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Who's heard the Kii Three speakers?

One thing I've learned listening to pro Audio (as used in recording studios) is the requirement is different from enjoying music at home. A recording engineer has to analyse the recording and musn't get too emotionally involved .
 
ime same goes in tv and radio. The pro equipment is highly anyalytical, so fatiguing and makes long listening sessions unenjoyable.
 
Latency: normal mode = approx. 90ms / low latency mode = 1030us (1,03ms)
Low Latency Mode only disables the phase correction of the whole spectrum to minimum phase.

Are these things remote controlled or do you have to reach round the back to switch them between modes? 90ms may as well be an hour in studio terms, it renders them absolutely unusable for tracking, live mixing etc, so I guess that means any studio using them would have to switch between the fancy mode for EQing etc and then switch back to the low-latency mode to do anything to do with music creation.
 
Is there any chance of them being at next year's Bristol show? Or any show in the south of England in the near future?
 
Is there any chance of them being at next year's Bristol show? Or any show in the south of England in the near future?

We hope to be at next year's 'Indulgence' show at the Novotel, and they are permanently available here of course, in North London.
Keith
 
Are these things remote controlled or do you have to reach round the back to switch them between modes? 90ms may as well be an hour in studio terms, it renders them absolutely unusable for tracking, live mixing etc, so I guess that means any studio using them would have to switch between the fancy mode for EQing etc and then switch back to the low-latency mode to do anything to do with music creation.

Agreed Tony, I've been to a few top studies and seen nothing like the Kii's, or for that matter any high end speaker with DSP! Most studios use custom designs built into each monitoring room as in the case here.

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Occasionally a small speaker(s) is used for remote monitoring as shown below where 2 small Genelec's were pulled out and used briefly:

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A lot of recordings are monitored with headphones too. Normally if speakers are used they have to be extremely robust and use professional drive units that can be changed out very quickly. Sometimes there is no time to do this so a replacement speaker is just substituted. Also cost is a major factor as to what is used in a studio.

I will be interested to hear from Keith what studios use the Kii's...
 
Agreed Tony, I've been to a few top studies and seen nothing like the Kii's, or for that matter any high end speaker with DSP! Most studios use custom designs built into each monitoring room as in the case here.

My experience is a long time ago now, long before digital existed in anything aside from FX units and DAT/ADAT machines etc. Monitoring was almost always 15" Tannoys or big JBLs for the full-range monitors, NS10s or occasionally AR18s for nearfields and little single-driver Auratone cubes to give an indication if a mix would work on a transistor radio, Dansette or car stereo (car stereos were horrible back then). It worked fine, much of the best music ever recorded was born that way!

Which is the studio you picture? I recognise the Genelecs and Harbeth-derived (HHB Expression?) monitors with the purple cones, but I've no idea what the main monitors are. Not familiar at all.

PS I remain deeply skeptical about electronic room correction as it is inevitably different depending on where you place the measurement mic, and "correcting" for one location moves that speaker away from its natural (hopefully flat) response anywhere else in the room. A studio control room has to sound good over a wide area as it isn't just the engineer making decisions, it needs to sound good wherever the band/management etc are sitting too (usually on a couch behind). Room correction obviously works by notching a speaker's response, so if it is done to take out an issue, say a 100Hz room node at the engineer's seat, elsewhere in the room where that issue doesn't exist will sound decidedly odd as the "correction" notch(es) will be present. far better to keep the speakers flat and correct the room acoustically IMHO.
 
The Kiis don't use electronic room correction, perhaps if you read B&O's design paper for the Beolab 90, the Kiis and Beolabs share similar technology.
Keith
 
Ah, cool, they are sounding rather more interesting. I have skim-read the B&O paper. So the digital shenanigans is more a dispersion/response-extension thing?
 
We'll have them here at Strictly Stereo from the middle of December, if you would like to hear a pair. We're based in Haigh just outside Wigan. 10 minutes from M61 J6 or 15 minutes from M6 J26. If you are still in Cheshire though, I would be happy to bring them to you.

Cheers, yes i'm nearer you than Keith although ironically spend more time in London these days than up here, but yes would love to come and give them a listen.

Christ someone give Keith a break, i've been on the this forum for a while and he's always come across as an hifi enthusiast first to me, trying lots of different equipment and approaches, obviously hes' trying to promote and sell a speaker that's small and supposedly offers a lot of the performance of a larger speaker but is much easier to accommodate for many, surely that should have some merit, of course if it doesn't sound natural it won't amount to much. But at least its something different!
 
The Kiis in room measurements are much better than any other speaker I have measured in this room, because of there off axis cancelling and cardioid response.

Let's see the measurements Keith. The claim is flat from 19Hz to 20kHz +/- 0.5 dB. Just show us. At say 100dB. Mind the wee 6" cone does't poke your eye out.
 
Ah, cool, they are sounding rather more interesting. I have skim-read the B&O paper. So the digital shenanigans is more a dispersion/response-extension thing?

Keith hasn't fully understood either the B&O paper or the Kii paper. They are rather different speakers, though they both make extensive use of DSP. What characterises the Kiis is that they use side and rear bass units plus DSP to create a cardiod bass response - i.e. they do electronically what the Getheins do mechanically. The side and rear bass units attempt to cancel the rearwards bass from the main front facing unit. This certainly seems like a good idea, though when I heard them it seemed obvious that they had failed catastrophically. They just sounded horribly electronic. An unavoidable consequence of the DSP is high latency - about 1/10 sec - which rather limits their use in some kinds of pro applications. You are not exactly going to stay in the pocket, or lip sync, with that kind of delay. The B&O'S otoh have loads of mid-range and treble units and all sorts of DSP to create speakers with controllable mid and high frequency dispersion.
 
What piqued my interest in speakers like these, was Fox's finding that the Phantom speakers she had weren't a million miles away performance wise, compared to the 800d's she has, and the phantoms were in a large space too, she should know what instruments sound like being a musician. Same with Frank (F1eng) too, he's got some experience of some large costly and well performing speakers, and found the Phantoms rather good as i remember.

Don't know how the Phantoms stack up to the Kii's though.

You heard the Phantoms Andy?
 
What piqued my interest in speakers like these, was Fox's finding that the Phantom speakers she had weren't a million miles away performance wise, compared to the 800d's she has, and the phantoms were in a large space too, she should know what instruments sound like being a musician. Same with Frank (F1eng) too, he's got some experience of some large costly and well performing speakers, and found the Phantoms rather good as i remember.

Don't know how the Phantoms stack up to the Kii's though.

You heard the Phantoms Andy?

I heard Phantoms too. Twice. They are unfngbelievably awful. I mean stick a scalpel in your ear hole, twist it and bang your head with a dustbin lid awful. And then some. But if you listen to electronic dross who cares. Play some horrid techno with bass that is designed to make you regurgitate your stomach contents in both directions and bleed out of both ears you might even like them. The Kiis are better than that. In a few iterations they might even be OK. But midrange neutrality, solidity, power is not what they do. I read the same spiel as you. I had the same high hopes as you. I travelled several hundred miles and spent a fair few quid getting to listen to them. They were crap.
 


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