Are these Speakers the BEST on Planet Earth ?...

@teo_audio:  Save your keystrokes!      There are many posers on this site, that think they know something about Science.        All obsessively attempting to categorically prove their side of an argument, with their favorite THEORY.      Classic Dunning-Kruger cases.       Thus far, what Science has taught anyone that’s been paying attention is; there’s another side to this Mobius Strip of a universe we haven’t found, yet.                                                     Occasionally; I feel guilty for picking on them.

Give me a pair of "The Apogee" or the mighty Infinity IRS V, that's what I consider to be in the worlds greatest speaker collection.

8"x48"x16"   and 112 pounds  

At least to me the images I have seen can be misinterpreted as a much larger speaker. Another strike against it being best in world- it's smallish. You don't even begin to be in "best in world" class unless you can reach  about 5.5-6 foot (2M), imo. Scale is so much more important than people want to believe. 

I'm sure it sounds wonderful, stunning, etc. But, I have heard many wonderful, stunning speakers that aren't best in world category. Then again, it's not priced as though it has pretense to be best in world, which is strongly in its favor. It may be priced appropriately to performance. I would guess it to be a lovely listen.  :)

Plus one for scale.        When I hear complaints about systems being unable to deliver the dynamics and size of a live orchestra, I guess they’ve never heard any of the IRS Series (even the Beta), with (say) a pair of VTL 300s.               Perhaps some big Wilsons, or- Avantgarde Trios, with some stacked Basshorns.      In the right room, of course.                                 Yeah: scale!

@twoleftears wrote: " I’d take these... over the Kii: https://dutchdutch.com/8c/ "

The Dutch & Dutch 8c uses a proper waveguide, which looks to me like it’s based on Earl Geddes’ Oblate Spheroid math, but evolved to meet the specific requirements of a dome tweeter and on-axis listening. (The original Oblate Spheroid measures and sounds best from a little bit off-axis, so it’s not an ideal studio monitor solution.)

The Kii 3 uses a different technology, one which is better than most, and which may do some things better than the Dutch & Dutch. For instance its high frequency dispersion is probably wider, which may be desirable.

Based on experience with the horn technology Kii uses, and with the horn technology that I believe the Dutch & Dutch has evolved from, I agree with twoleftears. But I think the Kii is still an absolutely brilliant design.

Duke

Nothing is the best.  Higher cost does not make it better.  Is a $70,000,000 Ferrari GTO a better car than a 2020 Corvette?  BTW, I am a real Ferrari fan, but they are far from perfect.  Go spend a fortune to impress your friends, but don't be surprised if they do things other than praise your almighty system, and mostly do things with anyone but you.  Put your speaker wires on  little trestles to avoid whatever gremlins live under your floors, without even considering that the closeness of the two wires to each other is much more severe in affecting whatever you are afraid of.  We do not live in a best-or-not-the-best dichotomous world.   You are free to nerd out as much as you wish, but you could have been learning about interesting things like astrophysics, philosophy, and ... Whoops, Gotta go get a life.

I’ll take the Rockport Hyperion speakers 500 lbs each, you dudes and dudettes can fight over the rest. 

Haven't heard them so obviously have no opinion.

But having used the shareware MathAudtioRoomEQ plugin I can say that digital room correction is possibly the single biggest breakthrough in sound quality since the LP, unless you're able to build a dedicated listening room.

And the concern with directivity is also very promising.  I sure WANT to hear these....

I think in the short term there is a huge subjective component in our appreciation for audio gear. In my experience, the speakers which give lasting satisfaction are those which offer lowest distortion, flattest, most extended response, within ones means. My frustration with this site is that most people seem to discount the degree to which the designers experience and research matter. This is far more apparent in DACs, where some hobbyist can sell his creation at prices approaching those of the masters.

