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Kii THREE versus KII THREE/BXT

Absolute

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70-80 dB at 3,5 meters is way too low spl to look at distortion. Have you checked your ambient noise curve?
If you want to see the distortion of the speaker itself, measure it at 1m 95-100dB.
You should not even try to eq sharp high-Q "dips" in response, they come from nulling of direct/reflected wavefronts.
Thanks for the heads up, but I wasn't specifically looking for bass distortion with those measurements since we have anechoic measurements of Kii Three with distortion at different loudness-levels. See here;
kii distortion.png



My intention was to demonstrate the performance question about bass extension with the Kii Three alone in a real room since it's so heavily debated.
The rated 20 hz with two speakers in a normal smallish room doesn't seem to be a problem up to the point of being way too loud for comfort, but there's some cause for concern regarding capacity if you demand very high bass quality at somewhat loud levels or very high spl.

The ambient noise levels are around 40-45 dB below 100hz and about 30-35 dB above that. REW has a nice function that grays out the harmonics that are masked by the noise, but you can see that the 2nd and 3rd harmonics are quite audible even at or a little below the noise.

Regarding EQ, Audiolense is left in charge of everything as of now, but it's very configurable and it might be possible to set it up so that you can avoid whatever it is that concerns you. Having read a few technical discussions about what is and isn't possible with EQ where the creator of Audiolense participated on a different forum, I decided that he knows alot more about the mathematical and psychoacoustical matters than I do - and have therefore not concerned myself with it yet.

I can see that I'm running out of headroom in the speakers around the upper bass/lower mid, as expected from the anechoic measurements, and are planning to install a poor man's version of the BXT to help out.
 

Absolute

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I did find a poor man's version of BXT, but did it work? The subs were a bit bigger than anticipated, so I placed them next to the Kiis instead of under them. Some might have seen this on another forum, but it doesn't hurt anybody to see it one more time;

20190822_230300.jpg
Internet_20190827_091209_2.jpeg.jpg
Internet_20190827_091209_1.jpeg.jpg


Preliminary measurements indicate that it certainly worked as intended when crossed over at 200 hz. I had to move the speakers a bit to make room for the woofs, so it's not measured in the exact same spot on the same day. I'll probably have to measure it back-to-back to get exact enough answers for this particular forum, but I think I have backed up my initial hypothesis sufficiently enough to post these results as it is.
 

Sal1950

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Preliminary measurements indicate that it certainly worked as intended when crossed over at 200 hz. I
Curious as to what led you to that crossover fq, it's seems a bit high at first glance?
 

Cosmik

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The wooden listening floor again. I can imagine the sound of that room. Fits my theory that audiophiles may often be talking to each other about completely different listening experiences. Go back to the 1970s and most people had lovely, sound-absorbing carpet from wall to wall. Like I have now.
 

Absolute

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Curious as to what led you to that crossover fq, it's seems a bit high at first glance?
Yes, I use them as bass speakers, not subs. Quite intentional in order to combat the huge dips in that frequency region and to test out the concept of a poor man's BXT. The cabinets are damped sufficiently to use these scan-speak 26w/4558T00 elements higher than one would think.
https://www.audioxpress.com/article...covery-26w-4558t00-10-aluminum-cone-subwoofer

"Figure 11 has the on- and off-axis frequency response at 0°, 15°, 30°, and 45°. With respect to the on-axis curve, -3dB at 30° occurs at 1.0kHz, so a cross point anywhere below that frequency should be fine. "

The wooden listening floor again. I can imagine the sound of that room. Fits my theory that audiophiles may often be talking to each other about completely different listening experiences. Go back to the 1970s and most people had lovely, sound-absorbing carpet from wall to wall. Like I have now.
Well, I turned your unsanitary solution upside-down and made the whole ceiling absorptive instead. Before that, my room was probably worse than your imagination. Now it's comfortable and I like the sound. Here's the other interesting metrics;

waterfall.jpg

impulse.jpg
rt60.jpg


If anything, it's a bit too dead. But I like it.
 

Sal1950

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Well, I turned your unsanitary solution upside-down and made the whole ceiling absorptive instead
The old "live end / dead end" approach returns with a new twist. ;)
 

Juhazi

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I have lately made diy 4 and 3-way speakers with floor-level downfire woofers, LR2 xo at 180 or 300Hz, and measured those. High xo with shallow slopes helps really a lot to mix/spread/smooth wall/floor bounce effects (first order) and also higher order reflections in range of 100-400Hz, just below Schröder limit. A cardiod woofer effect is somewhat similar. Woofers are a stereo pair, which is also a big difference to typical mono subwoofer(s).

Multisub works only below 100Hz typically. This kind of effect is also different from using just eq to smooth the response at one spot in the room.
 
