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Kii three issues

Woodface - all I need to do is get a clean signal into the speakers and control the volume.

The Chromecast audio seems to sound great, with absolutely zero noise - so if only the volume wasnt too loud why would I want to spend £1000+ on something else. It’s also annoying that everything else will have bags of unrequired tech / DAC/ input / output etc that I am wasting money on :)

I am not yet convinced the quality of the Chromecast audio would hold back the speakers significantly (bearing in mind I only steam from iphone)

I am also not a big believer in hearing any difference in streaming / bit rates etc above a certain level so don’t care the CCA or AA limit this. Tried a few of those high res / low res tests in the past and couldn’t hear a difference on pretty high end speakers

Thanks Lee - will see if the Airplay noise is there going through the Kii Control later. My guess is yes as the converter used into the speakers xlr seems totally silent when using the CCA
I hope it works out for you, I am not techy at all so I actually get put off by these hyper adjustable speakers. Personally I would want someone to come in, optimise it all so I could leave it alone.
 
So tried Airplay through the Control and out the XLR - and also straight into Optical on the Control.

Set control to 100 and turned (carefully!!) the phone volume up a few % - same hissing in both cases :)

someone on the aiport thread suggested express output is worse and Apple TV output should be quiet so going to try one as soon as my son returns it!

Have been chatting to Tom at Kii as well - lovely guy! He suggested Volumio if I can get one with Airplay and Spotify and maybe the volume is also linked to the Tidal Spotify native app controls which would be great :)

Even with that I would be £££ in as I can sell the Control and the AES converter and so straight from Coax out to AES with the right cable
 
Yeah me too Woodface - just want it set so I can stick whatever router it is in the cupboard and forget about it all

Then my only option is a few cut / boost options for highs and lows on the back of the Kii which I will probably have to play with one day when bored ;)

Tom explained them well that the default settings on the speaker are the same as the old boost buttons for late night listening at low volumes. Old school :)
 
Does the Kii have the ability to change target curves like the D&D? That is something I would try out, with the latter many people like Harman/Toole's gently sloping curve that is something like -2 or -3 db at 20 KHz.
 
Yes Lee - it’s still on the list if I have to have £1000 tied up in a streamer at least that does have room correction to give me something to play with :)

The allo one digi? Tom recommended though is only £150 or so. Probably with the pricier SHD a lot of its capability will be wasted on my set up
 
Does the Kii have the ability to change target curves like the D&D? That is something I would try out, with the latter many people like Harman/Toole's gently sloping curve that is something like -2 or -3 db at 20 KHz.

Each Kii Three has a contour control which is a collection of EQ presets accessed via a control on the back panel. If you have the Kii Control then you have more granular control over the low and high shelving frequencies and gain.

Each 8c provides shelving for sub bass, bass and treble and 24-slot parametric EQ that can be used to apply room correction or more complex tone curves.

Toole says that a speaker which measures flat in an anechoic chamber should fall off by about 1dB/octave in a real room. The Harman subjective listener curve comes in different flavours for trained, untrained and all listeners, with the trained listener version being flatter than the others. They all have some bass lift and treble roll off, with the mids being more or less flat.
 
Does the Kii have the ability to change target curves like the D&D? That is something I would try out, with the latter many people like Harman/Toole's gently sloping curve that is something like -2 or -3 db at 20 KHz.

With the control unit you can do all sorts. With the speakers it’s a very gentle slope cut / boost system at a few frequencies.

EDIT - LISTEN TO LEE ABOVE NOT ME ;) ;)

Don’t think I will go down that road - I will be up and down every time I play a different track :)

They are sounding immense right now just set on corner setting, with flat response on the EQ setting
 
Does the Kii have the ability to change target curves like the D&D? That is something I would try out, with the latter many people like Harman/Toole's gently sloping curve that is something like -2 or -3 db at 20 KHz.

You don’t need a speaker, or any fancy hardware, to try out those, or any curves. A decent media player like J River, Roon or foobar, perhaps in conjunction with free software like REW, will let you play with eq curves to your hearts content.
 
Don’t think I will go down that road - I will be up and down every time I play a different track :)

I have the 8c, with the SHD. I’ve not faffed with settings at all once Lee’s measurements were applied. No need to, as everything sounds pretty good. :D
 
@jamington2004 please do share what you think of the Kiis after you've spent some time with them, I have been strongly considering auditioning these and D&D 8c when I have some more time.

Ignore my very initial impressions posted earlier - clearly listening to a track here and there while stressed out trying to mount them / set them / deal with work and kids, does nothing for ones hearing! :)

Have had a few hours to listen last night and this morning - set to corner setting to level out the low bass reinforcements, but everything else left flat.

Stunning! Everything in the right place. Tuneful bass there in spades but not overpowering / standing out anymore than the highs and upper mids.

Have tried some hip hop like Dr Dres first album / Danger Doom / Ghost Poet - so pretty bass heavy, but just doesn’t get in the way of the vocals / drums / transients at all. The vocals really jump out, which is how I like it :)

Tried some pop / rock like Foo fighters / Radiohead / Coldplay - all very clear and although less obvious bass, it’s just there where it should be.

And for all the electronica I have tried - they are just sublime.

