That musical clarity and simplicity might lead you to conclude that this is an inherently simple design. I’ve long been a fan of simple, first order crossovers, ever since I first learned how they preserve the all-important phase relationships in the signal. Our ears use phase to help construct a mental picture of our surroundings; so it’s no surprise that a convincing, three-dimensional and fleshed-out stereo image depends having on having phase coherent reproduction. So any crossover which preserves these relationships better, is a better crossover. On that basis, first order is therefore better than second, which is better than third, or fourth. Obviously!
The crossover in the Kim is a fourth order Linkwitz-Riley design.
So, not obviously, as it happens. Asked about this, Karl-Heinz Fink gave me a slightly sideways look. It’s probably fairer to say that simple crossovers are harder to get badly wrong, and small loudspeaker manufacturers, with less technical resources to draw upon, are less likely to mess up a first order design than something more complex. But when you are FinkTeam, with the expertise, modelling, and measurement capabilities that implies, there’s no reason why you can’t design a fourth order crossover which outperforms a simple first order design in terms of phase coherence or anything else – but also gives you the ability to work with steeper slopes. It just takes effort, careful modelling, and exactly the sort of experience his team can draw on. A more complex crossover gives you more control (especially of out-of-band artefacts) and allows you to engineer a more benign load. The Kim’s minimum impedance is 5.9 Ohms, against a nominal 8 Ohms rating.
The Kim might have a fourth order crossover, but it also generates some of the most convincing, cohesive and coherent imaging I’ve ever achieved in my room – which kind of suggests it’s not playing fast and loose with the signal’s internal phase relationships. It certainly holds true for Leonard Bernstein’s performance of Rhapsody in Blue, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic [DGG] where so much of his jazzy aesthetic depends on the subtlety of his timing and phrasing, the piano part built on and set against the bedrock of the symphony orchestra. The Kims set out the delineation and structure of the orchestra while giving Bernstein’s playing the space to breathe, allowing his phrasing, texture and touch to come to the fore. This interpretation owes as much to Bernstein’s 1980s jazz aesthetic as it does to Gershwin’s 1920s and so much of that gets subsumed if the timing and the layering of the parts aren’t coherently delivered. The orchestra is expansive and clearly laid out, the better to resolve the interplay between the parts; the piano has mass and form and proper proportions. There’s a tonal richness and expressiveness that, in my experience can get a little bleached if the speaker is all attack, at the expense of decay. Here, the leading edges leave little room for confusion as to the timing, but there’s also a well resolved shape to the notes, whether piano or orchestra, the better to appreciate the phrasing and how this contributes to the mood.
