Tyske Stereo har nettopp publisert test av Kii. Jeg lastet ned pdf av den tyske testen, men siden jeg ikke forstår et kvekk tysk har jeg google-translated hele teksten. Jeg limer inn og håper noe er forståelig;
If we are ever embarrassed to have to deliver a school lecture about the advantages of active speakers, we would first of all explain the reduced component complexity. Such speakers eventually unite loudspeakers, power amplifiers and sometimes even the preamp in a housing pair, replacing half the hi-fi chain. After that we would probably digress into a digression that this circumstance also relativizes the slightly higher acquisition costs. And finally, we would be the central strength of self-reinforcing boxes: your developers have the entire signal chain in their hands. Therefore, preamplifiers and amplifiers can be perfectly matched to the chassis used, and the need for a crossover is always obsolete, which always has an effect on the phase of the individual frequency components due to their filter elements. In an active box, the signals are already separated electronically before the final amplification. In particular, models with digital signal processing eliminate phase shifts. And that brings audible benefits. Despite their tonal features, activists always sound timely and engaging. This would have ended our essay. At least before we knew Kiis brilliant THREE. In the past four weeks, this loudspeaker has made us aware of the importance of DSPs and components like the D / A converters in such loudspeakers
And what exciting features the advancing digitalisation brings with it. Our first contact with this loudspeaker was characterized by a mistake which burned the product indelibly into the brain bends: Just over a year ago, the young company from Bergisch Gladbach published a press release in preparation for the High E nd fair Different loudspeakers. One of them was the THREE, which you can admire left in full glory. The second box model was in a similar case, but was only equipped with bass drivers. We considered the set to be a compact active, which can be extended later by a suitable subwoofer. As far as still nothing unusual, strangely, the woofer but with no syllable mentioned. Only when we faced the Kii in Munich vis-à-vis, dawning us that both pictures showed the same sound transducer - once from the front and once from behind.
Phase versus phase In fact, the THREE is one of the exotic representatives of its genre, all of which are equipped with chassis. To eliminate misunderstandings at the same time: this has nothing to do with radial radiation in the case. In fact, the backstroke drivers do just the opposite. While heights and centers are converted over the two front-mounted drivers, it is the two side-mounted woofers that blow low frequencies into the listening room. The two drivers on the back do the same, but they turn the phase of their radiated bass parts by 180 degrees. They are therefore in phase opposition. And since STEREO readers are cunning foxes, you know that such a bipolar radiation causes extinctions. You can even hear them. If one takes the trouble to walk around the playing box, one will note at the height of the side-radiating woofers that one moves through an acoustic curtain. From then on - in the semicircle around the rear of the box - virtually all frequencies are missing below about 500 hertz. The question of why, why and why is quickly clear when one considers the concept of the THREE. It was originally developed as a compact monitor, ie as a listening and control loudspeaker for ambitious hobby studios as well as professional environments. Even there, it is often not possible to set up the loudspeaker with the correct wall distance. On the wall - also the STEREO reader - doubles however the sound energy, since direct sound and wall reflections merge to an undifferentiable soundfront. And the rule is: A compact monitor can also work on the wall, but it does not guarantee it! At the Kii, on the other hand, one has to hardly worry about space. Since you do not radiate backwards and only a small amount of bass energy to the rear, it does not matter if you place them free in the room, close to the wall or even in a room corner.
6 x 250 x 2 = THREEtausen Exempted from such a set-up, the Kii developers were able to enjoy the power parameters of their THREE. All the drivers are powered by Hypex's Class D individual power plants, which deliver 250 watts of power output each. If you count everything together, 1500 watts per box come out, which corresponds to a pair performance of juicy three kilowatts. With this energy, you can even overthrow and knock your neighbors even with the quiet first minutes of Ravels Bolero.
In fact, the THREE is more dynamic, bigger and more open than some of the larger standboxes in our reference range. And you can also turn up with a clear conscience. The solid housing is based on an aluminum carrier, on which all chassis are suspended and gives no noise even at extreme levels. After their coarse placement in the listening room, you can adjust various parameters that improve the sound effect or adapt it to your personal taste. On the one hand there is the so-called "Boundary" parameter, which can be controlled with a small screwdriver. This is a damper for the phase-driven bass drivers, because the closer the THREE is to a room wall, the less must the effort to exert their extinguishing effect. The second rear panel is more tricky to look through. The Kii-makers have different bass and bass
Height elevations or lowerings, which can be entered in different combinations via a total of 16 actuator positions. In the tutorial, this is explained in a more detailed way, but ultimately helps here only: try and continue.
