Kii Three Measurements

[richard12511]

The BXTs extend the cardioid response way down, the improvement using cardioid through the midrange is unsurprisingly just a clearer sound.
This was demonstrated to me when we compared the D&D8C’s ( cardioid ) and the near identical 8Ms non-cardioid.
Keith

Yeah, it seems it extends it down to 50Hz instead of the normal 80Hz(or 100Hz?)? In the 50-80Hz range, what advantages(if any) would you expect two cardioid sources at the FR and FL to have over four omni sources(same $15,000 budget) that can be placed wherever?

 

[Purité Audio]

You understand what cardioid is right?
I am sure you could get an even smoother response using a pair of subs destructively or comprehensively applying passive absorption.
Keith

 

[richard12511]

You understand what cardioid is right?

I do. 100%.

My question is more about value relative to other alternatives. The BXTs extension modules seem like a poor value to me, but again I've never directly compared them to the best alternative(4 separate omni subs and miniDSP to integrate), hence my question.

 

[Purité Audio]

Value judgements are best left to the individual, the kiis/bxt are probably the best speakers I have heard, competition would be the Beolab 90.
I am not certain I would recommend them over the standard Kii 3 unless you have a huge room and wish to play extremely loudly.
The main units are superb on their own.
Keith

 

[richard12511]

Value judgements are best left to the individual, the kiis/bxt are probably the best speakers I have heard, competition would be the Beolab 90.
I am not certain I would recommend them over the standard Kii 3 unless you have a huge room and wish to play extremely loudly.
The main units are superb on their own.
Keith

How would you compare the Kiis(no BXT) to the D&D 8C?

 

[Purité Audio]

Well.. the Kiis are a complete system, the ‘control’ is really convenient, Kii have just added PEQ so that’s useful, the 8Cs still need a ‘ ‘box’ of some kind , in terms of sound they are my two current favourite loudspeakers you would need to listen to them side by side, that’s how we have them here, you can turn the BXTs ‘off’ and then directly compare.
Keith

 

[phoenixdogfan]

Well.. the Kiis are a complete system, the ‘control’ is really convenient, Kii have just added PEQ so that’s useful, the 8Cs still need a ‘ ‘box’ of some kind , in terms of sound they are my two current favourite loudspeakers you would need to listen to them side by side, that’s how we have them here, you can turn the BXTs ‘off’ and then directly compare.
Keith

I don't think the Kiis without the BXT will play as loud as the D & Ds. Notice any difference in the quality of the electronics? D & D use Pascal modules while the Kiis are using Hypex NCores.

 

[firedog]

How valuable is cardioid bass from 50Hz to 80Hz? Is it even a guaranteed good thing? I never liked the sound of the cardioid subwoofers I've tried, but that could just be the situation. I don't have a lot of experience with them, but I've always had better results achieving smooth and consistent low and ultra low bass by use of 2-4 omni subs spread out strategically through the room. I'm looking at the BXT modules, and I'm wondering how good the value really is there. The III's themselves seem to be pretty good value, but I'm less sure of the BXTs. For $15,000, you could get 4 really nice subwoofers that have the added advantage of distributed placement potential. I guess you lose the automated integration. How valuable is that?

The cardoid sounds great - the Kiis have an amazing clarity you don't find with other setups. You could probably get some similar results with multiple subs, but that isn't cheap either, and many people don't have room for multiple subs or have other placement issues. One of the advantages of the Kiis is that they are so adaptable - you can place them almost anywhere in a room and get very good sound.

The BXT is very pricey, but like all high end audio there's a very steep diminishing returns cure - you have to pay lots of money for very small improvements, because you are already almost all the way there.

 

[Absolute]

What do you own now? What prompted you to switch? And how does what you have now compare?

I sold them because I wanted to downgrade and free up some cash aimed at buying a house. I experimented a bit with cheapo Klipsch RP160-M + dual subs and endless EQ tweaking. Got tired of the not so sweet sound and ended up with DIY JBL M2's instead. Still, for under half the price I sold the Kiis for, I still had money left over. Soundwise they are not too dissimilar tonally, actually.
I feel the M2's sound bigger because more low-end heft and the way they spray the sound, and they never get harsh. I could never get the Kiis to sound completely unstrained at high spl even with tonal adjustments via Audiolense, but the M2's never break a sweat in that regard.
There's no doubt that capacity/distortion plays its part in how we perceive

As for the cardioide, here's actual in-room measurements of the Kii vs other speakers;

Kii = Blue, M2 = Red (Right speakers in a corner - M2 with 1 Eq point at 42 hz)

Kii vs Devialet Phantom Silver- corner placement

Kii vs Klipsch RP-160m + dual subs placed next to speakers - both setups after Audiolense.

 

[Absolute]

I think it's quite clear that cardioide can't make much difference below 100 hz, whatever difference below that is because of placement differences due to different sized speakers, not the cardioide itself. Above that you start to see some effect, but in terms of audibility I'm not sure if the frequency response tells us much. Probably would be better to look at the power and distribution of the reflections in the room.
I have those also, but it's not particularly helpful unless I can find some that matches in SPL.

 

[tecnogadget]

Kii vs Klipsch RP-160m is scarefully similar. I would be very interested in the subjective similarities and differences.

