The backward-canted cabinet certainly seems to manage the bass propagation and floor reflections, while keeping the overall height of the speaker lower. In a smaller listening space, such as mine, this also helps. The Kims will work just fine in a larger room – I’ve heard them work well in spaces three or four times the size that I use – but they do feel particularly at home in a smaller, more domestic setting and I definitely feel like I’ve hit a sweet spot. The wider horizontal dispersion makes for a more generous hot seat, but their ability to focus when set just so is exemplary. Encouraged by RG’s painstaking approach to speaker setup, I’ve dedicated a little more time and effort to finessing position and alignment when changing my system, and this has reaped significant benefits in terms of the solidity, stability and focus of images, as well as the speakers’ ability to project dynamics with composure.
Being an inveterate tinkerer, I was always going to experiment with possible tweaks. Good though the Kims are, straight out of the box,a little experimentation soon reaped serious rewards. The stands arrive with two floor spike options: sharp, carpet-piercing designs, or rounded-tipped cones for hard surfaces. Replacing the cones with AcouPlex cones/footers brought about a noticeable improvement in focus and clarity, removing some previously unnoticed ‘hash’. Similarly, loosening the fastenings between cabinet and stand allowed me to insert some small AcouPlex discs, around the size of a £1/€1 coin, between the base of the cabinet and the top of the stand. Although the stand is a low-storage design, the addition of this damped interface has definitely brought further focus and transparency, as well as allowing the music to breathe more easily.
One of my favourite large-scale works is Prokofiev’s dark and unsettling Second Piano Concerto. I’ve tried a number of versions over the years, before eventually settled on Freddy Kempf’s account with the Bergen Philharmonic [BIS, SACD] for his assured playing, and the subtlety of his phrasing. Many performers give you the drama, or the fireworks, or show off their speed and articulation on the moto perpetuo second movement, often to absurd, borderline a-musical levels (yes, Yundi Li, I’m looking at you…). For me, Kempf occupies something of a Goldilocks zone and the music speaks through him, delivering layers of subtlety the more bombastic accounts nearly always obscure. Having attended to the Kims’ set up with rather more painstaking attention than hitherto, I soon discovered yet more layers to this account. The interplay with the orchestra, and the way Prokofiev plays with the orchestral parts, spatial positioning for call and response, his layering of tonal shade, adds a new dimension to this already complex piece. But at the same time, it makes it more approachable, more open to understanding on a first hearing, because you hear what, how and why it is being done. This lucidity of form and construct, so akin to the sense of a live concert, is one of the great strengths of this modestly-sized loudspeaker.