Everything under CONTROL -
To our great fortune, we did not have to struggle with it, since for some weeks the optional remote control Kii CONTROL is available. This display defends the Kontroletti, which is connected to the box via a Cat5 cable, even provides full parametric access to the two equalizers, which can boost or attenuate the frequencies above and below adjustable ranges (20 Hz to 20 kHz) freely by six decibels. Two bands may sound a bit thin at first, but believe us, it's complicated enough and in the vast majority of cases. In addition to other delicacies, such as learning infrared remote controls to control the overall volume or to create preset presets, you can find in the menu an entry called "latency", which can be used to scale the computational precision of the integrated DSPs. At the minimum, we measured 95 milliseconds, which should at least satisfy the requirements of home cinema friends. With full DSP performance is no longer to think of a movie playback, but filters, digital crossover as well as EQs are calculated somewhat more phase and distortion-free. And where we are talking about precision: It can not be a coincidence that the fully-tuned box generates exactly 100 decibels of sound pressure for input signals according to the measurement standard (-9 dBFS). If the zero point of the level display is set here, which also belongs to the unique possibilities of the Kii, the control values exactly correspond to the decibel reduction. A control value of -20 corresponds exactly to 80 dB
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We had to fight quite hard to get all the secrets out of the Kii-Aktivbox. In fact, there is no measurement standard that captures a loudspeaker according to objective criteria in interaction with the listening room. There are simply too many different room types, and also the individual decoration - carpets, furniture etc. - plays an important role here. So we decided to make a compromise and placed a single THREE at its optimal location in our small listening room (24 m2). The measurement signal, a white noise, was first recorded at the listening position and then in the area behind the loudspeaker. Since the boxes in the medium-sized room are relatively free in the room, we could go for the second measurement 150 centimeters behind the box. In practice, this procedure proved to be extremely tricky, as room and wall reflections sometimes produced a few centimeters of change in the position of our measuring microphones. Therefore, you should use the two diagrams below - which, as I said, do not follow any common norm - with extreme caution and without an interpretation
The character of the box. Nevertheless, there is a clear trend: In our listening room, the phase cancellation behind the active loudspeaker already affects from about one kilohertz. From then on the frequencies fall to the basses by up to 30 decibels. Of course, the loudspeaker still produces wall reflections and thus also room problems. Above all in the heights, the energy is re fl ected unimpeded into the listening room. However, these frequencies can be attenuated excellently. Even some furniture, a carpet or a curtain on the windows often suffice to get the heights and centers in the handle. The bass is different. Since they transport a lot of energy, one must take massive acoustic measures to contain them. In addition to giant absorber modules, bass traps and Helmholtz resonators function - all of this in the dimensions of furniture pieces. At the THREE such efforts are largely superfluous, since the loudspeakers do not have a decisive part of these frequencies at all The space is released - and what the rest of the bass still problems, you can fight with their EQs.
Sound pressure in one meter distance. In the face of such meticulous and detail-loving details, every meas- urement technician is swarming. THREE also tells us that it is a high-precision tool. For the basic setup of the two loudspeakers you can get the CONTROL to the listening position. A correspondingly long LAN cable is in the box of the remote control. If the THREE is perfectly tuned, however, the encoder belongs back into the rack because it still has an interesting ancillary benefit: The THREE itself has only a single XLR input, which accepts either digital signals according to AES / EBU standard (24/192) or - the switch for this is located directly next to the connection - symmetrical analogue oscillations. At the rear of the handy-sized CONTROL, there are three additional inputs in the form of an optical (24/96) and electrical S / PDIF access (24/192) as well as a single USB socket, which can be used from any computer audio data up to 24/384 as well as DSD 64 and 128 are accepted. For HiFi users, the CONTROL is an absolute must! The hearing test of the extraordinary active box could actually have been the shortest in the history of the STEREO editorial team, because we did not need 30 seconds to realize that we had a very special loudspeaker in front of us. This is largely due to the fact that the sound of the Kii does not match what you see. In the 42 square meter large STEREO listening room, the compact box on its stands almost lost a bit. What we heard with closed eyes, however, seemed to come from a stand-up box - from a large one: the bass reaches down to the depth 30 hertz, and as you can see in our measurement chart, he does not make any noteworthy institutions there either to adopt. This demonstrates the strength and stability that the THREE can push into the room. In fact, it remains exceptionally clean and contoured, as its vigilant DSPs ensure that bass impulses never exceed the specified load limits of the chassis, even at the highest levels. The mid-range and high frequencies are of little interest to these power games because they are completely free of stress and discoloration at their own power amplifiers. In addition to the impulsive impulse, we particularly liked the deep and plastic stage illustration, which spreads over the entire room and places the listener literally in the middle of the action. In fact, it makes hardly any difference whether the box stands freely in the room or 50 centimeters on the wall. If this extremely dynamic performance were not so incredibly precise, sovereign, and solved, you could think of all this as a giant spectacle, an impressive sound experience that will not get us out of our heads so quickly. Carsten Barnbeck
Active amplifier with six drivers and a total of 1500 watts of power, DSP-controlled EQ for adjusting bass and treble (+/- 6 dB), phase-inverted bass chassis to improve close-up positions, analogue / digital combina- 1295 Euro), the THREE is extended by a volume control and three additional digital inputs (optical / electric / USB), optional stand available (around 1000 Euro / piece)
Klang (lydkvalitet) - 95%
Pris/kvalitet - 4 av 5