It’s funny, in the old days I would frequent high-end audio salons and stores where stereos were sold, and listen to speakers--sometimes SOTA ones--and I’d remember the ones that impressed me. So at any given time I’d have a mental list of what I considered the "best" speakers to be. But in all cases they would be speakers I had experienced for myself, with my own ears, in, like, you know, reality.

No more. Nowadays there aren’t any stores near me that sell and demo speakers, and I no longer frequent audio dealers, and I no longer hear speakers firsthand...so I really have no idea of what might be "the best" speaker, in my opinion.

I miss those days. I’d love to have an opinion about what the best might be. But nowadays all I have is a much less useful and interesting list in my head...namely, a list of speakers I’ve read about and that sound like they might be worth checking out. But in all those cases I’ve never actually checked them out, because I can’t.

I bought my current speakers having never heard them first.

So we seek absolute perfection in reproducing decidedly imperfect sources like acoustic instruments, vintage guitars and amps and even the human voice? ;-) As for 8 inch speakers not being able to reproduce base, I know that these did not go down below 20 Hz, but if you ever looked at the speaker complement in the rather large cabinet that comes with what was considered the ultimate bass guitar amplifier for years, the Ampeg SVT?

@jmforge- The lowest Bass Guitar note is E2 (82.4 Hz).       There were/are a variety of speaker cabinets, designed to accompany the SVT amp.      Some for practice and some for moving real air, at one (individual) instrument’s primary frequencies.      Is this the one, to which you’re referring? https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SVT810E--ampeg-svt-810e-8x10-inch-800-watt-extension-cabinet

Uh @rodman99999 I play bass, started on string bass in 6th grade... low E is more like 41Hz. But most bass guitar cabs are set up to play 82Hz as the bass has a strong 2nd harmonic.


Even though I might use a class D to power them, I prefer a speaker to which I can connect my own amp. Maybe this is because I make amps and prefer what I perceive as greater neutrality in them. So I don't think this is the best speaker by any means, although it appears to have a lot of competent engineering going into it.

I have actually heard them both with and without the BXT. They are better with but the price goes up a LOT.

I don't think they are the best on Earth but they are very, very good. I remember thinking that I might be able to save up for them without the BXT. You get almost a whole system. Just connect a streamer and you are good to go. It is like a combo of a speaker and an integrated with a built in dac. I will probably never buy them but hope equally good models will appear for a lower price.

Regarding D&D 8 they don't have anything like the BXT bass module. They might be a bit warmer.

The best I've heard was some large Focal Utopias and Magico M6.

"Acoustics delivers 55% of S.Q."

I don't know where that figure came from or whether it's accurate, but I do know the geometry of the listening room is absolutely critical from at least 500Hz on down.  To that end the Kii speakers are pretty special.  The ability to process not only EQ but phase information in order to control dispersion at low frequencies allows them to accommodate the quirks of different listening rooms better than almost any other speaker.  Dutch&Dutch use similar technology to do the same thing, but I'm not aware of many others who are taking advantage of new DSP technology to alter they way sounds emanate from an enclosure *after* that sound has left the box.  If the Kii Three are the "best in the world" it's because they are employing brand new technology.  The same technology will undoubtedly be improved upon by other manufacturers in the near future.  I wouldn't spend that much money on something that will invariably be dated by the time the credit card bill is paid down.   I do enjoy seeing people write about how ugly they are, as though visual aesthetics are somehow universal or matter to the performance of a speaker.  Give me spartan, utilitarian gear that is designed to perform.  Money and effort spent on making audio gear pretty is money spent to appeal to senses other than hearing.  Pretty speakers appeal to the optophile.  There's nothing wrong with wanting something pretty, but visual aesthetics don't play a role in how something actually sounds. 

@atmasphere -   Yep, E2’s low note on my guitars.     Standard Bass guitar goes an octave lower.    Conflation (touche')!

Hm. Sounds like you have a baritone guitar. That has low E at 82Hz.

FWIW the SVT amplifier was designed around hifi ideals (by Roger Cox who retired from his position as VP at Fender a few years ago), at least that's how he put it to me.

