BD Audio have been appointed UK dealer for Kii Audio Three, an active loudspeaker with class D power amplification from Bruno Putzeys of Hypex and Mola Mola fame. Conceived by Dutch/German team with both home and professional use in mind each Kii THREE contains six channels of DSP, six drivers, D/A conversion and power amplification. It is designed to be used with either an analogue preamplifier or digital source such as a laptop although input is currently limited to AES/EBU on XLR. Kii Control will be released this month that reproduces the control options on the back panel and adds extra inputs, including USB. Features include volume, contour/tone, latency, polarity and boundary EQ.
One key to its design is what’s called Active Wave Focusing, a technique of controlling bass output from the drivers so that rearward output is reduced in order to minimize interaction with the room. Each side panel of the THREE holds a 3 x 250W 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 Kii THREE is a combined voltage/current control loop that is said to actively improve the distortion performance of the drive 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. 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 Kii THREE retails for £8,995 and is available now.