Review

Brix, Impax & Centrix Complete Review - Australian Hi-Fi - Australia

01 Mar 1994

Krix Loudspeakers is an Australian speaker design and manufacturing business, owned and operated by Scott Krix. Throughout its 20 years success story, the company has not only conquered the speaker market in certain areas of this country, but also made a very strong impression in the professional sound arena.

This strength is no more evident than in the area of cinema sound where Krix has supplied speaker systems to more than 200 movie theatres. To say that Krix has experience in this area of the market would be something of an understatement, and it seems like a natural progression for this South Australian manufacturer to enter the home theatre field with a surround sound speaker package.

There is a good deal of interest in home theatre at the moment and there’s clear evidence of the growing realisation among consumers (and the trade) that a good sofa cinema experience requires a good speaker system with matched and compatible speakers.

Enter the Krix AVX system, an Australian made package which incorporates the Krix Impax 2.0 floor standing speakers as the main (front) left and right channels, a pair of Krix Brix mini monitors as the (rear) sound effect channels and the all new Krix Centrix as the centre speaker. Both the Impax and Brix models are pre-existing designs from Krix, while the Centrix is a new development. They are priced at $1599, $449 and $799 respectively.

The Impax was developed as a high quality general-purpose speaker with engineering which emphasises audio-visual applications in the home (such as the AVX system). It features two drivers, the woofer / mid range of which is bass reflex loaded to the large(ish) cabinet via two wide diameter front baffle ports. Krix has chosen a low range driver with a 200mm-paper cone diaphragm and a tweeter which has a soft dome that is horn-loaded for increased efficiency and added dispersion.

A polyswitch is incorporated into the well-made crossover to protect the tweeter from damage due to amplifier overload (reset time after triggering is around one minute). Considering the large amounts of sonic information in home theatre, this is a welcome safeguard. This feature also combines with the oversized driving system of the bass driver to provide high power handling capabilities.

The bass reproduction ability of the Impax is simply awesome; extended, well rounded and appropriately detailed. Corner positioning for these speakers is not an option, they need to be kept well away from walls (distance depends on individual rooms) and, when optimised, the sound stage is breathtaking. The nicely balanced sound and imaging capability of the Impax system makes it ideal for front speakers in the AVX surround system, while its excellent bass reproduction virtually eliminates the need for a subwoofer.

Bringing up the rear is the Krix Brix, a diminutive (190 x 260 x 140mm) speaker by any standard, but a pint-size power house nonetheless. In the AVX system, it is designed to be used as the rear channel speaker mounted behind the listener in the corners of the wall on small unobtrusive brackets. I found the Brix to be an exciting and dynamic little speaker which is very articulate to listen to and, despite the limitation on very low bass response dictated by cabinet size, incredibly well balanced.

The speaker is a two-way bass reflex design featuring a 25mm textile dome tweeter which has a very sweet character, and a 100mm diameter low range driver which features polypropylene as the cone material and aluminium in the voice coil (to improve power handling). The Brix is very detailed and accurate in relaying sonic information and these attributes make it ideal as a rear effects speaker, where surround sounds are projected into the viewing area with stunning clarity (which enhances the enjoyment factor markedly).

Completing the surround sound system is the Centrix, a model specifically designed to be used as a centre speaker for home theatre systems. It is a dual 125mm bass design with point source configuration and features the tweeter placed (ideally in this instance) between the two bass units. The Centrix has been designed as a wide-range speaker so that dialogue and associated surround centre channel sounds can be (and are) reproduced with stunning accuracy. In fact, if you buy two Centrix’, you’ll have yourself a mighty fine pair of full range speakers!

The centre speaker is arguably the most important in a surround system. Since it reproduces dialogue and other complex information, the centre speaker should be as accurate and faithful (if not more so) as the other speakers (particularly the front pair) in the system. The Krix Centrix complies with these requirements and passes with flying colours – a case of over-engineering being highly appropriate in this instance.

Krix has innovatively designed this speaker so that a large screen television can be located quite safely on top of it. To cater for this duality of roles (speaker and stand), the unit is heavily cross-braced internally to handle the weight. Importantly, the speaker is also heavily shielded to prevent the magnet assemblies of the drivers from interfering with the television operation. Here, expensive (but necessary) non-magnetic cast magnesium alloy is used as the shielding rather than steel which can leak magnetic flux.

The construction quality of the Krix AVX speakers is top class, with real wood veneer and excellent joinery contributing to an impressive and appealing appearance. It’s likely you will need a reasonably large viewing room to, firstly, accommodate the Krix AVX system and, secondly, allow it to perform to its prodigious potential, and a major positive aspect of the AVX system is that it can be acquired as a complete system or gradually, item-by-item as finances permit.

The AVX system has been in situ here at AVL (with Marantz SR-92 receiver, Sony laser disc player and Trinitron television) for a couple of months now and has impressed everyone who has experienced it…in fact watching the reaction of individuals experiencing the impact and quality for the first time became almost as entertaining as the movies themselves.

I can heartily and confidently recommend the Krix AVX experience to you…you simply won’t believe the impact of home theatre until you’ve heard it through this surround speaker system.

- Australian HiFi - Australia , Richard Morgan

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