And here I thought I was doing at least one thing, in my life, that was, "normal".      ie: https://www.quora.com/What-are-guitar-string-frequencies                 Whatever Mr Cox’s goal; he hit it out of the park, with the SVT.

  Come on! There is no "best," objectively speaking. 

I think everyone here needs to peel off a couple tabs of mr natural take a nice long evening walk and then come back and explain facts vs reality, science vs science fiction, etc. dsp after sound leaves the box is available to everyone and if you have roon digital eq can be applied b4 the amplifier. The advantages dsp speakers from d&d, kii, meridian and all the professional models offer me is consistent sound room to room. Active xovers, time and phase control and tuning (voicing) done without affecting sensitivity. The dsp manufactures also have they’re own ideas of what’s best so their products will be different, but unlike passive speakers if you like a dsp speaker and bring it home it will probably sound like it did in the demo, something I never experienced with passive speakers.

Are these Speakers the BEST on Planet Earth ?...

     My name is Yuck! from the planet Yikes!  I'm a 7 foot bipedal very smelly cockroach creature that constantly oozes disgusting greenish yellow slime out of various bodily orifices, thus my name Yuck!  
     Our species has 8 times the number of ears and about 10 times the brainpower as you silly, stupid, puny, scrawny, backwards but delicious little earthlings.  
     Our technology and speakers are lightyears ahead of yours. Marketing a pair of speakers as 'the best on planet Earth' is considered extremely faint praise and would likely cause most of us to erupt into fits of uncontrollable giggling, which earthlings would perceive as very loud, high pitched screaming with a large dose of odd order harmonics.
   You pathetic, dim-witted, worthless little earthlings don't have a clue.

Love,
Yuck!

 Whatever Mr Cox’s goal; he hit it out of the park, with the SVT.

Yes- a real classic.

Only your ears will tell you if these speakers sound better than every other speaker on earth. 

yuck
i am
yack

Highend666:

I can;t imagine why anyone would waste time with a $40K pair of speakers when they could get the WAMMs for $685K :-). Of course, I'm staying with my 30-year old Cabasse Galiotes...

g

  Big No, i did not read anything you said   enjoy the evening 

    Some Earthlings can't handle complicated issues and decisions due to their low brainpower.  Rather than taking the time to educate themselves through research and listening, they rely on their emotions to keep things simple.  This is a defective method that results in regrettable decisions, whether used for choosing speakers, a president or anything else.  

Love,
Yuck!

I listened to Kii speakers at the last RMAF. I didn't like them at all.

Sounded below average to me and looks  lifestyle audio.  There is another company  with a similar claim.   Check out Ascendo Live 15. This company claims “worlds best highend loudspeakers with the superior responsiveness and dynamic performance of the highest quality drivers ”.                         

...You'd better watch John Darko's YouTube review of the KII3's, and then do yourself a favor and watch designer Bruno Potseyez YouTube clip, where he explains the technology he employed in the KII'3. They are nothing short of amazing, in every possible way. In fact, with the BXT module (which turns them into 'real' floorstanders, with a frequency response of 15Hz to 50 Khz, and with 8 drivers in each cabinet, 4 of which are phase-canceled to the other 4 (thus achieving superb time-domain behavior, and, in fact, acting like a cardioid mike), a sealed-enclosure design which enables to position them just about wherever you want (Bruno jokingly mentions that you can mount them inside a wall and they would still sound great), 6 Built-in Class D, Hypex-type amps, 6 built-in, superior DAC's, A DSP that acts both as a cross-over and controls excessive excursion of the drivers, the KII control, built of solid-aluminum, which acts both as a remote-control (with digital presets for setting the preferable listening level without having to tinker with the (LARGE AND BEAUTIFUL!) Rotary Volume control, and as a high-End Pre-Amp, which connects via a high-grade USB cable to your MAC or PC and can stream music files stored on their hard-drive(s), a USB port at the back of the speaker which allows one to connect a DOK dungle and stream music from music services like Tidal, Kobuz, Deezer, etc., and all of that at a price of $17,000/pr...Do me a favor, forget about $750,000 M9 Magicos or $130,000 YG Acoustics Anat Professional II's or Vivid Audio Giya 4 at (give or take $180,000, or top-flight models from Sonus-Faber...Get to know them: info@kiiaudio.com.      