 

[Absolute]

Ok, I found Klipsch vs Kii quite similar in SPL with both speakers measured at the same time after Audiolense;

They did sound quite similar after Audiolense, so much so that I first figured the audible differences came down to dispersion and reflections. Changing seats changed the sound a lot more for Klipsch. I felt I needed to sit with my head perfectly still on those.
After a while I found that I never settled quite, there was a certain audible graininess (a word?) that I could never get rid of. Probably some driver resonances even though I had manually EQ'd the Klipsch from a near-field perspective to get rid of those.

This is how they looked before and after near-field EQ averaged from 9 measurements in the listening window;

 

[SpaceMonkey]

No interest from anyone?

I was hoping someone who understands these plots better than I do, could give their opinion

Kii Three make you start thinking how to get them. Not what is good/bad, but how you can get this at home/in studio. Price/performance becomes a bit secondary.

 

[richard12511]

I think it's quite clear that cardioide can't make much difference below 100 hz, whatever difference below that is because of placement differences due to different sized speakers, not the cardioide itself. Above that you start to see some effect, but in terms of audibility I'm not sure if the frequency response tells us much. Probably would be better to look at the power and distribution of the reflections in the room.
I have those also, but it's not particularly helpful unless I can find some that matches in SPL.

Indeed, though it does seem to make a good bit of difference in the 100Hz to 150Hz range, which is similar to what I've seen from measurement's that others have posted.

 

[Absolute]

Indeed, though it does seem to make a good bit of difference in the 100Hz to 150Hz range, which is similar to what I've seen from measurement's that others have posted.

Yes, and I'm under the belief that the most important range is the one from 20-400 hz, so any benefits within that area is extremely welcome.
In the case of the M2 the results might be a little bit skewed due to the M2 being of a form that makes the distance from the side wall and front wall about the same, doubling down on the SBIR issues in that particular area.
Certainly audible and difficult to do something about in a normal living room, so I hope more speakers come with this kind of technology.

 

[dddenis]

Some years ago I did something similar with a 3-way speaker with an additional woofer on the back with inverted phase and the right amount of group delay (with a low-Q high-order passive low-pass filter) to achieve a cardioid characteristic. I am very sure that the principle the Kii relies on is the same but with active filtering. I was able to switch the cardioid in and out without significantly changing the on-axis frequency response of the speaker - and the sound did not change much with or without cardioid. I was not able to hear any change when the speaker was placed away from the walls (where speakers should be placed anyway). First of all, the most impact on perceived clarity is at high-mid and high frequencies. Clarity at low-mids is nice and I appreciate it very much but you don't hear that as easy as plunging a tweeter into a waveguide. Second is that such cardioids still have a broad characteristic. That's why the cardioid helps the most when the speaker is close to the room's front wall, see the blue .gif here. The whole cardioid thing is actually about avoiding/reducing the reflection of a near front wall which makes bad interferences at low and low-mid frequencies.
However, when the speakers are located away from front wall and side walls, the nearest borders to speakers and listener are floor and ceiling (which are unfortunately without any acoustical treatment in most cases) and the reflections occur at low angles. In this case, a MTM or WMTMW scheme can be much more beneficial for low-mid clarity than such cardioid because of the vertical spread of the drivers and the resulting destructive interferences off-axis.

I think the Kii is an extremely cool speaker and it definitely benefits from its cardioid characteristic especially in bad environments with near walls or other borders.

 

[onion]

what are the recommendations for placement regarding side and front walls?

 

[Emlin]

what are the recommendations for placement regarding side and front walls?

At least 16" to side walls and 4" to the front wall for full cardioid.

 

[Zuccinho]

Look, I'm obviously going to try and justify my purchase now but - that said - I'm rather incredulous that the Klipschs could be anywhere even close to the Kiis. I really didn't want to buy them - they were far more expensive than I ever thought I'd stretch to (even though I got them ex dem with £5k off list price) - but I demo'd them primarily because I was about to buy some ex dem Neumann 310s which I thought were superb in extension and clarity but much worse in terms of imaging than my existing Boenicke (which have the best imaging I'd heard before I bought them though, on the other hand, I understand they are inaccurate frequency-wise) and I didn't want to get upgraditis later and once I did, well, I couldn't say no. They bested the extension and accuracy of the Neumanns and added pinpoint imaging too. I've since bought a Lyngdorf amp just for Room Perfect to use with my Boenickes and a sub and it's a massive improvement but it's still not close to the straight out of the box performance of the Kiis. I appreciate all this is entirely subjective and unchecked but, in support of my position, I refer to Amir's review of Klipsch speakers vs the measurements referenced at the start of this thread.

 

[Senior NEET Engineer]

Look, I'm obviously going to try and justify my purchase now but - that said - I'm rather incredulous that the Klipschs could be anywhere even close to the Kiis. I really didn't want to buy them - they were far more expensive than I ever thought I'd stretch to (even though I got them ex dem with £5k off list price) - but I demo'd them primarily because I was about to buy some ex dem Neumann 310s which I thought were superb in extension and clarity but much worse in terms of imaging than my existing Boenicke (which, I understand, are very inaccurate frequency wise on the other hand) and I didn't want to get upgraditis later and once I did, well, I couldn't say no. They had the extension (and more) and the accuracy of the Neumanns but with pinpoint imaging too. I've since bought a Lyngdorf amp just for Room Perfect to use with my Boenickes and a sub and it's a massive improvement but it's still not close to the straight out of the box performance of the Kiis.

Are you using them near field? Some users here have experimented and found wider dispersion speakers to be preferred for living room type setups.