Another Kii THREE thread.

[Purité Audio]

I did, Kii didn’t like it though!
Keith

 

[c1ferrari]

Well that's a bummer that you've been dropped you as a stockist, because you've obviously done a great deal to get people interested in the monitor.

I was thinking the other day that the problem with many of these new speakers especially one that has proprietary parts, is that down the road when something eventually fails or gets broken, will there be the support to get it fixed?

Experience has told me you might be left with something difficult too repair or un-repairable. If you look at what has happened with the Opal monitors, you can't get them repaired, yet Opal is owned by RODE mics, a pretty big company. Same goes for Dynaudio, eventually they gave me a new pair of monitors because of all the hassle i had, but what if your monitors fail after 5 years and your unable to get a simple part to repair it?
This is where ATC still has an advantage i feel.

Some excellent rationale, here. I do harbor concern regarding the parts count in the Kii THREE and the likelihood of field repair vs returning the unit.
Should one be in the pro field this may be a paramount issue.

 

[Tony L]

Sure. But if you can describe and understand something, you can also measure it (and vice versa). If something sounds tiny and compressed, it is due to nonlinearity of some sort, so either measuring distortion or resultant air pressure variation as a function of input power should show it.

The problem is people don’t do any of this. The most one ever sees is a simple response plot in an unknown room. Far less use than even the anechoic measurements of the 1960s and 70s, which were at least of some interest. I’ve seen nothing in a magazine that would explain via plot, graph etc why a huge horn with 15” bass sounds so inherently different (bigger, easier, freer, more alive etc) to say a little ported or transmission-line slim floorstander or whatever that may actually go a little deeper on paper.

I did, Kii didn’t like it though!

I don’t blame them in the slightest! Plots with no scale markings and huge great troughs and peaks do them few favours.

 

[Ayya Khema]

I don’t blame them in the slightest! Plots with no scale markings and huge great troughs and peaks do them few favours.

seriously, those measurements are a insult to Kii

 

[Jonboi]

A loudspeaker would be distorting massively before you would ever hear any distortion from the amplifier driving it...

Note: assuming the amp and speaker were correctly matched.



No active hifi speaker will ever be as dynamic as a horn speaker, or provide better dynamic contrasts, or scale, or resolution.

If an amplifier momentarily clips on music peaks, you can most certainly hear the distortion - but that also assumes 'regular' passive speakers with around 84 - 86db sensitivity and not the 105db of the La-Scalas.

There would appear to be few absolutes in HiFi when it comes to subjective sound 'impressions', so I'm not sure about your second statement.

The' impedance' match to the air is always better with a horn than a conventional speaker to be sure, hence the sense of immediacy, scale, resolution and dynamic contrasts you get with them.

But on the other hand, active speakers don't have the well known deleterious effects of passive crossovers either, so a bit of a swings and roundabouts situation perhaps.

If I had been in a position to compare these different speakers side by side, level matched and blind in the same room, with the same amplification, cables and music, that might tell a different tale to the one that I observed and have commented upon.

However my observations are taken from a Hifi show and as such are subjective impressions of the sound that I heard as stated.

Cheers

 

[Purité Audio]

The problem is people don’t do any of this. The most one ever sees is a simple response plot in an unknown room. Far less use than even the anechoic measurements of the 1960s and 70s, which were at least of some interest. I’ve seen nothing in a magazine that would explain via plot, graph etc why a huge horn with 15” bass sounds so inherently different (bigger, easier, freer, more alive etc) to say a little ported or transmission-line slim floorstander or whatever that may actually go a little deeper on paper.



I don’t blame them in the slightest! Plots with no scale markings and huge great troughs and peaks do them few favours.

On the contrary their measurements were excellent as were those of the 8Cs See ‘Kii killers’ on my blog.
Reading before commenting is always sensible.
Keith

 

[jamjar784]

The problem is people don’t do any of this. The most one ever sees is a simple response plot in an unknown room. Far less use than even the anechoic measurements of the 1960s and 70s, which were at least of some interest. I’ve seen nothing in a magazine that would explain via plot, graph etc why a huge horn with 15” bass sounds so inherently different (bigger, easier, freer, more alive etc) to say a little ported or transmission-line slim floorstander or whatever that may actually go a little deeper on paper.



