Kii/8C PSI shootout at Kore Studios

[restorer-john]

Actually, here's a better shot of the 'thought-bubble'- even lower than I thought. Maybe it's a 'diffuser'??

And what's with the router bit tear out and corner burn on the 'port'? These are promo shots. Hasn't anyone heard of photoshop?

 

[Thomas savage]

I would say in one tenth of that time (<7years), pretty much all these flavor-of-the-month, fly-by-night, one-trick-pony companies will be long gone.

Support will be non-existant along with any spare parts.

I mean look at this picture:

View attachment 18315

Magical wireless speakers are they? Guaranteed that speaker will be knocked the floor in no time, especially when Bozo here falls off the end of his half-missing sofa, stands up, and hits his head on the 'thought-bubble' hanging way too low and blocking the door.

Hey, I've got a mint copy of Thriller I bought in 1982, long before that guy was even a twinkle in his father's eye. I should sell it to him for a few hundred.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/30/mic...ry-still-all-time-best-seller.html?yptr=yahoo

I think there’s another 8c lurking behind that back destroying torture device but it has a black face..

it’s not a lifestyle product but we are going to market it like a lifestyle product, can’t blame them I guess.

 

[Purité Audio]

Please don't be silly. I'm sure they are fantastic sounding speakers.
But as I've said a number of times, these "greatest thing since sliced bread, all else is gaslight, etc, etc" pronouncements come and go every so often in audio. I guarantee very soon it will be something else.
As a dealer I expect you to bang these drums, that's how you make a living selling these things.
Now your currently dumping your last run of fav speakers ( Cessaaro Horns) at greatly reduced prices to get out of them now that your love for them has tempered.
So be a man and take honest comments on the situation with dignity.
Or do you think 70+ years from now folks will still be talking about the Kii 3 and 8c the way they are here about Klipsch Heritage speakers?

Perhaps it is difficult for you to distinguish between bullshit and actual advancements in engineering?
Selling the Cessaro horns because I have been ‘kicked off’ no point in having speakers you can no longer sell, that is just business.
Who on earth can foresee the future, I only have one life I want to enjoy the best possible sound quality while I am still alive.
It is a little odd that a few progressive European companies have taken Toole/Olive’s research and are acting upon it, while the US manufacturers appear content to make yet another version of a 90 year old design, but it is what it is.
Keith

 

[Thomas savage]

Well those 90 year old designs are what sells in the biggest audio market, it’s supply and demand . It’s unhelpful to try and make this a Europe vs America debate, no clue why your insisting on doing that Keith ,,, oh wait I know , your just trying to wind Sal up.

The kii and the 8c seem perfect for the European market , possibly japan too as their listening rooms tend to be small but they are hung up on those ‘American’ designs. No need to get all bitter and bitchy about it.

 

[Purité Audio]

Because over the years Thomas I feel that is Sal’s and other old American guys agenda, when he says I ‘wouldn’t call the 8C a low bass speaker’ kinda stupid.
Keith

 

[Thomas savage]

Because over the years Thomas I feel that is Sal’s and other old American guys agenda, when he says I ‘wouldn’t call the 8C a low bass speaker’ kinda stupid.
Keith

Well there can be a tendency to ‘over claim’ , it irritates folks Keith and then they react in kind but it’s your job to champion what you sell and I know you only sell what you believe in just don’t expect everyone to jump on your latest find with your type of enthusiasm and at some point members can tire when they see kii or 8c shoehorned into every thread.

It’s a shame actually as as you say both companies are using audio science and are meaningfully undertaking the challenges of audio using engineering in a very practical and useful way ( for our market place) so maybe contemplating your approach rather than just assuming folks have some ‘ agenda ‘ might be useful in smoothing over some of the passive aggressive exchanges that often develop.

I’d probably been far far far better off with a pair of 8c’s for ten grand rather than a huge ton of gear costing many times more and I believe most folks in the uk with typical domestic environments would be too. Hopefully I will get to listen to them at some point.

These marketing pictures are kinda ridiculous but then they are typical of the way speakers are shown in magazines advertising etc. Old Geezers will take a cynical veiw of them lol

 

[Wombat]

It is a shame that so much R&D was required to reduce the height of the speaker in order to make space for the stand.

 

[Sal1950]

It’s unhelpful to try and make this a Europe vs America debate, no clue why your insisting on doing that Keith ,,, oh wait I know , your just trying to wind Sal up.

