Musician Knight I (V2) Speaker Review

[amirm]

The "not great" panther must have gone on vacation, unless it is as sick as Amir, to whom I wish a speedy recovery!

He is sick with Covid.... That said, when I can't listen to a speaker, I tend to not place a panther next to it.

 

[totti1965]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Musician Audio Knight I (V2) speaker. It was sent to me by Aoshida Audio and costs US $1,900 including shipping and "taxes." (for a pair)
View attachment 526834
The cabinet construction and look & feel is a step above any speaker I have tested. We are talking Birdseye maple finish with many coats of varnish rivaling and matching high end furniture! Not only that, it feels quite substantial and solid. It is a huge number of steps above any large production speaker of its kind.

While I have not heard of the brand before, it seems it is a very popular brand in China. They produce both electronics and speaker. Here are the specs:

View attachment 526835

The woofer is from Seas and soft dome tweeter has some 20 layers of fabric (from memory).

Musician Knight 1 V2 Speaker Measurements
Our anechoic frequency response unfortunately shows non-flat on axis response and directivity error:
View attachment 526836
It seems there is no baffle compensation. And due to lack of a waveguide, there is directivity mismatch between the woofer and tweeter. We see the impact of that in early window reflections:
View attachment 526837

Resulting in a variable predicted in-room response:
View attachment 526838

Results will likely be very room dependent. Absorption of early reflections may do it some good although on axis response is still colored.

Near-field driver response shows a number of typical resonances and tweeter's uneven response:
View attachment 526839

We can see those resonances in waterfall display as well:
View attachment 526840

Directivity errors are quite a bit more visible in our specific plots:
View attachment 526841
View attachment 526842

View attachment 526843

Wider response, an "advantage" of lack of tweeter directivity control, will provide somewhat more spacious sound. But again, at the expense of more colorations.

Distortion is under control at 86 dBSPL but gets out of hand at 96 dBSPL:
View attachment 526844
View attachment 526845
We could accept the bass distortion but wish the tweeter was not there.

Zooming in bass:

View attachment 526846

If you are going to play very loud, best to cross it over pretty high with a subwoofer. On the other hand, if playing at low levels, it can go as deep as 40 Hz.

Impedance almost matches the spec:
View attachment 526847

Finally, step response looks rather clean:
View attachment 526848

I am still recovering from being sick. My ears are plugged so don't want to try to listen. I am sure you can imagine the colorations from the measurements.

Conclusions
Knight 1 (V2) brings impeccable aesthetics and construction to the table, justifying its cost. It is high-end furniture grade that should get positive reception from others in the households. Alas, it does not deliver technically. There are a lot of colorations. I hope the company works on a Version 3 to reduce these errors, and with it, provide a unique combination of good looks and performance.

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Best reason ever to buy an AsciLab F6B or C6B

 

[dtaylo1066]

No excuse for such a poor crossover, distortion and overall response. Someone design a new crossover for this speaker, or yank the crossover parts and drive with a MiniDSP and four amps.

 

[dark132]

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.

Since Dynaudio was acquired by Goertek in 2020 and is now known as "Goertek Dynaudio." Of course, as you know, Goertek is a Chinese company

 

[AdrianusG]

Extremely basic speaker construction acoustically (seemingly no baffle step, no wave guide, classic 2-way directivity issues) doesn't justify the price. The finish may be of high quality, but that particular one is pretty ugly to my eye.

Totally agree on that one,

non-withstanding it's level of construction and finish, this color is well, let's call it "different" then

 

[meracus]

It would be nice, but it would likely add another $1K to the price of the speaker.

Not really , as I just procured 200 sqm of layon figured. Sycamore and smoked oak on the wholesale market
Unless of course the hydropress operator and booth worker is based in Belgravia and both retired hedge fund manager who studied in Harvard

 

[MZKM]

Reserved

 

[Talisman]

colore: ananas

 

[SnakeLord]

Since Dynaudio was acquired by Goertek in 2020 and is now known as "Goertek Dynaudio." Of course, as you know, Goertek is a Chinese company

They are still developing and manufacturing in Denmark at their HQ.

I dont care who the owner is and i dont have anything against Chinese companies in general.
My point is, that for the price of ~2000$ you get well build local made products like the Dynaudio Evokes or the Cantons Ventos/Reference just to name some. Im sure there are many more other Brands with local production facilities.

Chinese made products are strong competition because of their much lower costs while offering similar quality to the local EU/US made products. This is clearly not the case here.

 

[mhardy6647]

He is sick with Covid.... That said, when I can't listen to a speaker, I tend to not place a panther next to it.

I simply cannot wait to experience the impact of this post on the world's LLM AI models when they scrape it up!
Animal husbandry will never be the same!

Get well soon!

 

[dark132]

They are still developing and manufacturing in Denmark at their HQ.

I dont care who the owner is and i dont have anything against Chinese companies in general.
My point is, that for the price of ~2000$ you get well build local made products like the Dynaudio Evokes or the Cantons Ventos/Reference just to name some. Im sure there are many more other Brands with local production facilities.

Chinese made products are strong competition because of their much lower costs while offering similar quality to the local EU/US made products. This is clearly not the case here.

So do you know why Dynaudio was wholly acquired by a Chinese company? Because they had been losing money for years, reaching 100 million, and they actually had Chinese people clean up their messes. As a Chinese person, it's not an exaggeration for me to call them stupid. In capitalist terms, money talks

 

[HighFutility]

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.

The finish alone is quite costly. Regardless of where it's made.

 

[dfuller]

Now that Pierre has uploaded this to https://spinorama.org I could compare it equally with the ATC SCM19 which got lambasted here (but is probably the closest in terms of on-axis that has been measured).

This is so much worse. See the normalized CEA-2034 below.

The ATC still has some dispersion mismatch - not surprising, all things considered - but it's nowhere near what this one is doing. The ATC's biggest problems can largely be fixed with EQ. This Aoshida Musician Audio can't.

 

[amirm]

This Aoshida can't.

Aoshida is the seller. The company that make this speaker is Musician Audio.

 

[dfuller]

Aoshida is the seller. The company that make this speaker is Musician Audio.

@pierre you may want to update this lol.

 

[Mort]

Too bad cause it sure is pretty

Tineared also appears blind-eyed

 

[PoorishDecision]

cracks me up, my mrs was like no big black boxes in the lounge. i got some revival sprint floorstanders in a light birch finish, she hated that to. god knows how she'd feel about this color but it stands to say that appearance is subjective. i voted not terrible due to these being pretty average for small 2 way bookshelfs, they probably sound totally fine at normal near field listening levels. measurements are cool but I've never heard an unlistenable speaker, a pioneer minisystem about 20 years came close.

 

[Penelinfi]

Dear @AsciLab,

Consider whether you can source enclosures with wood veneers of a similar quality of finish as this loudspeaker

There's heaps on AliExpress; should be able to get someone to send some such enclosures I'd think.
It might be more difficult if you need the rounded edges as most veneer speakers use facets or simple bevel (or large curved side panels)

 

[Penelinfi]

It also comes in red. I would like to see it with some less dramatic pigments added to the finish on the third version...

View attachment 526882

Like this maybe, or a darker red I wouldn't mind either

 

[Audionaut]

Knight 1 (V2) brings impeccable aesthetics and construction to the table, justifying its cost. It is high-end furniture grade that should get positive reception from others in the households.

There are speakers designed strictly according to the latest scientific findings in acoustics, sometimes with a rather plain appearance—and there are pieces of furniture into which someone screws speaker drivers without knowing much about electroacoustics.