To answer OPs question, absolutely not, far from it, do not fall for clever marketing, the least to can do is listen and decide for yourself.
I did, I absolutely agree with the concept, active speakers when made properly are significantly better than passive ones, but the Kii's execution is very poor.

I might be on to something here...

"Giant Headphones for your room...The BEST OF BOTH WORLDS"
 "Once you listen to this system for awhile...There's NO GOING BACK!"


A lot more good stuff on Kii Audio Facebook page!

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.fidelity-online.de/kii-three-und-bxt/

Perhaps to some, but definitely not to all...

Because eight 7" drivers will not begin to produce the kind of LF that superior SOTA speakers can produce.

Why would you state so? Eight 7" drivers can actually displace a lot of air while still responding much faster (less mass, less inertia) than a single or dual 12" or larger cone woofers. Another benefit is the higher breakup frequency over large woofers.

I've actually heard Kii speakers in person and while having great bass, no coloration whatsoever, they lacked effortlessness, there was some kind of tension, for lack of better words and they were not the most transparent speakers I have heard.

No big woofer no speaker. Just a soundbox.

sharbatgula, you point out one of the outcomes of multiple smaller bass drivers; the speaker cannot - and I do mean "cannot" - sound as effortless as one with, say, multiple 15" drivers. The "tension" is due to the use of smallish bass drivers versus drivers that will with ease produce the LF. 

As regards your saying they are not the most transparent, there are many factors involved in the system's transparency, so I would have to listen to the speakers in perhaps up to 6-10 systems to know their limits in that regard. No one is able to know a speaker's absolute traits from one or two systems.

There are so many great speakers out there, is there one that is sooo much better than another?  It really comes down to the ear of the person listening, the amp driving them. The source feeding it and so on 

Seems to be designed to act like a dipole that yearns to be an omni....*G*

It'll still come down to the space it occupies, placement, the driving equipment.....the same parameters as faced by any other speaker pair.

Reminds me of the Devailet speakers in some ways, but certainly in a more 'conventional' appearance form....

Best speakers in my opinion were probably B&W Nautilus speakers.  Up at the top however, most are very close to each other.

I don’t like them for two reasons.
1) The speakers have DSP. I don’t like my music messed with by DSP in speakers.
2) I don’t like passive bass radiators at all. These speakers have two on each side of the speaker. 
  And since it seems they went out of business, oh well. 

I agree, the B&W crazy expensive Nautilus speakers look like there from Aliens movie, but awesome except I don’t know if they use diamond tweeters now, or the old aluminum ones still. Haven’t seen them in a long time! Saw them in the 80’s. Stupid heavy too! Would need a BIG room for those suckers!! A REALLY big room!! Part snail cone, part Aliens movie.

I heard the original, snail construction Nautilus driven by multiple Krell stacks and a custom outboard crossover at the B&W distributor in Mass.

I can’t tell you all how bored and disappointed I was with the sound that came out of them.

Honestly, the Matrix B&W before and Nautilus derived speakers after sounds much more fun and more interesting and transparent to me than the flagship Nautilus, which I have to admit to me was gorgeous as sculpture.

The idea of a best speaker doesn’t make sense on the face of it (absent theoretically perfect room correction). The simple truth is that a speaker which delivers (theoretically) “perfect” performance in a 3,000 cu foot room will sound very different (imperfect) in a 15,000 cu ft room.

Multiple Krell stacks. Meh 😑 

I am getting concerned. Why is kenjit conspicuously missing here?

@Geoffkait

Yeah, that may be why.