I don’t blame them in the slightest! Plots with no scale markings and huge great troughs and peaks do them few favours.

Keith seems to have posted more info on https://hifiwigwam.com/forum/topic/121470-dutch-dutch-8c-measurements/?page=3 so it looks like the vertical scale is 10dB per division.

As much as frequency plots can tell how a speaker sounds (not much but can indicate problem regions of the spectrum to listen to IMO) Keith's plots show the Kii 3 and D&D 8C to be remarkably similar. They both have a node at 210Hz, much worse on the 8C at -27dB. It appears that room acoustics predominate, except that the Dutch & Dutch 8C roll off more above 10KHz. This could be due to the speaker equalisation selected by Keith?

However he also shows a plot of 'traditional actives' (ATC?) measured in the same position as the Kii's /8C. These have a level response 40Hz to 5KHz but with 6 large resonances +14dB to -21dB, a big roll off above that, and -8dB below 40Hz. Strangely the 210Hz node is missing??? Was some furniture/speakers removed from the room?

So in broad terms the plots suggest the Kii's /8C have a 'more level' response than his 'traditional actives', but none of these measurements would convince me to upgrade. I'd expect to see resonances on home brew in room frequency plots, hopefully flatter anechoic measurements by independent labs, and more trustworthy. Speaker manufacturers seem reluctant to publish any data on frequency or distortion as I'm sure it would frighten us off.

An audition is much better than more waffling on ...

 

[Tony L]

There is getting on for 30db between 150Hz and 210Hz! I can understand Bruno not being a fan of that! I also commented at the time that the camera pictures cropping off the db scale was dubious in the extreme - if this was a 2db scale it would be excellent, but it isn’t, yet you have to really hunt around to figure out what it is. It is a measurement taken in what looks like a bad sounding room, one full of other speakers etc. It really is not good at all! I did politely point this out at the time!

 

[Purité Audio]

The narrow dip is almost certainly a discreet reflection/cancellation, for a domestic room they are excellent measurements as ‘Jamjar ‘ states if you compare these to traditional well respected active loudspeakers .
I am measuring again this morning looking particularly at the distortion figures.
Keith

 

[Tony L]

Come off it! Bass extension aside they are no better than I’m getting from a 1961 valve amp and inexpensive late-70s sealed-box mini-monitors!

PS Note the 5db scale, i.e. twice the resolution of Keith’s! Note that I published it too!

 

[Purité Audio]

Bass aside, rolling off at 60 Hz, do you have any speakers with bass?
Keith

 

[h.g.]

Good to see measurements but we lack a bit of info in order to interpret. If the speakers were positioned close to the wall as shown in the photo then the frequency of the dip suggests it is the cancellation from the front wall. The other likely candidate is floor/ceiling bounce but we need to know the microphone distance for that.

If it is the front wall reflection then that would be interesting information about the difference in passive vs active cardioid implementations. A passive treatment is much cheaper (less drivers, amps, dsp,...) but it has a narrower frequency range over which it may work well. The directivity measurements shown on the Dutch and Dutch web site look good compared to typical directivities from other cardioid speakers (but note they have indulged in a bit of marketing by rolling off the bass!).

Good stuff Keith and lets have a bit more information to get a discussion going. Who knows we may even get one or two starting to make an effort to understand what the squiggles tell us instead of slagging it off.

 

[Purité Audio]

H yes point taken I will add all the parameters in the upcoming article.
The Dutch&Dutch enjoy being placed close to the wall behind them you can adjust their response for the rear and side walls from their app.
I have them now 50cm from the rear wall although they could go to 10cm, sitting in an equilateral triangle with the microphone placed at my listening position .
I will compare to traditional active monitors placed in the same positions.
Keith

 

[GT]

If an amplifier momentarily clips on music peaks, you can most certainly hear the distortion.

Unless the amplifier is grossly underpowered for your speakers, or unless you are playing your music at disco levels it is highly unlikely in a domestic situation you would ever hear the amplifier clip. It is much more likely that if you are hearing distortion, it will be coming from the speaker itself.

