So do the Kiis I believe. Think they only fire up when temperature rise requires it. You can’t put 1kW+ of amplification (even class D) in a sealed box without consideration for the potential few hundred watts of heat that needs dissipating at full blast.
Some interesting shots of the insides here:
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews2/dutchdutch/1.html
http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews2/kii/1.html
I don’t believe they do have a fan - passive cooling only, from what I’ve read and seen from photos
The Kiis don’t have a fan, they are perfectly silent.
I’ve run them hard in a warm room and have had no problem with them. They do get warm to the touch, but that’s how they are designed to dissipate heat.
The Kii Control is a great device which expands capability and adds convenience. I wonder if Kii has contacted Roon about making the Control into some kind of Roon Bridge. You’d think it could be done.
I also wish they had a fully remote volume control (like the Devialet), but you can easily control the volume with a small hand held remote.
I haven’t heard the D&D, but I don’t think you can say there is a consensus they are better. Some people say they have a bit “warmer” sound than the Kii. I’m sure it’s a matter of taste, some will prefer one, some will prefer the other.
They are similar in overall concept, but the execution is different. AFAIK, the D&D are best near the front wall, which they use as part of their bass management. The Kii are, as I understand it, more flexible in placement.
Just curious why the “Roon Ready” designation is so important to you? Is it to do volume control from within Roon? Or are you committed to ethernet playback only?
With the Kii Control you can just connect a Roon core/server directly to the Kii Control and run Roon from your remote device, just like you would with any DAC. It works fine and you can do volume control with an Apple or RC5 remote.
Hi Danny,
thanks for that. There is no doubt that the sound balance of the two does differ slightly according to reviews and user comments. From what I have read, this has led to criticism of the Kiis for having a thinner tonal balance and therefore sounding less ‘musical’ than the D&Ds. Anyone in the market for either really needs a home demo to see what suits their environment and the type of sound you are after.
For me, the choice may be easier as whilst I can stretch to the D&Ds, the Kiis are probably out of reach financially. But without the Control box of the Kiis. there isn’t a lot in it if you buy the Kiis in the plain ‘studio’ finish. This finish may not go down well with the other half though… I am determined to listen to both before the year is out.
Roon Ready status is not relevant under the circumstances. Nice to have certainly, but easily fixed quite cheaply (considering what you’ve just spent on the speakers!).
It’s to be able to control at least the volume from both within Roon and the Kii control, with feedback to both. One can also fantasise about integration of the Kii DSP into the Roon DSP, rather in the manner of the Audeze DSP…
Yes, icing on the cake, but one can dream?
Maybe I misunderstood you, but there isn’t a link between the Control and the finish you get. You can get the Pro finish, one of the two “standard colors” (white and dark grey) of the home model, or any color you want for a price uptick. My understanding is that the “pro” finish is more scratch resistant, which is the reason for it’s existence. Without the Control and with the pro finish, the price is certainly less, but I wouldn’t want to be without the control. Personally, I much prefer something like the Control to an “app” for management.
And anyway, if you use Roon, you can do all sorts of “tricks” to the sound with the Roon DSP without leaving your seat. I’ve done that to experiment, and then dialed the same thing in with the Control/Kii instead of in Roon.
If you hear the Kiis and the D&D, I’d be interested to hear your impressions.
Yes slight misunderstanding. I was comparing the base price of just the speakers (no Control or fancy finish).
Kii 3 (grey splatter ‘studio’ finish) £10,000
Dutch&Dutch 8C £9000
Kii 3 lacquered grey or white finish is +£1000 with metallic finishes even more…
Kii 3 Control is £1500
There is no doubt at the moment that the Kii is the more mature product. The Dutch&Dutch has no Control hardware box available and is controlled/configured via a web app. I don’t think that is really acceptable as it stands, but no doubt things will improve over the next 6 months.
One point of interest is that the 8C has ethernet ports and can be connected directly to your IP network. The Kii can not be connected to your network as the RJ45 ports use a proprietary protocol. For Roon this means that the 8C can (probably) work directly, while the Kii will need new hardware to be directly networked. One can of course use a microRendu or similar in front of the Kii Control but I want the Control by my listening position so this will not work for me. What is left is the AES/EBU input on the Kii. This will work nicely (I could use my mR/Mutec here) but SPDIF is limited to 192 kHz so higher rates will suffer.
Speaking of rates, I believe that the 8Cs are limited to 96k sample rate input. Happy to be corrected on this if it isn’t the case. Note sure it really matters to me but it will to some people.
The proprietary ethernet port issue with the Kiis does mean that without the Control unit you have no way to update the software.
My current setup is limited to 192 kHz (Devialet 250 Pro) so I am not sure a limitation like this would matter to me either, but a limit of 96 kHz would.
Re.: Control; Kii has indicated that a ‘bigger’ unit will be introduced. Here we will probably see ethernet as one of the inputs. Then RAAT should be possible.
Bigger unit at a bigger price? The current Control does look like it was thrown together as an afterthought to me, but is better than nothing.
Meridian have been working this field for a long time with their DSP Speakers. My DSP5200’s are 10 years old now, but surprisingly still hold their own. As long as they don’t break beyond economic repair, they’ll be with me for a while.
They’re limited to 96kHz as well, but extensive dabbling with now-gen high-bitrate DACs in my headphone setup taught me there’s not an awful lot happening above 96kHz. With a simple MS200 streamer, a MiniDSP for Dirac room correction up to 180Hz and a tiny bit of Meridian DSP taking the edges off the treble region in my lively living room, this makes for a great sounding, integrated setup that can be fully remote controlled over IR (Meridian Remote and Harmony) and directly from Roon (including standy/on and hardware volume control).
In all likelihood, I will always have a setup like this – so it is quite interesting to see other players enter this field. I did spend an afternoon with the Kii’s however – they were nice, but did not make me run out to get a pair to replace my aging Meridians.
With all the things happening in digital audio over the last 10 years, I think that’s quite a feat. 
Yes, the 96k limit does not bother me. I have never had the room to accommodate the meridians, but somewhat spookily the Kiis are exactly the same dimensions in width and depth as my current speakers (PMC PB1) and on their stands would be a similar height.
Thinking about it, I could replace them with the Kiis and the Mrs might not even notice. A cunning plan is starting to take shape…
Well if she cant hear the difference, stop the plan now! 
)
I think the people at Kii would disagree that the current Control is ‘an afterthought’ 
. Being used to the Devialet Expert remote (in particular the original that came with D-Premier and still comes with the D1000) I must admit that Control is not as elegant, but it is nice to know that all settings are available from the listening position. Let us hope that Control can be used with the new device.
She’d immediately notice the difference in colour…
‘You’ve spent how much on a pair of ****** speakers? Have you completely lost it…they’re not even the right colour!’
There is money to be made doing aftermarket vinyl wraps for kii speakers.
FYI: according to the review in August 2018 HiFi News http://kiiaudio.com/media/GENERAL/docs/reviews/kii3hfn818lowrez.pdf the Three uses an internal sample rate of 93.75 kHz. So everything gets resampled to 93.75 kHz.
