FinkTeam KIM - thoughts?

@whipsaw Have you experimented with vibration control yet? I found the addition of the IsoAcoustics GAIA made a noticeable improvement, to my ears (they fit well with the dedicated KIM stands).

I used Gaia's on my KEF Reference One's with very good results, and had planned to try the Stack Auva's on the KIM's. I sort of fell into an intermediate solution while tuning the speakers to my room. I am fairly tall and initially the soundstage was presenting fairly low, so I did the natural thing and raised the front footers to angle the speakers up. This raised the soundstage, but over time I realized it was messing with the timing. I know that sounds crazy, but these speakers seem to reveal even the smallest change. Anyway, I backed that out and made sure the speakers stands were perfectly level, and instead put them on some 3/4" slabs of limestone I had laying around, as most people do, and put soft fiber furniture gliders on the bottom of the stone to insulate it from and to and protect the wood floor. Wow, what a change! It really tightened things up. I may still go with the Auva's, but they are fairly spendy, so it is not part of the immediate plan. I use their Ethernet Regenerator with good results and have great confidence in their products. 

I have been tweaking/voicing my system over the last couple months, I have not had a speaker reflect changes to this degree. It has been a lot of fun.

Good stuff, thanks.

You are obvious well-experienced, and sophisticated, but I'll add one more detail. For many years I basically followed the equilateral triangle speaker placement formula, with a little tweaking. Then, after having been exposed to Jim Smith's approach (X = distance between tweeters, Y = distance between your ear and the speaker; X/Y is 83%), I found that the imaging improved, including with the KIMs.

YMMV

@whipsaw Thanks for the tip, I will investigate further. I have been chatting with AI on better placement, and already have some improvements. I find placement tweaking anxiety inducing and rather exhausting, and tend to quit and listen to music. I will get there. 

Wow these things look intriguing. I had only ever heard of their big speaker design which I think has a 15 inch driver for lows. These look much more compatible with the average room, and by that I mean normal sized. 

Thanks for the updates, and hopefully they just keep getting better as you dial in placement. That can be a journey of trial and error, but worth it in the end.

@996turbo911 They intrigued me enough to buy them without hearing them and I am glad I did. And yes, they are quite room compatible, and they have fairly good WAF. I have been making progress on placement, slow going.