But on the other hand, active speakers don't have the well known deleterious effects of passive crossovers either, so a bit of a swings and roundabouts situation perhaps.

Well known "deleterious effects" to who? Certainly not to those who know how to design a good passive loudspeaker. Take a design like a DeVore, or an Audionote and you will find that these mostly use first order crossovers, which are very simple, i.e. 2 components, namely a capacitor and inductor in the circuit, thats it! And seeing as they are being driven by a power amp with plenty of voltage and current any component losses will be negligible assuming good quality parts are used.

There are speaker manufacturers that use very complicated crossovers with poor components and these will have a bearing on the sound, but less so than say all the parts and circuitry needed for an electronic crossover, which is why most of the top speaker companies today make passive designs. There are a few that use an active element for bass below 100Hz but the rest of the audio range is passive.

I remember back in the early 1980s I used to rebuild speaker crossovers and the results were amazing. Certainly component compromising was responsible but if the parts were changed for better designs the speaker could be significantly improved.

 

[Tony L]

Bass aside, rolling off at 60 Hz, do you have any speakers with bass?

Not huge extension no, large high eficiency speakers don’t tend to dig that deep, but I guarantee both the Lockwoods or La Scalas will sound more like a real bass instrument, piano or whatever than any amount of waggling little tiny drivers around in little boxes will ever achieve. This being Graham’s point upthread that started this whole thread divert. He is right. Measurements are only any use if one understands what to measure, and with respect you have a very long journey ahead on that route, as do the magazines etc. Simplistic ‘quantity on a line’ isn’t even the half of it!

 

[AndyU]

H yes point taken I will add all the parameters in the upcoming article.
The Dutch&Dutch enjoy being placed close to the wall behind them you can adjust their response for the rear and side walls from their app.
I have them now 50cm from the rear wall although they could go to 10cm, sitting in an equilateral triangle with the microphone placed at my listening position .
I will compare to traditional active monitors placed in the same positions.
Keith

The Dutch and Dutchs are designed to be placed close to a wall, and their rear facing drivers positively exploit the boundary effect. But then that probably means they need to be against a solid wall, rather than a plasterboard one, and not in front of a window which will let low frequencies go straight through. In most of the pictures i’ve seen of your room, you have the speakers with a glass bay window behind them. Where do you have the 8cs?

 

[Purité Audio]

Not huge extension no, large high eficiency speakers don’t tend to dig that deep, but I guarantee both the Lockwoods or La Scalas will sound more like a real bass instrument, piano or whatever than any amount of waggling little tiny drivers around in little boxes will ever achieve. This being Graham’s point upthread that started this whole thread divert. He is right. Measurements are only any use if one understands what to measure, and with respect you have a very long journey ahead on that route, as do the magazines etc. Simplistic ‘quantity on a line’ isn’t even the half of it!

That would make an interesting comparison, I would expect the monitors to reproduce the file more accurately,I have horns here of course ,I just don’t understand anyone limiting their choice of music the way you do, each to their own of course.
Keith

 

[Purité Audio]

The Dutch and Dutchs are designed to be placed close to a wall, and their rear facing drivers positively exploit the boundary effect. But then that probably means they need to be against a solid wall, rather than a plasterboard one, and not in front of a window which will let low frequencies go straight through. In most of the pictures i’ve seen of your room, you have the speakers with a glass bay window behind them. Where do you have the 8cs?

Yes they work very well against a wall, bass output is adjustable, just performed a Kii/8C comparison for a customer, I will bring the 8Cs down into the same room as the ATCs and measure both.
Keith

 

[Strictly Stereo]

Come off it! Bass extension aside they are no better than I’m getting from a 1961 valve amp and inexpensive late-70s sealed-box mini-monitors!

PS Note the 5db scale, i.e. twice the resolution of Keith’s! Note that I published it too!

With respect Tony, you are using 1/24 smoothing while Keith's plots use 1/48 smoothing.

 

[Foxman50]

Yes they work very well against a wall, bass output is adjustable, just performed a Kii/8C comparison for a customer, I will bring the 8Cs down into the same room as the ATCs and measure both.
Keith

Keith, what did the customer think of the comparison. Could you post some subjective comments. Having heard the Kii's it may help to see where the 8C's sit.