Review

KDX-C & KDX-M Complete Review - Home Theater Magazine - USA

01 Nov 1999

The whole idea of a home theatre speaker didn’t even exist until about 10 years ago, but now the field’s finally matured to the point where we can say a certain design is a “classic”. In the same way that the classic for hi-end, audiophile speakers would have to be a two-way mini monitor, the classic design for home theatre speakers is the LCR, or “left/centre/right” speaker.

An LCR typically uses two woofers and a single tweeter. It works just fine whether you stand it on end for left and right channel use, or flop it over on its side for centre channel use. And unless you’re wedded to the spacious sound of dipolar surround speakers, an LCR works perfectly fine for the surround channels, too. Custom installers love LCRs because they’re easy to build into a wall: do-it-your selfers love LCRs because they’re small, they can sound amazing when mated with a subwoofer, and they don’t provoke complaint from the décor-conscious members of the household the way that huge tower speakers do.

There’s nothing unusual about the Krix KDX-M and KDX-C, except for their origin: they’re built in Australia. Krix is the first Australian speaker company I’ve come across; it’s headed by a guy named Scott Krix, and distributed in the US by Moondance Audio. The only thing that’s particularly Aussie about these speakers is the veneer, which is Australian jarrah wood. Otherwise, they could just as easily have been built in LA, Toronto, or Manchester as in Adelaide, South Australia. Also theirs a little removable tag that hangs from the grille, which sports a cool, kangaroo-festooned “Made in Australia” logo. I recommend leaving it on as a conversation piece. Think of the amazing tales you can tell your friends when they notice your speakers were made in Australia --- like, “Hey, the guys who made these speakers? Compared to us, they’re standing upside down right now!”

The KDX-M and KDX-C are very similar --- the only difference between them is that the KDX-C’s speaker cable binding posts are turned 90 degrees, its crossover is slightly different. (1.5kHz instead of 1.6), and the logo on the front is turned 90 degrees and positioned along one of the long sides of the grille so that it looks right when the speaker’s laying horizontally atop your TV set.

Each speaker incorporates two 5-inch woofers with coated paper cones, flanking a single 1 inch fabric dome tweeter. The cabinet’s ported in the rear. This configuration quiets the port noise, which I found quite noticeable from the rear, but inaudible from the front. However, front-ported or acoustic suspension (sealed box) design is far easier to build into a wall or cabinet, because the installer doesn’t have to leave room behind the box for the speaker to breathe.

The crossover is slightly unusual in that its parts on not mounted on a circuit board. Instead, they are soldered together directly, an assembly technique known as “point-to-point” wiring. This technique is used in some high-end speakers because some designers feel that routing signals through the copper traces on printed circuit boards compromises sound quality.

The components are attached to the back of the binding post panel with what looks like some sort of white silicon goop, which also helps keep the parts from vibrating. (Some designers feel that vibrating crossover components can lead to “microphonics” --- the vibration is transferred into spurious electrical energy that can degrade the audio signal.) Although the goop made it impossible for me to trace the crossover circuit, it appears to be a third-order (18dB/octave) slope on both the woofer an the tweeter.

I tried a quintet of the Krix LCR’s in our LA listening room, using B&K Reference 4420 and 4430 amps for power, and a Krell Home Theatre Standard pre/pro for Dolby Digital/DTS processing and volume control. I listened to the speakers on their own, with the Krell set for “large” speakers all round, then mated with an Infinity HPS-500 sub, with the Krell set for “small” speakers all round.

The KDX-M and KDX-C turned out to be an ideal match for the Krell’s fixed 80 Hertz crossover point (a crossover point used in many pre/pros and receivers) --- they play deep enough to drop down to 80Hz or so with no audible strain. They’ll actually play lower than that, though; although they don’t have enough bass for convincing reproduction of movie soundtracks, they have plenty enough bass for satisfying sound with most types of music. You could easily use a couple of them without a subwoofer for a music system.

What you’ll notice right away if you do that is truly outstanding soundstaging and imaging. On all my audiophile CDs, I heard tremendous depth --- it really sounded like some of the musicians were 20 feet behind the room’s front wall. The imaging on the percussion instruments was nothing short of amazing; it seemed like the percussionists were right there between the speakers. The Krix speaks out imaged everything I’d been listening to for the past couple of months, including several much more expensive speakers.

I particularly enjoyed the sound of the Krix system on rock and pop CDs; its hard to say exactly why, but they sounded dead-on with every rock CD I played. Must be the woofers, which seem to handle dynamics without the slightest effort --- they get up and move fast, and stop moving when they’re supposed to. Voices in movie soundtracks and on stereo CDs showed just a hint of what audiophiles call a “cardboardy” coloration; I think there’s just a slight resonance somewhere that makes it sound almost as if the singer had a small piece of cardboard taped below her chin. We often complain a bout upperbass/low-midrange resonance, or “chestiness”, in centre speakers; this is a similar sound but higher in frequency and far less distracting than chestiness.

Most of the speakers in the $1000 per pair range that I review have far more noticeable colorations. The treble sounds clear, distinct, and deliberate, without a hint of hashiness or distortion. This clean sound lends a welcome precision to well-produced CDs and DVDs, which can sound a little messy on a less-damped, lusher-sounded tweeter. I never found the treble fatiguing, even at several decibels above normal listening level. The highs aren’t as lush or subtle as you’ll hear from many audiophile speakers, and there’s a little bit of a “cupped hands” coloration in the upper treble, which I only noticed on high-frequency instruments like cabasa and cymbals. This is probably why I like these speakers so much on rock, pop and movie soundtracks, which don’t have much upper treble energy in the first place.

As you might guess from what I’ve told you so far, these things will play pretty loud. Either high-passed or run full-range, they easily pass my party test --- run full-range, they went up to about 99dB (measured from my listening position) before they started to blare and fatigue my ears. High passed, they hit about 103dB --- loud enough for any sane person with passable hearing. Even run full-range, they’ll play at Dolby reference level with ease.

One more note about these delightful little speakers: the finish is astonishingly good. The grain looks so distinctive, and the veneer is so perfectly applied, that I had to scratch it down the bottom to make sure it was real wood! With workmanship and engineering this good, Australia may soon take its place alongside the other former British colonies known for excellent speakers.

Highlights:

- Practical, versatile LCR-style speaker
- Very nice sound, highlighted by amazing imaging and soundstaging

- Home Theatre Magazine - USA , Brent Butterworth

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