Kii THREE versus KII THREE/BXT

[Kal Rubinson]

One thing I have noticed is Kii has a lot more dealers than Dutch & Dutch. Actually, a substantial number of dealers compared to most other high end audio manufacturers. Provided they stay on their toes, they are probably going to stay around. I am not saying D&D is bad, just that Kii is ahead of them in business development.

One reason is that Kii now has an experienced and established US distributor.

 

[Ron Texas]

One reason is that Kii now has an experienced and established US distributor.

They have more business sense than most.

 

[tomeh]

Thinking about the component cost involved in the Kii Three & BXT;
12 channels of amplification, a review of a hypex kit in this forum indicated $1,100 for 2 channels of 250 watts
So six needed = $6,600 of DIY
Six channel DSP $1250 x2= $2500.00
12 woofers/side, Morel 6" about $150x24= $3600
2 midranges $250
2 Tweeters, Morel 1 1/2" $340x2= $680
12 switch power supplies at $75= $900 x 2=$1,800

$15430 before;

DAC, Interface, wiring, extruded cabinet, hardware, assembly, programming....

Speaking from experience of putting together a playback system of;
24 midrange drivers
4 ribbon tweeters
Active crossovers with time alignment
4 Cardioid subwoofers with time alignment
Amplification of 2 channels of midrange, 2 of tweeters, four of subwoofers

The "ball park" above is close on a piecemeal basis.

 

[Frank Dernie]

putting it in BeoLab 90 street price territory

I quite fancied trying Beolab 90s but the cheapest I found here were still about double the Kii/BXT new price.
It would also need me to sell a lot of stuff I have cluttering up my room already before I could fit them in...

 

[Frank Dernie]

Thinking about the component cost involved;
12 channels of amplification, a review of a hypex kit in this forum indicated $1,100 for 2 channels of 250 watts
So six needed = $6,600 of DIY
Six channel DSP $1250 x2= $2500.00
12 woofers/side, Morel 6" about $150x24= $3600
2 midranges $250
2 Tweeters, Morel 1 1/2" $340x2= $680
12 switch power supplies at $75= $900 x 2=$1,800

$15430 before;

DAC, Interface, wiring, extruded cabinet, hardware, assembly, programming....

Speaking from experience of putting together a playback system of;
24 midrange drivers
4 ribbon tweeters
Active crossovers with time alignment
4 Cardioid subwoofers with time alignment
Amplification of 2 channels of midrange, 2 of tweeters, four of subwoofers

The "ball park" above is close on a piecemeal basis.

Indeed.
When I saw how many top of the range Scanspeak drivers B&O fit to the Beolab 90 plus the amazing tooling they have made to manufacture the inert cabinet plus 18 )I think) amplifiers I was no longer that surprised by the price. I guess the bulk of the cost of the DSP electronics will be its development man-hours and prototyping rather than the bill-of-materials though (as always).
People without manufacturing experience often complain about what they see as a ridiculous mark-up but in my small experience, in Garrard record players and via motor racing information from senior members of car companies, in these areas the BOM cost is about 10% of retail.
In small quantity production this is because the R&D, design and prototyping overhead has to be recouped over a smaller number of units and in high volume production vast sums are invested in special tooling to keep the parts cost down which has to be recuperated via the sale price.
I heard car manufacturers spend more on marketing per unit than on making the car.
About 30 years ago when a friend of mine at Lotus was in Detroit trying to sell their active suspension technology he was told that even if they reduced to cost by a factor of 10 they wouldn't use it since they alreadyt had tooling to conventional suspension and the springs cost 25c each and the dampers (wrongly often called shock absorbers, it is the springs which absorb the shocks) $1 each...
A lot of the profit comes from spares.

 

[Ron Texas]

The Beolab 90 was made to sell for $85,000. That's a bunch of money.

 

[Purité Audio]

The only person I know who has a pair, he posts here occasionally I believe, picked up a pair from the Exeter store for £37k, which is probably cost plus.
I worry that the 90 could be the last of its kind.
Keith

 

[PierreV]

I probably live in the wrong social circles, but I have never seen uber high-end gear or even high-end gear sell at list price in stores. What I heard from several brick and mortar resellers was essentially that they had to have the high end on display if they wanted to carry the rest of the line but that it essentially did not sell.

I just tour resellers at the end of the year and, if I fancy a piece of gear, expect a close to 50% discount...

 

[Kal Rubinson]

The Beolab 90 was made to sell for $85,000. That's a bunch of money.

Actually, I was told by the developers that there was no target price and they were asked for a "statement" product to mark B&O's anniversary.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi
Thing with B&O is that they are perceived as a "Lifestyle" brand by many, perhaps the majority. Something a brand such as DeVialet has managed to avoid. Their previous attempt at SOTA speakers, did not get much respect from Audiophiles.. Objectively and subjectively the Beolab 5 will wipe the floor with many audiophile darlings and entire shrine-type systems. It may not use the latest DSP techniques but darn! this is one surprisingly good sounding speaker.
I suspect the Beolab 50 to be that kind of good, it is not mentioned in discussions even here at ASR, we are focusing on the TOL
, the Beolab 90 .... with no mention or thoughts on the Beolab 50 or the 30.. All are active audio systems all you need is a source ...

