Review

New Brix 4 Review From Ivan Smith

28 Aug 2008

Being a long time Krix speaker owner (a pair of 1990's KV-35Ps) and totally aware of the commercial cinema pedigree from before the purchase of my original KV's, it has been a while since moving from Adelaide, that I have had a surprise from a pair of speakers in my new home of Sydney.

Since the move to a new city I must confess to a digression to the B&W side of the fence for my new HT 6.1 system. The centre and fronts are B&W DM302 and CC-3, which compare both physically and sonically to the Krix Equinox. It's worth mentioning that the DM302 won the EISA Small Speaker of the Year Award, in 1997 for "a speaker of exceptional, natural fidelity....", with other comments along the lines of "near field studio monitor quality..", "amazing..." and so on.

I mention these speakers because they were the speakers I replaced my original Krix with and I have enjoyed them, and continue to do so. They are flat and accurate and they sound fantastic for a 5" woofer BUT they do not give anything like 3D soundstage or pleasing effortless balance that I was used to from the KV-35P's, and I missed my Krix terribly after getting the B&W's run in. The KV-35P's are currently the rears in my HT setup, with the B&W all matched across the front. The sub is another great Aussie - the Richter Thor (the 12" incher - not the Son of..) and the whole thing has been tuned over and over to get the bass cross-over transparent and eliminate standing waves.

With all of this sonic glory I was still missing my Krix as fronts, so I finally decided to hunt down a Sydney retailer and buy a new pair of Krix for Music only. I found one in Newtown and walked out of the shop with a pair of Krix Brix Mk4.1's.

In the KV-35P days I had auditioned the Brix Mk1 and it was a tiny little speaker box, which, truth be known, sounded like it was a little boxed speaker next to the KV-35P (which to this day is the most open, extended and transparent bookshelf speaker I have ever heard), but it was for the price at the time a class above all the imports at the same size.

When I walked out of the retailer with the new Brix, I was sure the box was smaller than that in the 1990's and what a surprise I got when unpacking them for the first time. I bought the white vinyl versions (to match my MacBook ;), with all intentions of using them as "computer speakers with a bit of class", well after connecting them and testing them on my HT amp, the computer lost them as it's own. I simply can't play computer sound through these little boxes of sonic wonder.

Initially I toed them in slightly because they didn't seem to be imaging properly, but I forgot that speakers like this need to run in a bit. Well they are now somewhat run in, and toed out from the initial position. They are 90 degrees flat on next to the pair of DM302's, a little closer together, but these speakers, even though they are the same depth as the DM302's, and have a 1" smaller woofer, can hold their own sonically and certainly in the soundstage area.

It must be noted that for the B&W's to get "transparent" has taken a few years and lots of sound metering/equalising (more for room effects rather than speaker anomalies).

Out of the Box the Brix just floored me on the spot. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I even turned the sub off to make sure all of that bass was coming from the Brix. This was with Classical Baroque, Pipe Organ and some modern popular music. The showcase for me is an Art of Noise CD called "The Seduction of Claude Debussy". On the Brix this CD springs out of the boxes and sits in front of you just like the earlier KV-35P's. For sonic comparison I also A-B'ed between the B&W and Krix - flatness of frequency/tone - almost exactly the same. I know the B&W's are as flat as it gets, but the Brix are just as capable and natural. The only area I could detect a large difference was more an effect of the Brixs' enclosures than anything else I can put my finger on; the B&W's sound more "airy and open" and less tight due their larger enclosures and slightly different cross over/port arrangement.

So, astonishment over I proceeded with integrating the sub-woofer into the mix. Now before I proceed I must state that this was done with meters and two comparison tracks from the AON CD. From my measurements and listening tests I can only say this - I didn't have to change my cross-over frequencies or anything and the Brix and B&W DM302's sound sonically identical with music in this configuration. The box boom detected on the Brix alone was gone, and I put it down to the fact that the top end speakers are rolling their bass off at around 80Hz, where the top of the sub comes in. This is removing the "box" from the Brix, by not allowing it to go anywhere near the resonant frequency of the enclosure.

To summarise, the Brix are a fine outstanding Australian speaker, which would suit well any small living space, anywhere in the world. Using them in a surround sound system is one use for them, and they are well sized, sounding and priced just for this, but team them with a sub-woofer and get the Box out of the Brix and you'll have a system which is sonically astounding for little speakers like this.

They, along with all of Krix, have come such a long way since my first purchase back in the late 1980's that I simply say Bravo! - last point about this - you DON'T have to buy imported speakers to get beautiful natural sound. We have several really, really good designers in Australia and Adelaide's Krix are probably at the top of that list. Listen and be amazed.

- Ivan Smith

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