Kii Three - my impressions and pro reviews

Hi all,

I’m new to the forum.

I recently had the opportunity to demo the Kii three+BXT at a local store and I was impressed by the realism of the drums.

Not as much of the strings and  classical guitar.

I’m considering a pair of Kii three + BXT. I would use them as my main speakers in the living room, also connected to tv.

What’s a good center speaker for the Kii three+BXT?

I read in different forums that someone thinks that the Kii three are starting to be outdated. At today price, do you think they still worth it in 2024?

Thanks and best regards.

21 minutes ago, tangram said:

Hi all,

I’m new to the forum.

I recently had the opportunity to demo the Kii three+BXT at a local store and I was impressed by the realism of the drums.

Not as much of the strings and  classical guitar.

I’m considering a pair of Kii three + BXT. I would use them as my main speakers in the living room, also connected to tv.

What’s a good center speaker for the Kii three+BXT?

I read in different forums that someone thinks that the Kii three are starting to be outdated. At today price, do you think they still worth it in 2024?

Thanks and best regards.

What does “outdated” mean? The amps in them are now a new proprietary version of Purifi, one of the most cutting edge amps on the market. They do have direct competitors, once they didn’t. Is that what you mean? 

I suggest you ask your dealer about setting up a center speaker, but the obvious answer would seem to be the Kii Seven. 

There is no correct answer to the “worth” question. 

Some people have setup two Kii Threes, two subs, and a miniDSP as a crossover, instead of the Kii BXT. That costs less. Worth is in the eye of the beholder - in other words, acc’d to each persons budget and idea of what features etc are worthwhile. 

I’m not claiming to be an expert but woudnt a centre speaker work against the side firing design of the Kii 3 and BXTs. my BXTs are quite sensitive to things between or outside them. As far as competitors the Grimm active speakers are the only ones I can think of.  
 

Tangram what was the source your heard the Bxt system with ? My Grimm Mu2 hugely elevated the BXTs performance as did a decent audio network switch.

I have ATC SCM100ASLs in another room and they are a clear competitor but adding a DAC, digital source and Preamp is a hassle and by the time you add audio network switches and external clocks it adds a lot of expense and extra gear.  Sound quality wise I love both but the Kiis go lower in bass.

Regards Andrew

2 hours ago, tangram said:

Hi all,

I’m new to the forum.

I recently had the opportunity to demo the Kii three+BXT at a local store and I was impressed by the realism of the drums.

Not as much of the strings and  classical guitar.

I’m considering a pair of Kii three + BXT. I would use them as my main speakers in the living room, also connected to tv.

What’s a good center speaker for the Kii three+BXT?

I read in different forums that someone thinks that the Kii three are starting to be outdated. At today price, do you think they still worth it in 2024?

Thanks and best regards.

A good center speaker would, in my opinion, be a Kii Three or Seven. If the Three/BXT is worth it today, I would say yes(ish), even if the local currency has plummeted and there's been a price hike on top. You can get a lot of fun for approximately €40000. Are the speakers outdated? Certainly not, but they have more competitors today than back in 2017/2019.

1 minute ago, ragwo said:

A good center speaker would, in my opinion, be a Kii Three or Seven. If the Three/BXT is worth it today, I would say yes(ish), even if the local currency has plummeted and there's been a price hike on top. You can get a lot of fun for approximately €40000. Are the speakers outdated? Certainly not, but they have more competitors today than back in 2017/2019.

And who, would you say, are those competitors? 

Sorry Grimm Mu1 on Bxt system

Hi all!

thanks for your opinions.

When I demoed the Kii+BXT they were feeded with rooon, good quality streamer and coax to the control, in a very very well treated room.

Regarding being outdated, 2017 to 2024 is a lot of time when talking about digital devices.
Even if the seller thinks that Kii+BXT today beats in sound quality more expensive passive systems (if one can say at that level that one can beat another), my concern would be to buy an old technology, that’s already surpassed by better alternatives, or seeing some better stuff at 1/3 the price in the next 5 years.

Anyway, I’m going to buy used, one of the first model, with old electronics inside. Any issues about that? Do they still contain the wisa chip?

Finally, anybody had the same feeling of the Kii being thin on strings and weak in reproducing the texture of classical instruments?

Thanks everybody for your precious contributions!

The new Kii threes are definitely better than the earliest version with the early series NCore amps. The dac modules in the earlier versions weren’t as good as the new ones either. I upgraded from earlier version threes to latest versions. BXTs haven’t changed as far as I know.

15 hours ago, Emlin said:

And who, would you say, are those competitors? 