 

[tomeh]

Indeed.
When I saw how many top of the range Scanspeak drivers B&O fit to the Beolab 90 plus the amazing tooling they have made to manufacture the inert cabinet plus 18 )I think) amplifiers I was no longer that surprised by the price. I guess the bulk of the cost of the DSP electronics will be its development man-hours and prototyping rather than the bill-of-materials though (as always).
People without manufacturing experience often complain about what they see as a ridiculous mark-up but in my small experience, in Garrard record players and via motor racing information from senior members of car companies, in these areas the BOM cost is about 10% of retail.
In small quantity production this is because the R&D, design and prototyping overhead has to be recouped over a smaller number of units and in high volume production vast sums are invested in special tooling to keep the parts cost down which has to be recuperated via the sale price.
I heard car manufacturers spend more on marketing per unit than on making the car.
About 30 years ago when a friend of mine at Lotus was in Detroit trying to sell their active suspension technology he was told that even if they reduced to cost by a factor of 10 they wouldn't use it since they alreadyt had tooling to conventional suspension and the springs cost 25c each and the dampers (wrongly often called shock absorbers, it is the springs which absorb the shocks) $1 each...
A lot of the profit comes from spares.

That was the estimate for the Kii Three & BXT, The Beolab 90 will be away North of this.

 

[Ron Texas]

Actually, I was told by the developers that there was no target price and they were asked for a "statement" product to mark B&O's anniversary.

I believe a lot of the real expensive stuff doesn't have a target price. When I look at photos of the Beolab 90 it reminds me of the aliens in HP Lovecraft's "Beyond the Mountains of Madness". They are so organic.

 

[HammerSandwich]

Thinking about the component cost involved in the Kii Three & BXT...

The Seas DXT tweeter is $75. Pretty sure the woofers are SBS-160F35 at $20 each. So, that should help them a bit, and not to slag on Kii. IMO, their pricing is sensible when considering the competition & potential customers, even if some of the raw components aren't expensive.

They've also left significant room for cheaper models. For example, the woofers need only 2 channels of DACs & amps, not 1 per driver. Buying performance with electronics implies that they'll be able to trickle down to more affordable products more easily than if they'd used expensive components in a traditional design. Good electronics get cheaper over time; good drivers cost more.

 

[Ron Texas]

The Seas DXT tweeter is $75. Pretty sure the woofers are SBS-160F35 at $20 each. So, that should help them a bit, and not to slag on Kii. IMO, their pricing is sensible when considering the competition & potential customers, even if some of the raw components aren't expensive.

They've also left significant room for cheaper models. For example, the woofers need only 2 channels of DACs & amps, not 1 per driver. Buying performance with electronics implies that they'll be able to trickle down to more affordable products more easily than if they'd used expensive components in a traditional design. Good electronics get cheaper over time; good drivers cost more.

If they can get the price down to $5,000 with the main compromise being a few DB lower maximum output and solid bass to 40 hz instead of 20hz, I might be in their order book.

 

[Purité Audio]

The Seas DXT tweeter is $75. Pretty sure the woofers are SBS-160F35 at $20 each. So, that should help them a bit, and not to slag on Kii. IMO, their pricing is sensible when considering the competition & potential customers, even if some of the raw components aren't expensive.

They've also left significant room for cheaper models. For example, the woofers need only 2 channels of DACs & amps, not 1 per driver. Buying performance with electronics implies that they'll be able to trickle down to more affordable products more easily than if they'd used expensive components in a traditional design. Good electronics get cheaper over time; good drivers cost more.

The overall implementation is far more important than individual drivers, we had the ATC 50’s here with their legendary dome mid, but the speaker was congested and ill defined compared to the Kiis, as well as being larger,m 8Cs more expensive, more difficult to site less bass extension etc.
Keith

 

[tomeh]

The overall implementation is far more important than individual drivers, we had the ATC 50’s here with their legendary dome mid, but the speaker was congested and ill defined compared to the Kiis, as well as being larger,m 8Cs more expensive, more difficult to site less bass extension etc.
Keith

Thanks for the relative observations Keith. I had a set of ATC SMC19's in the studio once and liked their balance and imaging. I didn't play them loud enough to run into compression and I didn't notice any congestion as such but the price point was around $4,000 Canadian. It's great that you could compare their big brothers next to the Kii Three's and 8c's.

 

[hvbias]

Hi
Thing with B&O is that they are perceived as a "Lifestyle" brand by many, perhaps the majority. Something a brand such as DeVialet has managed to avoid. Their previous attempt at SOTA speakers, did not get much respect from Audiophiles.. Objectively and subjectively the Beolab 5 will wipe the floor with many audiophile darlings and entire shrine-type systems. It may not use the latest DSP techniques but darn! this is one surprisingly good sounding speaker.
I suspect the Beolab 50 to be that kind of good, it is not mentioned in discussions even here at ASR, we are focusing on the TOL
, the Beolab 90 .... with no mention or thoughts on the Beolab 50 or the 30.. All are active audio systems all you need is a source ...

Amir co-founded Whats Best Forum, you think we're going to be discussing the lower in the lineup speakers here

 

[HammerSandwich]

The overall implementation is far more important than individual drivers...

Absolutely!

 

[Absolute]

I've not seen any in-room measurements that will help me decide whether or not BXT could be beneficial for me and my Kiis. The things I would be looking for in measurements would be a smoother response in the upper bass/lower midrange, a smoother group delay due to less room-induced reflections, differences in the impulse-response graph and also differences in distortion.

Keith, you've been promising measurements to show the differences with and without BXT, can you send me the mdat.file from REW if you have measured?

 

[Purité Audio]

Whereabouts are you Absolute, you really need to hear and measure them in your own room.
Keith