Future Sound of Audio

[Thomas savage]

Yea that would be great, as would seeing how well the kii three really handles being put in non optimal areas.. There are so many setting on them, I can imagen its very possible to get a bad experience if one was to set them up wrong.

Are you just experimenting on your own Keith or did you have to be taught by Bruno/ kii three rep?

 

[Purité Audio]

There is really nothing to learn Thomas, on the rear of the speaker there are two small dials, the 'boundary' dial is marked ,free space, wall and corner and their are incremental adjustments between each.
I placed the speaker in a position most convenient for me ,ie in the corners ,listened to the 'free field' setting way too much bass, dialled in wall ,much better ,turned to corner and that was perfect. If you have one side of your room 'open' you can adjust the speaker on that side to balance the sound you can do this by ear.
If you like more bass ,just turn the dial.
The second dial is 'contour ' which allows you the choice of sixteen tailored responses, boost,flat and cut and then within those, soft,air flat cut and boost.
You can choose to have more. ass less treble, flat with more treble etc etc.
They are really plug and play.
Keith.

 

[Thomas savage]

With all those settings I would be stuck indoors getting it wrong for eternity

Is there a function that applies autocorrect rather than user correct via the multiple settings?

 

[Purité Audio]

Everything is clearly marked , Bruno says he included the 'contour' filters to give audiophiles something to fiddle with ,in an otherwise entirely fiddle free system.
Keith.

 

[Sal1950]

Well indeed, but until I get to hear them, other people's opinions are of great interest to me. Would measurements be able to tell us what it is like to watch an IMAX film, for example? The measurements are readily available, but I don't think they could tell you what it was going to be like.

The unfortunate truth in today's High End audio market is that new products are released to the print and web media with great fanfare and also equal amounts of money spent on advertising with said media. The results of the reviewed listening tests posted have been bought and paid for with a wink-wink between manufacturer and reviewer. This is then followed up by the "me too" mentality of those who pray at the alter of that particular medias reviewing guru. They sit up like trained seals clapping their fins and agreeing to the "thousand veils lifted" reported in the review..
In the end you have vary little of value in posted opinions from which to gain any insight into a products sound. It didn't use to be so, in the 70-80s we had some honest, reliable people around to look to but sadly those days are gone.
From the mainstream media only Atkinson's measurements of speakers may lent themselves of value.

 

[Cosmik]

The unfortunate truth in today's High End audio market is that new products are released to the print and web media with great fanfare and also equal amounts of money spent on advertising with said media. The results of the reviewed listening tests posted have been bought and paid for with a wink-wink between manufacturer and reviewer. This is then followed up by the "me too" mentality of those who pray at the alter of that particular medias reviewing guru. They sit up like trained seals clapping their fins and agreeing to the "thousand veils lifted" reported in the review..
In the end you have vary little of value in posted opinions from which to gain any insight into a products sound. It didn't use to be so, in the 70-80s we had some honest, reliable people around to look to but sadly those days are gone.
From the mainstream media only Atkinson's measurements of speakers may lent themselves of value.

I would agree if these speakers were just another variant on two drivers in a box with a crappy passive crossover (don't care what make of caps - all passive crossovers are crap, relatively speaking). But they have something new that measurements don't really have a handle on. We could give the measurements for a Bugatti Veyron, but without having driven one or its equal (it doesn't have an equal), none of us could imagine what it's like. Jeremy Clarkson drove it, and I seem to recall him saying that it collapsed the journey into just the corners - this car is unbelievably fast *and* quiet and smooth. I believe him, and I liked his description because it gave me some inkling of the weirdness of something that is outside the usual 'envelope'. It could be the same with these speakers, so Keith's subjective descriptions are really interesting to me.

 

[Purité Audio]

Audio magazine is I believe well respected in Germany, this is the English language version of their Kii THREE
review.

http://kii.audio/phocadownload/AUDIO_09_15_Kii_THREE_web_english.pdf

Keith

 

[Sal1950]

It could be the same with these speakers, so Keith's subjective descriptions are really interesting to me.

Absolutely, I have no disagreement with anything in your post. The speaker market looks to be on the verge of a minor revolution. But it will be interesting to see how well today's audiophiles accept this new tech. I think there will be a lot of feet dragging on the grounds they won't be easily swayed to give up all the toys in the middle of the chain that they can play with and argue over. Whatever will happen with their $100k worth of cabling. LOL

 

[Sal1950]

Just a quick addition, I wonder how well the print and web media will get behind this new tech? If it was to take over a good section of the high end community, again there could potentially be a lot of lost sales for the component and wire manufacturers. Interesting times.