Sigberg Audio Manta with subwoofers would be one competitor, I would guess there are others too 

Would genelec 8361 (with room correction and subwoofers, not w371 towers) also represent an alternative, or do you think that the Kii + BXT stand at a completely different level?

Kii Threes outdated? by what standard? Kii represents such a paradigm shift in design and technology, there still isn’t much that competes with it. The basic components of driver design, etc has been relatively mature for decades. Improvements in traditional speaker design have been incremental at best. I’m with firedog, I would be surprised if there was much of an audible difference between early Threes and more recent ones.

As far as them sounding thin on strings etc, I never have thought so. One thing to know is that they are made to be flat across the freq band. Most of us actually like the Harman curve better than a truly honest speaker. With just a few tweaks to the EQ on the Kii control, you can get very close to that curve and a gentler, slightly warmer sound. 

BTW, my understanding is that the DAC in the Kii's is software based. A proprietry algorithm that can updated if necessary. So getting out of date isn't a big issue.

11 hours ago, Kelly said:

As far as them sounding thin on strings etc, I never have thought so. One thing to know is that they are made to be flat across the freq band. Most of us actually like the Harman curve better than a truly honest speaker. With just a few tweaks to the EQ on the Kii control, you can get very close to that curve and a gentler, slightly warmer sound. 

Never thought them thin on strings too. Of course that may change from room ro room, but in my case its absolutely fine.

I chose the Harman curve too (mostly because of my Husband who wants more base), and it needed a lot of work to get there since they indeed are very flat across the whole band. Luckily one can apply several different presets...

9 hours ago, firedog said:

BTW, my understanding is that the DAC in the Kii's is software based. A proprietry algorithm that can updated if necessary. So getting out of date isn't a big issue.

8 AKM DAC chips the new top end one

2 hours ago, [email protected] said:

8 AKM DAC chips the new top end one

Do you know which one?

On 5/7/2024 at 9:22 AM, ragwo said:

Do you know which one?

Sorry no

I was told by Kii distributor

Regards Andrew

Has anyone visited the Kii Audio stand at the High End Show in Munich?

Some people, I guess. 😀

On 2/10/2024 at 10:57 AM, camhstriage said:

I thought my Iso acoustic Gaia1s were a great upgrade to the BXT system with much better imaging and detail. I have nil regrets.

Did the threads on the Gaia's match out of the box? If I recall correctly the threads one BXT is M8 1 mm turns and the Gaia's have M8 1.25 mm turns.

11 hours ago, ragwo said:

Did the threads on the Gaia's match out of the box? If I recall correctly the threads one BXT is M8 1 mm turns and the Gaia's have M8 1.25 mm turns.

No I had to get converters from Iso Acoustics

Cheap as though :)

A

Got my new pair of Kii Three the other day, it had less than an hour of usage. After updating the firmware, the left side speaker got bricked, its stuck blinking red and I can't use it. 

14 hours ago, fwr00t said:

Got my new pair of Kii Three the other day, it had less than an hour of usage. After updating the firmware, the left side speaker got bricked, its stuck blinking red and I can't use it. 

Dealer should replace. If not, contact Kii. They answer the phone and email.

23 hours ago, fwr00t said:

Got my new pair of Kii Three the other day, it had less than an hour of usage. After updating the firmware, the left side speaker got bricked, its stuck blinking red and I can't use it. 

From the manual:

3. If you are unable to successfully update the system, please contact our customer service at: [email protected]

On 5/5/2024 at 11:33 PM, Kelly said:

Most of us actually like the Harman curve better than a truly honest speaker. With just a few tweaks to the EQ on the Kii control, you can get very close to that curve and a gentler, slightly warmer sound. 

The Harman curve originated from differences in frequency response of the indirect sound in the room and how the bass interacts with the room. Decreasing reverberation time of the room towards higher frequencies, increasing directivity index of the speakers and more or less undamped room resonances for longerwavelengths lead to a continuously decreasing total level towards higher frequencies while retaining flat on-axis response defining the direct sound field.

Ki Three represents a very different concept of achieving almost constant direcitivity over a wide frequency band and reducing the risk of resonances at least in the upper bass regions by modeling some kind of cardioid directivity pattern. If this appears to be subjectively ´thin´ in a given environment to a certain listener, trying to emulate a result close to the Harman curve via EQ is not the same and would not lead to the same result. Reason being in this case you have the direct sound tilted towards higher frequencies not the indirect one which sounds different.

Theoretically one could try to overdamp treble region, but not sure if this is worth it.