Kii THREE Pro DSP Studio Monitor

Kii THREE Pro DSP Studio Monitor

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KII-THREE-PRO
$16,985.00
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Kii THREE Pro DSP Studio Monitor - (Pair)

Kii breaks the sonic mold for compact studio monitors by combining drive units on the front, rear, and sides with a 4 way DSP crossover and filter.

The Kii THREE contains six channels of DSP, D/A conversion and power amplification. Few companies could pull off such a densely packed design with truly world class performance electronics. But then again, few active speakers are designed by people who have previously turned high end power amplification and digital conversion around.

Each side panel of the THREE holds a 3x250W power amplifier board, designed by Bruno Putzeys using the latest iteration of the Ncore class D technology which he invented for Hypex. Unique to the implementation used in the Kii THREE is a combined voltage/current control loop that goes beyond merely a better amp – it actively improves the distortion performance of the drive units which contributes significantly to the extreme resolution of the speaker.

Naturally, this means that the performance of the AD/DA conversion has to match that of the amps. This task fell to Bart van der Laan who has a long track record designing DSP and converter boards for high-end professional audio equipment. Kii Audio’s implementation is a runaway success: a complete pass through the AD/DA circuitry of the THREE’s signal processing board is entirely inaudible, a feat not duplicated by the most expensive audiophile standalone units.

Alongside the Active Wave Focusing filters the DSP is responsible for keeping the drive units within their safe operating range by gently adapting the filters instead of brutally limiting the signal, allowing the THREE to play significantly louder and cleaner than much bigger traditional designs.

On the input side there is a choice of analogue, digital inputs. All digital inputs are up-sampled and reclocked using Kii’s own jitter rejection algorithm that guarantees actual “bits is bits” audio performance for any digital source.

The electronics package alone sets a milestone. What it does in concert with the unique acoustic design defies imagination. You have to hear it to realize the magnitude of the revolution the Kii THREE represents.

Kii’s mission for the THREE was to break the sonic mould of compact speakers. Powerful small speakers with deep bass have been around for a while now but none so far sounded like a big speaker. The THREE is built to fix that.

Basic acoustics tells us that a classic box speaker only directs sound towards the listeners from the midrange up while bass frequencies are radiated all around. The frequency where this change happens depends on the size of the box front (the “baffle”). The smaller the baffle, the higher the frequency at which bass is still radiated all around instead of directed towards the listener.

That in short is why big speakers have so far delivered much more precise timing and detail in the bass and low mids than small speakers: the room gets less chance to interfere. And that is what Kii has now managed to make a compact speaker do.


Kii THREE unique features:

  • XLR Input - this can provide either analog or digital Input depending how the select switch is set
  • Select switch (3 positions) - chooses between AES left channel / Analog / AES right channel Input
  • KiiLink Digital Thru on CAT5 - used to connect the two speakers when using a single AES Input
  • KiiLink Digital Input on CAT5 - used to connect the two speakers & future Kii products
  • Boundary switch - can be set to 16 positions between free / wall / corner to optimize setup
  • Contour switch - provides flat setting + 14 different preset EQ curves to match the listeners taste
  • Mains Power Connector - plug in your power cable and go, the Kii Three has no power switch

The Active Wave Focusing Solution

A loop hole in acoustics says that small directive speakers are possible - if you have enough drivers and you feed them the exact right signal. The THREE has a total of 6 (six) ways, front, side and rear, working together to throw the sound in one direction only without relying on a baffle. The THREE’s ability to direct bass is comparable to, but much better controlled than that of a traditional speaker several meters wide.

What do Active Wave Focusing filters do?

Active Wave Focusing filters mark a complete departure from the classical crossover filter. Instead of just splitting the spectrum into bands, it forces the specially positioned drive units to create a completely coherent wave front that is only emitted forward and behaves as though all of it came from the midrange driver.

With classical crossover filters, loudspeakers can only have a time aligned impulse response on the main axis. The animations on the right show the wave front as it’s built up by a typical modern three-way speaker with side-firing woofers. This example is crossed over at 250Hz, time aligned and phase equalized. Indeed the wave traveling towards the listener is coherent. Towards the sides and the rear the picture breaks down and the impulse is completely smeared. Also, low frequencies get emitted in all directions. In a real room (bottom animation) the sound that escapes toward the back will strike the wall behind the speaker and reflect towards the listener, who actually hears the speaker twice: once from the front and a bit later from the rear. Moving the speaker out into the room doesn't help. The overall bass balance looks better but the impulse response gets worse as the reflection now comes even later.

The animations on the right show how the Active Wave Focusing method retains full time alignment all around the speaker and how the presence of the rear wall has no impact. Sonically, the effect is a very even, unusually detailed bass. Even in problematic rooms, a drum kick has that visceral thud that previously only very big or in-wall speakers could achieve.


The Kii THREE was designed with the acoustical challenges of todays studio setups in mind. For more information, call or chat with an RSPE representative today.


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ManufacturerKii
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