Thomas, that's all he's got to counter with. Make it about something else besides the facts.

Because over the years Thomas I feel that is Sal’s and other old American guys agenda, when he says I ‘wouldn’t call the 8C a low bass speaker’ kinda stupid.

Really? That's why Kii already added the BXT low bass module and even money says D&D won't be far behind.
You can't change the laws of physics.
Now we're getting close to a "low bass" speaker but still lacking the in-room response leveling feature with the positioning flexibility of multiple sub woofers.

Frequency response: 20Hz (-3dB) – 25kHz, flatness ± 0,5dB (*)

 

[Purité Audio]

Sal, read Mitch Barnett’s review of the 8Cs with measurements.
I do find it odd that on a forum called ‘audio science review’ two speakers which actually push the boundaries of what is currently achievable are lambasted.
Obviously the old men criticising them have never heard them and probably never will, but if you could hear them at home it would be instantly obvious that they simply have tighter extended bass and greater resolution than any other loudspeaker ( Beolab 90’s excluded), not bullshit just fine engineering.
I am sure that the Klipsch Heresy was considered a very fine loudspeaker seventy years ago.
Keith

 

[Sal1950]

Actually, here's a better shot of the 'thought-bubble'- even lower than I thought. Maybe it's a 'diffuser'??

"Thought-bubble"?
Interesting that it's without content.
Telling ???

 

[andreasmaaan]

IMHO, with an F3 point below 30Hz it’s fair to call the 8C a low-bass speaker.

I agree that these two companies may not likely be around many decades from now. But the designs themselves are SOTA at present. And as with any “full-range” speaker, nothing stops one from adding multiple subs.

 

[Dialectic]

I'm late to this excitement. My observations:

• The 8Cs do low bass.
• I wasn't crazy about the promotional shots, either.
• In speaker design, the Beolab 90s, Kiis and 8Cs together represent the biggest step forward in loudspeaker design in my lifetime.

 

[hvbias]

Please don't be silly. I'm sure they are fantastic sounding speakers.
But as I've said a number of times, these "greatest thing since sliced bread, all else is gaslight, etc, etc" pronouncements come and go every so often in audio. I guarantee very soon it will be something else.
As a dealer I expect you to bang these drums, that's how you make a living selling these things.
Now your currently dumping your last run of fav speakers ( Cessaaro Horns) at greatly reduced prices to get out of them now that your love for them has tempered.
So be a man and take honest comments on the situation with dignity.
Or do you think 70+ years from now folks will still be talking about the Kii 3 and 8c the way they are here about Klipsch Heritage speakers?

I highly doubt they will specifically be talking about Kii/D&D in 70+ years, but DSP crossover speakers are the future. So I imagine this movement shift in general should be remembered. Will it be remembered? I doubt it because people these days do not care as much about fidelity as the days of Quads, PWK era Klipsch, etc.

Those proclamations about the greatest thing since sliced bread were made by audiophiles often proclaiming dubious things. These are objectively designed/measuring speakers that the likes of Toole and Olive have written many papers on, so for those of us that want objective high fidelity these are really exciting times

To me this is more than just some nonsense like "time smearing MQA" that audiophiles proclaim as "greatest thing since sliced bread"

-exceptional directivity index
-ability to correct for problematic rooms with bass to quite a great extent (can't betray physics altogether, but you can work with it)- impossible with passive crossovers, unless you have a dedicated room with a ton of money in room treatments, subwoofers and active electronics
-perfectly time aligned drivers- will never reach this level of perfection with passive crossovers

Now I do share your guys concerns about companies like Kii and D&D being around for a long time and this is one reason why I am waiting to see who else releases such products; these are basically speakers with a networked computer in a box. If the JBL M2 wasn't so hideous looking that would be another speaker I would be considering, but I personally don't want a couple of fridge looking speakers with mediocre finish in my living room. And the Kii and D&D are more advanced in their bass mode correction than the M2.

 

[watchnerd]

I would say in one tenth of that time (<7years), pretty much all these flavor-of-the-month, fly-by-night, one-trick-pony companies will be long gone.

Support will be non-existant along with any spare parts.

I mean look at this picture:

View attachment 18315

Magical wireless speakers are they? Guaranteed that speaker will be knocked the floor in no time, especially when Bozo here falls off the end of his half-missing sofa, stands up, and hits his head on the 'thought-bubble' hanging way too low and blocking the door.

