Commercial options

Whilst researching this digital audio business, I've bumped into a number of interesting commercial options in the active speaker area - thanks largely to therationalaudiophile.wordpress.com and comments therein.

Kii Audio THREE

Kii Audio provide the Kii THREE, which is quite a tour de force in the active speaker arena. Kii was formed by Bruno Putzeys (MolaMola, Hypex, Grimm - a real BSD in the amp and digital processing sphere), Bart van der Laam (DSP expert) and a couple of other guys for product management and production control.

Very small for such a premium product (16"x16"x8" or so), each box contains 6 (yes, that's 6!) 250W Class D amps, 4 woofers (two at the back, one each side), a mid and a tweeter (both in the front). The DSP is the heart of things, providing crossovers, equalisation and a "phased array" mechanism for the woofers that tailors the bass off-axis output to suit the speaker's location or your taste. There's also a "motional feedback" mechanism on the woofers to correct distortion. Pretty hairy stuff, and obviously only possible in the digital domain.

I went to hear the Kii THREEs (not sure how important the Capitalisation is but all their literature uses them ;-) ) at Purite Audio, Keith Cooper's home-run audio dealership. Excellent guy, yes a dealer, been in the business a relatively long time, but at least pretty open and friendly in person. A house full of interesting audio! We listened to the Kiis for maybe 4 hours (!), sitting on a comfy couch, my selection of music (Janet Baker, Mahler, Joe Jackson's Body and Soul (a revelation!), and others). I was massively impressed by the capability of the speakers - see comments below.

Good things

• Wonderful natural non-boxy sound
• Great imaging
• Very natural unforced bass
• Ran ridiculously loud with no strain or effort (had to turn down after we realised we couldn't hear each other!)
• Real people in real acoustic spaces for those recordings that attempt to portray that

Drawbacks

• £8000+! But then, you wouldn't need any preamps or amps...
• Only accept AES/EBU (professional standard digital wire protocol) at the moment, so require something to convert e.g. Weiss INT202 or similar, which Keith reckoned he'd throw in (not insignificant, maybe £800 retail!). There is a Grimm-alike desktop console for other input protocols coming apparently, but no idea when.
• Possibly small hot spot, at least in the room and conditions I auditioned - Keith didn't get the same impression sat on the other end of the couch - no different from Quads then!
• Is that all?! Where's my credit card...

So, a revelatory experience. Fortunately I controlled myself, and ran away before ordering on the spot. However, these are definitely on the list. I could sell the Chords, the Quads  (for £200 probably!) and presumably the Naim CDS2 which I won't eventually need. Cheap!

Code Acoustics System-1

CONTROL-1 DSP/Amp Box

SYSTEM-1 Speakers

Descriptions available here, these look a bit more home-made than the Kiis, and there's no provenance for the designer/builder. Basically, a separate 6-channel DSP/Amp box, with "normal" boxes and speakers, I assume, since there's nothing on the website to indicate otherwise. About £5k, with a money back guarantee, not unexpected from someone trying to launch a business and product with no provenance. The Control-1 has a bigger range of inputs, USB, AES, SPDIF, TosLink and 6? XLR balanced analogue inputs. Not sure what those last are for, I guess all will become clear shortly.

I haven't heard these yet, but I'm expecting to arrange a home demo with the manufacturer/designer/sales person Ceri shortly. Ooh!! My initial reaction is "how different are these to something I could build myself'? And then again, how necessary is the Kii bass directionality control? And all of these are more expensive than the Linkwitz LX-Mini with his subwoofers added, which I also haven't heard, which do in-room behaviour control with the physical characteristics of the chassis speakers and enclosures.

Other Choices

There are lots more active options around, most of which I haven't really explored, for various reasons

• Grimm LS-1 - also available from Purite, but EXPENSIVE!!
• Manger - also more expensive, and not sure they are better than Kiis, for example, although not listened to them
• Genelecs - more pro and probably expensive
• Divialet Phantom - Not seen any of these around
• etc...!