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ReaderZ

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On the bass capacity issue and sudden change of specs, see clip below from an old manual found on the internet.

The old manual says 20 Hz. Now it’s 30 Hz.

Om December 7th 2015, a Gearslutz user wrote:

«WOW!! I don't think there is a speaker this small that is flat down to 20Hz, with near perfect time alignment, and with tolerance for wall placement. These seem like THE perfect speaker. I have to try them».
Source: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/showpost.php?p=11528425&postcount=30



View attachment 23867

Would love to see sound and recording measure this... Or amirm.
 

tomeh

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OMG this is ridiculous. You havent proven anything. Did you read the bit about the measurement standard?

Just to demonstrate. Same speaker measurement. This is in room so ignore the slope after 1kHz and the issue I had with under 30Hz (although it demonstrates clearly how variations are smoothed out with psychoacoustic (ERB) type of corrections.)

No smoothing:
30dB variation

View attachment 23844

1/12 octave 8dB
View attachment 23845


Psycho 4dB
View attachment 23847


ERB 3dB
View attachment 23846

Psycho and ERB are possibly most representative of how we perceive.
1. Yep. Spot on.

It points to no such thing. Your speculation has no basis and I am not sure you realise how you are coming across.

Whatever your clear beef is with Kii, I see little justification.
2. He seems to have a stiffy on for them all right.
My guess is that whilst they could correct the low frequency response to the limits they initially claimed, they subsequently realised that this equalisation would possibly over tax the drivers/amps and lead to too high distortion.
3. Yes, yes, yes. You know practically how fast this takes up huge amounts of power/energy and hits physical limits of drivers.
To liken this to the BS we have seen elsewhere is daft.
4. Yes again.

The smart way this company has used previously explored ideas while integrating todays tech to effect the way a loudspeaker in a positive way and lowering the effects of the physical environment is audible. And it is positive even in a cheap hotel room where I listened to them. I like what they have done and as many in the "real world" of budgets and performance/versus dollar value have done, I have weighed it and I still can't justify them. But if I had the budget they would be in my studio, my living room and my dining room.

Thank you for your most practical input, March Audio.

CHeers,

Tom eh
 

tomeh

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Well I'm pulling the trigger and ordering a set.

The three's for now and I'll use my existing 4 sub's with a time delay to match below 34hz and shoulder the last bit of bass.

I'm starting to take pictures tomorrow for ads on the equipment they will replace.

It's a fairly large stack for trying to do the same idea, piece by piece. And it's been a ton of time over 10 years.
External; DSP's, Amplifiers, Preamp, cables, multiple speaker cabinets....

It's going to be a lot neater in the old studio.

:)
 

firedog

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Very interested to see what you think when you get them set up.
 

firedog

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Would love to see sound and recording measure this... Or amirm.

This is the latest from Kii:
Frequency response:
± 0,5dB - 25 kHz;
30Hz -3dB (20Hz -6dB) (*)

This seems pretty much in line with various measurements that have been posted.

I believe they have made some small adjustments in the performace thru SW since the introduction.
As I've noted, In my setup I'm getting significant bass down to 10hz, and with DRC can acheive flat response from 20k-20Khz.
 
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Hayabusa

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I did find a poor man's version of BXT, but did it work? The subs were a bit bigger than anticipated, so I placed them next to the Kiis instead of under them. Some might have seen this on another forum, but it doesn't hurt anybody to see it one more time;

View attachment 32665View attachment 32666View attachment 32667

Preliminary measurements indicate that it certainly worked as intended when crossed over at 200 hz. I had to move the speakers a bit to make room for the woofs, so it's not measured in the exact same spot on the same day. I'll probably have to measure it back-to-back to get exact enough answers for this particular forum, but I think I have backed up my initial hypothesis sufficiently enough to post these results as it is.

A bit weird that adding the subs also reduces distortion between 200-500 Hz... What LP slope did you use?
 

Absolute

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A bit weird that adding the subs also reduces distortion between 200-500 Hz... What LP slope did you use?
Not surprising, really. The Kiis were room-corrected with Audiolense and as a result a rather large SBIR (floor) dip around 200-250 hz were compensated by close to 10 dB. Add in the fact one speaker playing and measured from nearly 4 meters/12 feet, you're approaching the limits of the driver as the output would be close to the red line in the graph here;

kii distortion.png


In comparison the subs, having two drivers and one of them close to the ground have no issues with a floor dip and doesn't need the compensation - and even if it did, the dual 10 " woofers would have far more capacity than the Kii's that probably sees a little reduction in capacity around that area due to the cardioide pattern.

The crossover was probably 18 or 24 dB/oct on the subs during those measurements, but can't remember.
 

tomeh

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To add to Absolute's great observations, when we look at the graph it's easy to forget it's log scale and the power requirement to get to thoses SPL's as the frequency goes down is pretty well the same slope as the lower red curve.