Hey, I've got a mint copy of Thriller I bought in 1982, long before that guy was even a twinkle in his father's eye. I should sell it to him for a few hundred.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/30/mic...ry-still-all-time-best-seller.html?yptr=yahoo

Ageist comments aside, what I find particularly ironic is that using a vinyl source with with these speakers is more of a PITA than it should be.

Unless you have a wireless turntable, which this guy probably does.

 

[Ron Texas]

FWIW, What HiFi did not give the Kii's 5 stars. The felt the sound was too analytical (my summary). What's the best way to connect these technological wonders as they don't have USB?

 

[watchnerd]

IIf the JBL M2 wasn't so hideous looking that would be another speaker I would be considering, but I personally don't want a couple of fridge looking speakers with mediocre finish in my living room..

Ditto, plus the need to use use amplification specifically from Crown, instead of just building it in like the JBL Pro 7-series does. If JBL made an active, home version of the 4367 with DSP, I'd be all over it.

The Dynaudio Focus series is tempting but a) I'd rather have the better drivers from the Contour series b) it has no Roon integration.

As for the Klipsch heritage series.....they do some things amazingly well, but the irony for this thread is that deep bass (relative to their size) isn't one of them. The Klipschorn has a -4 dB (such a little cheat to not use -3 dB) point of 33 Hz. Which is plenty deep, but given the gargantuan size of the thing, you can do better.

The La Scala has a -4 dB point of 51 Hz. My stand mount 2 ways go deeper than that, albeit at SPLs that top out at 95ish dB before getting compressed, as opposed to the 105+ dB of the La Scala. But in my home, just how loud do I need it to go?

So, like most horns, as beautiful as they look, you're paying a hefty price in terms of size and bass extension for all that sensitivity, which is pointless unless you're using tube amps.

As for the Kii / D&D:

I'm not convinced I can't do better by taking something like a very good two way stand mount like I have (Dynaudio Contour 20) and just adding 2 very good subwoofers, plus DSP room EQ.

This would give more flexibility in terms of placement and configuration.

 

[hvbias]

I'm not convinced I can't do better by taking something like a very good two way stand mount like I have (Dynaudio Contour 20) and just adding 2 very good subwoofers, plus DSP room EQ.

This would give more flexibility in terms of placement and configuration.

With something like Acourate or Audiolense you probably can. You might need more than just two subwoofers depending on your room.

I'm going to be going the Acourate or Audiolense route for my main man cave setup, but I didn't include using either of those software in my above reply as this stuff is really enthusiast level fiddling. ie you can see just how time consuming Acourate can be with this review. And I read through all of Mitch's DSP book and it was not a light read, though it was exceptionally well written.

The other thing is I don't know of any audiophile brand speakers that measure as well as D&D directivity wise besides maybe Vivid Giya. I personally think you should have a great set of acoustically engineered speakers before digital correction should be used.

Last I heard @Bjorn was working with Don Keele on some CBT line arrays, I bet those will be really good too.

 

[watchnerd]

It is a little odd that a few progressive European companies have taken Toole/Olive’s research and are acting upon it, while the US manufacturers appear content to make yet another version of a 90 year old design, but it is what it is.
Keith

Stop being a jingoist a-hole who doesn't know what he's talking about. The American audio scene does not consist entirely of speaker makers building the audio equivalent of Harley-Davidson.

Barefoot Sound is an American pro audio company with a bigger product line either Kii or D&D and uses pretty much the same design principles, and their amplification is also built using Hypex in collaboration with Bruno.

They also feature monitor emulation (e.g. emulate a Yamaha NS-10) via DSP

The difference is that they haven't courted the hifi press like Kii / D&D, but they're strong at pro audio shows.

 

[Purité Audio]

Ageist comments aside, what I find particularly ironic is that using a vinyl source with with these speakers is more of a PITA than it should be.

Unless you have a wireless turntable, which this guy probably does.

The 8Cs can accept an analogue input they don’t have RIAA so you will need a phono stage.
Keith

 

[maverickronin]

Or do you think 70+ years from now folks will still be talking about the Kii 3 and 8c the way they are here about Klipsch Heritage speakers?

Given that you have to control the 8C with a phone app it probably won't even be usable in 10 years...