 

[RayDunzl]

Some measurements in the English translation... I'd still like to see in-room since I figure those may not be.

Distortion - the pink line is 1% on the red trace (-40dB):

If I'm measuring my speakers correctly, and roughly matching the SPL of the red line (which is really loud) I don't see 1% until I get down to 60Hz (instead of 450 above), and from 100Hz on up is about .5% or much lower.

At 5kHz, the end of the measurement above, I show .25%



Steady tones measure less than that, as the sweep (and I used the quickest) causes higher distortion values to be recorded.

Here's a calculator to convert decibels to percent distortion and vice-versa:

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-thd.htm
.

 

[RayDunzl]

Looking at that Distortion graph a little more... Distortion is 70% at 40Hz? Fundamental 98dB and distortion at 95dB?

My system (as bad as it is) measures 3.57%.

Once again, and here in a new post, I have to ask:

What's the deal?

Straighten me out!

 

[dallasjustice]

Looking at that Distortion graph a little more... Distortion is 70% at 40Hz? Fundamental 98dB and distortion at 95dB?

My system (as bad as it is) measures 3.57%.

Once again, and here in a new post, I have to ask:

What's the deal?

Straighten me out!

Baby sized woofers DSP'd down 20hz. You do the math!

 

[Cosmik]

That would be disappointing because (according to Linkwitz)

DSP is used to... reduce driver distortion by deriving feedback control from the voice coil currents of drivers

Are we sure this isn't an artefact of the output of the main and supplementary drivers being used to change directivity?

Anyone know what the distortion is of the Beolab 90s?

 

[Thomas savage]

I still want to hear them for myself .. Those measurments seem to derail the hype train

No wonder they were being kept under wraps

 

[RayDunzl]

Low frequency harmonic distortion can be pretty high in level before it becomes objectionable, or even noticable.

Example: http://www.axiomaudio.com/distortion#

Also, REW has a newish option to play with distortion levels on its sine wave generator, if you want to experiment.

 

[Purité Audio]

Where did the 'pink' line come from Ray not on the original graph?
Audio's conclusion,
Quote,
The Kii Three fulfils several long har- boured wishes.The loudness re- serve is more than ample, in spite of the compact design.The ability to adapt to the room’s acoustics and the enormous bass capabil- ity make many famous speakers including massive floorstanders look decidedly tired. Combine this abnormal transparency and effort- lessness and few eyes remain dry. The digitally produced bass car- dioid and the DSP control aimed at maximum fidelity is nothing less than a stroke of genius. Why hasn’t anyone done this before?

Keith

 

[RayDunzl]

Where did the 'pink' line come from Ray not on the original graph?

1% harmonic distortion means there are unwanted tones produced in addition to the signal at 40dB below the fundamental. That's the pink line - demarcation of 1% level based on the highest output SPL. More or less.

1% is arbitrary, and fits on the graph, as in "Let's see where 1% falls"...

Wiki:

Total harmonic distortion (THD)

Music material contains distinct tones, and some kinds of distortion involve spurious tones at double or triple the frequencies of those tones. Such harmonically related distortion is called harmonic distortion. For high fidelity, this is usually expected to be < 1% for electronic devices; mechanical elements such as loudspeakers usually have inescapable higher levels. Low distortion is relatively easy to achieve in electronics with use of negative feedback, but the use of high levels of feedback in this manner has been the topic of much controversy among audiophiles.[citation needed] Essentially all loudspeakers produce more distortion than electronics, and 1–5% distortion is not unheard of at moderately loud listening levels. Human ears are less sensitive to distortion in the bass frequencies, and levels are usually expected to be under 10% at loud playback. Distortion that creates only even-order harmonics for a sine wave input is sometimes considered less bothersome than odd-order distortion.

 

[Thomas savage]

Keith have you got some measurments of the kii three that indicate exceptional performance? I am sure there is some..

That's what we need here rather than countering poor measured performance with rhetoric from subjective reviews..

That's the polar opposite to what we do, if we Are going down that road we might as well not bother and all rejoin WBF.

 

[Purité Audio]

Have you read the review ,towards the bottom the panel of measurements, on and off axis response , waterfall , step response etc?
Keith

 

[Sal1950]

The Kii Three fulfils several long har- boured wishes.The loudness re- serve is more than ample, in spite of the compact design.The ability to adapt to the room’s acoustics and the enormous bass capabil- ity make many famous speakers including massive floorstanders look decidedly tired.

Keith,
I'm sure these are wonderful sounding speakers but I do wonder how well they would stand up against something like the Revel Salon2s or the JBL M2 and like for there ability to present that loudness reserve and unrestrained dynamics. That ability to throw out a realistic wave front?