Review

Lyrix Gold Complete Review - Australian Hi-Fi - Australia

01 Aug 2001

Krix is one of those rarities in the loudspeaker business, a family-owned company that still employs family. In the case of Krix, it doesn't mean that they just own shares. Family members still work in the business and the entire Krix family pitched in to build the original factory. The original factory still stands, though it's now been dwarfed by larger buildings, and now houses sales and accounting, with a desk for managing director/chief designer Scott Krix.

The Equipment

The Lyrix Gold replaces the Lyrix, which was one of Krix' best-selling floor-standing loudspeakers, and had a Loudspeaker of the Year award from Sound & Image Magazine and a Best Buy award from AVL. Krix says it has updated the Lyrix Gold to take into account modern design trends, as well as the availability of new drivers and improved electronic components, and yet while it feels the Gold is a better loudspeaker than the Lyrix, they've made sure the sonic flavour is much the same. That trademark big bass sound with clean, crisp midrange is how the Krix website puts it. Despite the improvements, the retail has increased only $100, though this is for the Black or Jarrah versions the superb Beech version attracts a premium.

Obviously, the tried-and-true D'Appolito array has been retained. Krix is being very honest with the diameter of the two bass/midrange drivers, which it says are nominally 130mm, because this is the measurement from the centre of the roll surround, so the overall moving diameter is larger, at 142mm, though the actual cone diameter is slightly smaller, at 125mm. This makes Krix about the only speaker manufacturer we know of that quotes a useful and accurate speaker diameter well done! The cone is plastic-coated paper and the roll surround is rubber, with both operating from an ABS plastic chassis (or, as the Krix website says, fibre re-inforced moulded polymer). We were pleased that Krix is using rubber roll surrounds, because in Australia's climate, this material has proved far more durable than the often-used foams, which rot away after a few years. The unshielded magnet assembly is not overly large but the cone has extremely low mass, so it's plenty big enough.

The 26mm fabric dome tweeter nestled between the two bass/midrange drivers has its efficiency and dispersion aided by a slightly flared mounting plate, as well as ferrofluid in the voice coil gap. The tweeter is magnetically shielded, which is curious seeing that the much larger bass/midrange magnets aren't.

The crossover network is mounted on the back of the rear terminal plate. Like the original Lyrix, the new Gold is also biwirable. The network comprises six capacitors (four bipolar electrolytics and two Bennic pps), three 5W ceramic resistors and two inductors. One inductor is air-cored, the other ferrite-cored and the two are cross-mounted to minimise any interaction between the two. The nominal crossover is 2kHz, and all components are mounted on a standard fibreglass printed circuit board (PCB).

Unusually, the speaker terminal plate is mounted high up on the rear panel (which is painted black, whereas the rest of the cabinet except the baseplate is veneered), but this is probably because Krix wanted to get the rear-firing bass reflex port down as low as possible. The port itself, which is 125mm long and 75mm wide (it operates from a 40-litre volume) has an integral plastic vermin shield (a clever idea that prevents creatures from making their home inside your speakers) and also a removable foam port plug so you can tune the bass to your personal preference, as well as to suit where you've positioned the speakers in the room.

The speaker cabinet, which is constructed entirely of MDF, stands 936 high (without spikes), and is 211mm wide and 298mm deep (though there's a tiny plinth at the bottom which projects out a further 8mm at the sides, and 30mm in the front. This makes the speaker quite stable, with a stability index of 13.8 (side to side) and 19.4 (back to front). Internally, there's a small amount of panel bracing on the side panels, and a single layer of synthetic wool runs from top to bottom of the cabinet.

Listening Sessions

The Lyrix Golds punch out a big sound that is enhanced by the presence of a moderately textured midrange sound that puts the sound right up-front and spreads across the space formed by the left and right speakers.

Bass was tight and punchy, with just a tiny bit of forwardness in the upper bass. The bass rolled off fairly quickly, but quite smoothly, so although male speaking voices were a touch light, they were still satisfyingly deep and resonant. Plenty of low-frequency extension was evident, with the low notes on the piano keyboard reproduced strongly.

Overall, the Lyrix Gold speakers had a very mellow and forgiving sound quality, particularly across the midrange, that erased the rough edges from recordings we'd previously written off as being overly dry and hard-sounding.

Conclusion

The Lyrix Gold are aptly named, because they have the Midas touch, turning sound into gold.

- Australian HiFi - Australia , Greg Borrowman

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