Don’t extend as low as the phantoms - I have a couple of tracks that I used to feel the sub bass notes that aren’t quite there on these. Won’t miss it and don’t care - and wouldn’t even know it had I not “tested” the bass on the Phantoms with the odd track that goes that low

Of particular note for me, I had awful room nodes at around 50hz /70hz and they are totally gone!! Especially in one corner of the room, and underneath the speakers.

Now there is almost no change at all in those hotspots, even compared to the Dspeaker room correction that I added to the Phantoms where I still could hear it.

No more bloaty / ear hurty thump

Anyway - promised myself I wouldn’t gush about them till I had lived with them for a few weeks. But the kids are out and I am just loving them

And I honestly would have been fine with moving them on as I got a good second hand price, and was more than happy with the Phantoms. So it’s not a case of me trying to convince myself - which I am sure I have done in the past when I am committed to something.
 
2022 UPDATE:
The Kiis now have parametric EQ built into the controller and lots of other shelving and notching options, so a full sweep of the room will allow for room correction within the Kii’s new 2022 firmware update. I’ve just been playing with mine and the flexibility this now offers rivals the 8c.
 
2022 UPDATE:
The Kiis now have parametric EQ built into the controller and lots of other shelving and notching options, so a full sweep of the room will allow for room correction within the Kii’s new 2022 firmware update. I’ve just been playing with mine and the flexibility this now offers rivals the 8c.
Interesting. Have you any links to info about the new controller software? Cheers!
 
I’ve not had a chance to look into the source of the firmware file as I’ve just saw you ur post and it’s late now. Mine came with the update but here’s a link to the updated controller menu structure so you can see the new options available within the Pro More menu.
There’s 8 filters per speaker unlike the 8c which I believe has 12, 8 should be more than enough.
http://kiiaudio.helpdocsonline.com/kiicontrolv2
 
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I’ve not had a chance to look into the source of the firmware file as I’ve just saw you ur post and it’s late now. Mine came with the update but here’s a link to the updated controller menu structure so you can see the new options available within the Pro More menu.
There’s 8 filters per speaker unlike the 8c which I believe has 12, 8 should be more than enough.

You can achieve a lot with 8 filters and this is a really great addition to the Kii Three's feature set.

The Dutch & Dutch 8c supports 16 PEQ filters per speaker in addition to separate shared PEQ and shelving filters. Also, you can assign filter sets to presets and easily switch between them. That makes it easy to optimise across large area when you have friends and family listening with you or a small area when you are on your own. The best bit though is the Room EQ Wizard integration which enables you to send filter sets directly to your 8c speakers over the network.
 
I thought the 8c had a 24 band PEQ - 12 per side? Although a quick Google suggests 24 per side…?

The Kiis also have presets, however what they lack is the ability to send filters directly to them via REW, rather you program them through the Kii controller. I’d rather have seen an app like the 8c has but Kii have bridged the obvious gap to the 8c in terms of room integration. In my opinion there’s still more Kii should offer to compete with the richer feature set of the 8c - more PEQ filters and an app would be amazing!
Without a Kii controller these additional options are obsolete, yet with the 8c they are all available, plus more. Yes the Kii Controller is basically a digital preamp with user interface for the additional features but it’s £1500 more and the Kii Threes are already a good chunk of money more expensive than the 8c. I think Kii are really shooting themselves in the foot and I’d imagine 8c sales have superseded the 8c considerably!
 
Kii are much more expensive, and their paint pricing is imo crazy gloss white which was standard is now an £1800 supplement ‘exclusive’ colour, the metallic iced bronze set I have in the classifieds has an rrp of £18200 speakers, control and stands.
Keith
 
I thought the 8c had a 24 band PEQ - 12 per side? Although a quick Google suggests 24 per side…?

The Kiis also have presets, however what they lack is the ability to send filters directly to them via REW, rather you program them through the Kii controller. I’d rather have seen an app like the 8c has but Kii have bridged the obvious gap to the 8c in terms of room integration. In my opinion there’s still more Kii should offer to compete with the richer feature set of the 8c - more PEQ filters and an app would be amazing!
Without a Kii controller these additional options are obsolete, yet with the 8c they are all available, plus more. Yes the Kii Controller is basically a digital preamp with user interface for the additional features but it’s £1500 more and the Kii Threes are already a good chunk of money more expensive than the 8c. I think Kii are really shooting themselves in the foot and I’d imagine 8c sales have superseded the 8c considerably!

With firmware 1.x the Dutch & Dutch 8c did indeed have 24 PEQ filter slots per speaker. The new Ascend app that accompanies firmware 2.x makes it less obvious where the upper limit is. It shows each of the filters that you have in place, including a cool new graphical representation of their effect, but it does not show the unused slots. The old LANSpeaker app showed a complete list of the available filter slots, including the unused ones. The reason I wrote "16" above is that the Room EQ Wizard integration now provides control over 16 PEQ filters per speaker. My guess is that the other 8 slots have been quietly set aside to support the new shared PEQ filters, but I will find out and report back. Suffice to say that I have yet to come across a real world use case that was not catered for by the available tools.

The Kii Three has presets but its PEQ filters are system wide. You cannot assign filter sets to presets. I am not sure if this is a hardware limitation or a deliberate design choice. You can still do a lot of good with 8 filters.
 
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