It's huge, so power limits are reached, physical limits are reached, and distortion climbs as observed. The extra 6db of room reinenforcement (if you can put them on the floor and against the wall) really helps offset the power requirement and therefore the distortion.

I use four distributed subs with four large amps and bring them in at 151hz to keep the balance of; lower distortion, room eveness (hundreds of simualtions run with tweaks after measurement in the best positions), and of course flatness at the listening position. This is in a 36 x 21 x 9 feet room (11m x 6.4m x 2.74m).
 

tomeh

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Very interested to see what you think when you get them set up.
Well I hvae been living with them in the studio for a couple of months and I'm still blown away every day. I started out with the Three's by themselves, measured, utilized the built-in filters for fine tuning, and started using them.

I was right in the middle of mixing a project and after listening to each song, I reset and started over. Extreme? No, I was rewarded by the Kii Three's clarity in every area. Sound field positioning, EQ's, spectral balance, room (recording room) ambience and insert neutrality (or not) were clear. Getting to a position twice as good in half the time was rewarding. The same could be said for the next level of refinement. After a suitable time out to refresh and reset the ears and brain, these 2nd level tweaks were just a pleasure.

Two days after all the mixes were complete, Mastering started and it was such a pleasure that I felt that I could master another complete project before calling it a day.

I next integrated my four subs after measuring the real delay. If my memory is good that was around 84.7 ms. I brought them in at 24hz with a shallow slope and measureed for time alignment and FR <30 hz. It is extreme as I have never recorded, mixed or mastered a Pipe organ but I could now and be 100% confident in the sub-music air pumping area. :)

I revisited the Mastering work before sending it off and it was exactly the same. Double Bass is such a delight now and the project didn't have any 60 foot pipe organs in the project either. ;-)

There is only one negative that I have found. If I'm doing the lowly jobs like tear downs, room clean up, back ups, string changes etc., and I play some music for my own enjoyment, I find myself stopping and listening so much thatI have to turn it off.

It also takes longer to get rid of musicians listening to mixes and masters. They are blown away.

I said it before and I'll say it again, if I was a rich person, I'd own three sets of Kii Three's. One in the studio and two at home.

Best regards.

Stay well everyone

Tom eh
 

SoundsGood

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Well I hvae been living with them in the studio for a couple of months and I'm still blown away every day. I started out with the Three's by themselves, measured, utilized the built-in filters for fine tuning, and started using them.

I was right in the middle of mixing a project and after listening to each song, I reset and started over. Extreme? No, I was rewarded by the Kii Three's clarity in every area. Sound field positioning, EQ's, spectral balance, room (recording room) ambience and insert neutrality (or not) were clear. Getting to a position twice as good in half the time was rewarding. The same could be said for the next level of refinement. After a suitable time out to refresh and reset the ears and brain, these 2nd level tweaks were just a pleasure.

Two days after all the mixes were complete, Mastering started and it was such a pleasure that I felt that I could master another complete project before calling it a day.

I next integrated my four subs after measuring the real delay. If my memory is good that was around 84.7 ms. I brought them in at 24hz with a shallow slope and measureed for time alignment and FR <30 hz. It is extreme as I have never recorded, mixed or mastered a Pipe organ but I could now and be 100% confident in the sub-music air pumping area. :)

I revisited the Mastering work before sending it off and it was exactly the same. Double Bass is such a delight now and the project didn't have any 60 foot pipe organs in the project either. ;-)

There is only one negative that I have found. If I'm doing the lowly jobs like tear downs, room clean up, back ups, string changes etc., and I play some music for my own enjoyment, I find myself stopping and listening so much thatI have to turn it off.

It also takes longer to get rid of musicians listening to mixes and masters. They are blown away.

I said it before and I'll say it again, if I was a rich person, I'd own three sets of Kii Three's. One in the studio and two at home.

Best regards.

Stay well everyone

Tom eh
Tom,

I had my Kii Threes for two years and like you was also blown away with their performance. I just added the BXTs and was not prepared for the transformation. Not just more bass but the Kii Three is set free - better dynamics, headroom, detail, less distortion. The bass is the best I have ever experienced - not at all like adding a sub. It is effortless, smooth, bottomless. The line array does the trick. Sweeps with REQ show bass down to 10 Hz and a straight line all the way across with 1/6 octave smoothing, untreated. Best audio money I ever spent.
 

judgespear

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I'm selling my Kii BXT Set, which includes:

2 x Kii Three
2 x Kii BXT
1 x Kii Control

The Kii Threes are from Q4 2019, the BXTs from Q4 2020, so only 4 months old. Everything is in mint condition. If you have any questions PM me. Worldwide shipping possible. Price 26K US $ instead of 36K.
 

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fredoamigo

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