M.I.S. (monitor insecurity syndrome).
you know what I mean. reading threads gets your mind wondering and potentially feeling uncertain of your monitors which can further lead to D.Y.M syndrome (defending your monitor syndrome) and the endless involuntary forum posting the results. If you're happy with your work flow - rock on. No new speaker is worth stressing about.
- I'm getting old and have a natural bias against DSP speakers (as well as a bias against DSP plugins, DSP guitar modeling etc etc). My preference would be for tried and true cross over designs, class A or tube amps etc. and all that is just limited thinking to be honest. Nothing matters but the resulting sound coming out of the speakers. Sure you can type in forums until your fingers fall off defending your/our biases but its really just BS.
Mixes matter. Masters matter. personal bias's ....... less so.
- there are two
paths in choosing monitors. A) pick a speaker, learn the **** out of it and get work done.
the other path - B) is the long hard quest to find a speaker that fits the way you HEAR music and maybe if lucky one that nudges you a wee bit towards better mixes.
I chose the latter path but highly recommend path A. Your bank account and spouse will both be happier.
If you are unfortunately like me and just can't stop wanting for a speaker to hear it your way, maybe the Kii's are worth considering. (And you have my deepest sympathies).
I'll be back in a few weeks after I really get working on them. Much to discuss about the remote, the latency settings (the low latency mode sounds excellent and in a way is more comfortable to listen to as its what we've all come to aurally expect from speakers instead of the hyper accurate phase of the higher latency mode).
and yeah - get the remote. Worth it to instantly toggle between the latency modes at the very least.
weenie details -
I was only listening via analog inputs. flat. No boundary tweaks. Prefer to get to know a speaker in its flat stock settings before messing with them.
and NO they don't have the soundstage of my ATC 150's or floor to ceiling towers. how could they? Some of the recent criticisms of them seem a bit ridiculous to me and a bit suspicious timing wise as Kii's are just rolling out to US dealers. If you have a giant room - then get some big @ss speakers. But if you sit in the near to mid field and are in anything like a usual size room ...... just sayin.
But I honestly recommend just being happy with your current setup and making lots of music with it. Music matters. All that matters. that said - tonight was an awesome night of just listening to music and getting lost inside the vibes. Just floating and lost. Yeah, the Kii's might be keepers.
Keith