The Experts team wondered what we thought people would want to find behind the windows of a dream studio advent calendar. Some of the things we own, some we wish we did. Owned or not, we think any of the things we name in the next 2 days would be a gift to a professional studio owner. Russ Hughes chooses the Kii Three Studio Monitors.

Day 23 - Kii Three Monitors

When you’ve been part of a blog for over a decade and spend most of your time around new products then it’s a sure-fire way to cure gear acquisition syndrome. Like working in a chocolate factory, when new gear appears it’s hard for me not to say ‘Meh!’ I’m certainly not on the lookout for new gear, so anything that gets my attention has to be really special, gear that makes me part with money really special.

A bit like telling the story of meeting your life partner, I remember exactly where I was when I first heard the Kii THREE studio monitors. In a shitty conference room with two glass walls in a hotel at Muzik Messe in Frankfurt, at the launch of the Kii THREE professional monitors. Ironically I was there helping Kii with their marketing and artist relations, but at that point, I’d not heard them.

After dealers and press had spent time listening to them James Ivey and myself spent time, fighting over what song to play next. The rest of our team wanted to go to dinner but James and I were determined to try and hear as many songs as we could.

It took some time to get a demo pair into the studio but once I’d spent a weekend listening to the Kii THREE on everything from old mixes to favourite songs spanning around 4 decades of my life I was smitten. It was at this point that I knew that whatever the cost the speakers weren’t going back - it seems a cynic can still fall in love with gear.

In the several years that I’ve owned the Kii Three speakers I’ve not had a single mix returned for amends. This means that what I’m hearing is translating to client systems, irrespective of what speakers they listen on. For a professional that kind of mix confidence is worth its weight in gold.

A Kii Three system is not cheap, it’s perhaps the largest single investment I’ve made in my studio in the last few years, but to have such trustworthy monitoring makes them a no brainer.

One word of warning, don’t demo a pair if you can’t afford them, you’ll want to keep them!