Review

Harmonix Complete Review - Australian Hi-Fi - Australia

20 Jan 2009

Krix is, in many ways, a most unusual Australian loudspeaker manufacturer. The first of these many ways is that the main part of Krix’s business involves building professional cinema theatre installations, for which it is famous both here in Australia as well as around the world. In fact, if you visit Krix’s website, you can download a full list of its professional installations across all five continents. The second of the many ways is that Krix still builds its wooden cabinet speakers entirely in its own modern factory facility in Hackham, South Australia. And when I say ‘entirely’ I means that apart from the drivers, which are built to Krix’s own specification in Norway, Sweden or Denmark, depending on the type of driver, Krix does everything from scratch – from winding its own inductors to building and then spray-painting (or veneering) its own cabinets. This is highly unusual in a world where with very few exceptions, most manufacturers are having their cabinets built in China, and outsourcing their crossovers.

The Equipment

The Harmonix speakers I received for review had big shoes to fill, because they replace Krix’s famous award-winning Symphonix, which had been one of the most popular designs in Krix’s line-up for the past eight years. As you’ve probably guessed from the Symphonix’s very long eight-year reign, Krix doesn’t just introduce new models for the sake of it, so I was not surprised to learn that the impetus for the introduction of the Harmonix was the availability of some new, improved, bass drivers and a new Krix DRV-T28 tweeter, as well as the discovery of some economies of scale that made it possible for the Harmonix to employ exactly the same midrange driver used in Krix’s top-line Neuphonix speakers.

Standing over a metre high (1060mm), the Harmonix is a tall speaker, which means it is essential to control standing waves inside the enclosure to prevent ‘organ pipe’ resonances. Krix does this by having two large braces criss-cross the low to mid section of the cabinet, which also provide both side-to-side and front-to-back bracing. Because the midrange is contained within its own infinite baffle sub-enclosure at the top of the cabinet (together with the sealed-back dome tweeter) Krix has also cleverly angled the MDF panel that comprises the bottom of the sub-enclosure to help prevent standing waves. This sounds like such a simple exercise that you’d imagine all manufacturers would do it, but in fact it makes the cabinet far more difficult to build, which would be expensive, and so it’s only because Krix is building its own cabinets that it can do this without a crippling cost penalty.

The 28mm soft-dome tweeter is a brand new model for Krix, which likes its performance so much that it also uses it in the Equinox, Apex and Phoenix. (The top-line Neuphonix uses ScanSpeak’s expensive ring radiator tweeter). When queried as to why Krix had positioned the midrange driver above the tweeter, designer Andrew Bennett said that he’d found that in this design, this geometry not only minimised diffraction-related interference with the edges of the cabinet, but also put the tweeter at ear level for most seated listeners. (He also took the opportunity of the unsolicited phone call to praise the performance of the new tweeter, which he claims ‘has smooth top-end performance with an absence of gritty stored energy problems’).

As I noted earlier, the Harmonix uses the same midrange driver as the larger Krix Neuphonix. It has a 117mm (Thiele/Small) diameter coated paper cone that’s driven by a very short voice-coil operating from a compensatingly large magnet, which is helped by a copper shorting ring. The combination, according to Krix, results in a very high sensitivity driver with very low harmonic distortion. Crossed from the upper bass driver at 340Hz, and passing on to the tweeter at 2.2kHz, it operates as a true midrange driver, and so is completely unaffected by the Doppler distortion effects that plague the ‘2½-way’ or ‘quasi three-way’ designs that dominate the market at this price point. Unlike them, the Krix Harmonix is a true ‘three-way’ design – albeit one with four drivers!

The two bass drivers have identical 123mm laminated polypropylene cone units (the overall driver dimension is 182mm) with their voice coils wound on 32mm aluminium formers and flux stabilising rings. All are built on a stable, cast aluminium platform. The environment from which they operate is the familiar bass reflex, courtesy of a 75mm vent that’s mounted in an ideal acoustic position: on the front baffle and almost immediately above the top-most of the two bass drivers. It’s worth making the point that most speakers with front-mounted bass reflex ports end up with a ‘confused’ sound field because of the amount of midrange frequencies that ‘leak’ out through the port, which is the main reason most designers put the bass reflex ports on the rear. Because Krix completely isolates the midrange driver from the bass reflex cabinet, it’s able to put the port on the front baffle, where it will be most efficient.

The Harmonix has external dimensions of 1060x220x355mm (HWD) for a total internal volume of around 60 litres, but because of the separate midrange enclosure, only 44 litres of this is available to load the bass drivers. The 17mm thick MDF walls of the Harmonix can be clad in one of three vinyl finishes (Black Woodgrain, Atlantic Jarrah and American Cherry) at $2,300 per pair, or in a real timber veneer for $2,500 per pair. The three standard timber veneer finishes are Black Ash, Atlantic Jarrah and American Cherry.

Listening Sessions

I kicked off the sessions with Simply Red’s new ‘Greatest Hits’ double CD, and what a great album to demo all the Harmonix’s many strengths. If you had to use only one of the 25 tracks, I’d recommend Money’s Too Tight (To Mention). If you follow this recommendation, please pay particular attention first to the way the Harmonix bass drivers deliver the kick drum in the opening bars, and then to how they also handle the bass guitar and finally to how easy it is to hear the exact pitch of each note in the riff. Finally when Mick Hucknall kicks in with the lyric (‘I’ve been laid off from work/My rent is due…’) notice the way his voice (always in a class of its own) sails clear not only of the bass, but also the entire mix, to become the focal point of the sound field. The dedicated midrange driver means you can hear every subtle intonation he makes, and when he breathes off a note, the Harmonix present it with stunning clarity.

I was so impressed I switched from CD to SACD, in the form of Eleanor McEvoy’s ‘Love Must Be Tough’ (MoscoDisc MOSACD304). Gasp! It was a lot like having McEvoy and the entire South King Street Band in my listening room, such is the intimacy of the DSD recording, the accuracy of the transfer and the stupendous clarity of the Krix Harmonix speakers. And it’s not only the Irish burr of McEvoy’s voice, but also the to-die-for tone of Jim Farrelly’s alto and tenor saxes. When Karl Ronan chimes in on trombone I dare you not to flinch at the reality of the sound! (And you’ll instantly hear why MoscoDisc has opted the motto ‘lo-res for low life!) And if you like Irish folk, trust me that McEvoy’s ‘Yola’ on SACD sounds even better again through the Harmonix…if you can believe it.

For a more massed sound, I span up Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall, a superb live recording, as you will hear even if you only listen to the perfectly true timbre of the audience clapping sounds and the almost-tangible hall ambience in the intro to Chan Chan. The bass and maracas on De Camino a la Vereda are stand-out, but more important is the way the Krix Harmonix speakers deliver the music as a completely cohesive event. They really make it seem that if you couldn’t be there in New York in July ’98, then using them to audition the CD truly is very nearly as good.

No matter what I played, the stereo imaging always remained precise and focused, yet there was also an overall sense of there being a ‘stage’ spread across the front of the listening room. The speakers’ dynamics were not in question, and they remained identically dynamic, no matter whether the music was being played back at high or low volume. Either was, there was no compression on the loudest notes, and I never once missed out on hearing the softest of them.

Conclusion

I confidently predict that the Krix Harmonix will become even more famous and lusted-after than their illustrious predecessors. These are high-class speakers that can do it all.

- Australian HiFi - Australia , Adrian Coupain

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