Absolute top tier DAC for standard res Redbook CD

Hi all.

First off, Bill Parish gave me a personal showing with the Kii (pronounced Kee like Wii) and a day of show play and settling really made a difference (as I suspected). Bill played a few tracks of jazz before kicking into a nic organ piece that showed these tiny things can go low. They deal with front wall issues but side wall and everything in front of the speakers still needs to be addressed. The room was a bit small for them honestly. I see them as an amazing solution for a living or family room. I'm going to hear them in Bills place to see how they sound in different environment.

The new Jeff Rowland Daemon is amazing and really makes the YG Sonya sing (literally). It's limitless power using a new class D amp developing by an offshoot of the Ice class D module, unlike the 825 and 925 which use an Ncore module.

I'll try to report some more of my impressions later tonight. I was invited to a tour of Jeff's factory in Colorado Springs and an audition of his voicing system(thanks Guido!!). Of course I said yes .

It's crazy meeting all these guys. Alex from MSB, Jeff from Rowland, Yoav Geva from YG. It's very cool and they are all good guys.

Glad you had a good day at RMAF Matt, and thanks for the observations about the Kii.

All, concerning the Daemon uber-integrated... I do not have complete information from the factory yet. But the core of the output stage might contain, amongst other things, a very high end Pascal module... No, this is not at all the one used in Rowland Continuum S2.

Regards, Guido

Updated info on the Kii room from A-Shark. It was hated at first…

Why it's important to come back to rooms multiple times. The Kii folks removed a CD transport and DAC and went right from the laptop to the Kii speakers and the difference was not subtle. Sitting listening to Ella Fitzgerald. Her voice is sweet and the stand-up bass is realistic. Cymbals sound real.

And I might add...no use of room treatments either to get this great sound.

The Kii also has adjustability for location in the room. The wonders of digital tech. We couldn't have done this as well in the analog domain.

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In this instance, I suspect that part of the improvement could have been due to the fact that, when they stopped using the CDP + DAC source, the additional DA + AD stages were eliminated too since all analog inputs are digitised.

Afaik, the Kii Three does not have the WISA input enabled yet since the WISA controller is not due till next year.

Thanks for the update Wisnon. This product holds promise for folks who want high-end sound without a wall of equipment. Bring a source and you are good to go! That it tackles room boundary issues too is a real bonus. This could be the perfect solution for younger apartment dwellers, older downsizers and everyone else who wants to keep it simple.
The WiSA (Wireless Speaker and Audio) input will offer yet another level of convenience. I don't know much about it but I hope the WiSA "standard" will also support wireless for two-channel audio, because they seem to be focused on "surround audio in home theater and commercial environments."WiSA