Musician Knight I (V2) Speaker Review

[testp]

with bookselves i like a little bit of bizazze or flare, with floorstanders not so much

 

[Multicore]

So, basically, take the aesthetic & engineering priorities of Ascilab and invert them.

Knight Audio: 75% looks, 25% sound
Ascilab: 25% looks, 75% sound

Also, being a bassist who’s owned a bird's eye maple bass and seen a million of ’em, that not only looks like a very cheap grade of the veneer, but they appear to have stained it a nasty shade of yellow.

Take a look at what Kiesel Guitars, Warmoth and Ibanez do to figured maple:
kieselguitars.com
warmoth.com
ibanez.com

View attachment 526864

View attachment 526876

View attachment 526878

Everything from natural to multiple dye finishes look stunning compared to this box.

I’m unimpressed.

I think those Kiesel's look even worse than the speaker. Maple is a lovely-looking wood in its natural color. That traffic light amber of the loudspeaker is dreadful. The crazy color dyes and fades on figured maple on guitars is usually grotesque, and that includes PRS.

 

[dark132]

This price point is unlikely to be very popular in China unless it directly competes with rivals in the $3,000 price range. I checked online shop, and it only has a few units sold.

 

[capslock]

Design: fugly!

Performance: meh

 

[Herbert Shooler]

Sounds like it woul go well with the Chord Dave and Mscaler,fancy looks poor value for money in terms of sound.

 

[SuicideSquid]

Also, being a bassist who’s owned a bird's eye maple bass and seen a million of ’em, that not only looks like a very cheap grade of the veneer, but they appear to have stained it a nasty shade of yellow.

It's likely not stained at all, just finished with amber-tinted polyurethane. I'm also not the biggest fan of the super-high-gloss thick poly over B-grade burl look of this. I build electric guitars and it's not at all hard to find much, much nicer figuring, and my preference is to finish with either satin or a thinner gloss poly. IMO the really thick poly finish, even though it's a lot of work, can paradoxically look cheap.

 

[tineared]

I'm going to buy 5 of them and set up a surround system in my garden

 

[Hiten]

This price point is unlikely to be very popular in China unless it directly competes with rivals in the $3,000 price range. I checked online shop, and it only has a few units sold.

I would hazard a guess, but i think price in China would be significantly lower.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Voted “not terrible” as there could be worse audio sins than this one commits.

 

[Ruhled]

If SpongeBob Squarepants were a loudspeaker. Hideous.

 

[PristineSound]

Given the response on the look, I think it's fair to say, sales of this speaker would unlikely hit target?

 

[Pareto Pragmatic]

Ever wonder why so many speakers are black, white, or walnut? The reactions here go a long way to explain why that might be.

As for the speakers, I would not have them, but I applaud them doing something different color wise. I like options.

Not those options, which I would think twice about if the speakers measured well. But if they had dark green and measured in a way I could tolerate.....

 

[kyuu]

Ever wonder why so many speakers are black, white, or walnut? The reactions here go a long way to explain why that might be.

Let's not pretend that the only options are traditionally bland or some hideous, ultra-glossy, yellow-dyed birdseye maple finish.

 

[dark132]

I would hazard a guess, but i think price in China would be significantly lower.

It's not exactly cheap in china, around $1250. At that price point, I would definitely choose JBL.

 

[CB89]

An orange ring around the mid-bass driver might salvage the aesthetics.
The measured values, however, are unfortunately far from ideal and hardly acceptable.

Perhaps V3 will be a happy sponge.

 

[French Meloman]

This test is particularly interesting because it shows frankly poor results for the price asked in the absence of equalization and connection to a subwoofer. On the other hand, the performance scores calculated by Mailky76 show a very noticeable improvement. Under these conditions, these speakers cannot be considered completely bad.
Nevertheless, personally, I think that speakers should be able to produce at least a halfway decent sound without equalization and a subwoofer, especially at such a price.
The "not great" panther must have gone on vacation, unless it is as sick as Amir, to whom I wish a speedy recovery!

 

[xanalog]

Bruh, really? Com'on bro, you keep this up, I just might have to vote you as Time magazine' man with the most awful taste of the year award.

If my mate sees this review, she'd want to swap-out her KEF LSX-IIs for a pair!
Ironically enough, she does not like mustard but collects rubber-duckies!

 

[Redman43]

Like many others in thread I am not fan of the colour. If it was darker then it would look amazing..
But a speaker must sound good too and this one needs more work. I'll vote "not terrible" and just like Amir hope they go for version 3.

 

[HighFutility]

Measurements aside, how does one veneer something with so many curved panels without any visible seams? It looks like 1 uniform piece, but veneer can't wrap like that, can it?

Im giving it an A++ for finishing. There are many high-end speakers that measure and look worse for much, much more money.

 

[SnakeLord]

Am i missing something or how are those China made rather bad 2-way speakers worth asking 1900$ for a pair? Those arnt made out of gold, whats going on?

I mean you can already get for the same price German or Danish manufactured speakers from Canton or Dynaudio for example, some well made US and Korea products where the production costs is like factor x10-20. Or if you stick to China manufactured but rather good performing KEF R3 meta within similar price range.
It just makes no sense.