KS Audio CPD 14

When I was asked to write a review of KS Audio’s CPD 14, I have to admit that I had never heard of the company before. In fact, most of my colleagues that I asked hadn’t heard of KS Audio either. I only found one person who knew the name KS Audio, and when I mentioned their name, his response was that they “make amazing studio monitors.” For a company that has been around for over 30 years, it seemed no one really knew much about them, so I spent the past few weeks getting familiar with their product line, including the speakers that I’ve reviewed here, the CPD 14.

The impression that I’ve gotten is that KS is a boutique loudspeaker manufacturer in the very high end of the market. My first reaction when hearing KS Audio’s live loudspeakers was that they were like studio monitors in a P.A. system. The systems are remarkably flat in both frequency and phase response, most notably in the high-end, extending flat all the way to 20k Hz. For a live sound engineer, this is a bit unnerving, because most of us simply are not used to hearing systems that extend flat all the way to 20k. It took me a while to get used to the brightness and airiness I perceived in their cabinets, but over the course of a few weeks of listening to their systems, I grew to love hearing the very high frequencies that are missing from most of the systems I listen to on a regular basis.

Inside the CPD 14

The CPD 14 is a full range, 3-way, powered loudspeaker with built in DSP that utilizes KS Audio’s “FIRTEC” FIR filtering technology. KS markets this box towards small-scale P.A. applications, such as a house of worship, theater, piano or karaoke bar — or even as a studio monitor. At first glance, the CPD 14 looks like a traditional column array, but upon closer inspection, the box has some unique physical characteristics.

Looking at the front of the box, it has a very slim width overall. Contributing significantly to the slim profile of the box is the fact that the pair of 10-inch woofers are mounted on the side of the cabinet. In addition to the side-firing 10-inch woofers, there are four 5-inch midrange drivers and a single 1.75-inch high-frequency driver mounted to a waveguide. Unlike a lot of the column arrays on the market today, the CPD 14 is not about beam steering or shaping. In fact, the box has a fixed 90-degree-by-30-degree (HxV) coverage pattern.

In the Field

The CPD 14 was a breeze to get up and running quickly. My only complaint is that the cabinet lacks any sort of handles, a seemingly odd oversight. My assumption is that KS sees this box primarily as a permanent install cabinet and therefore didn’t include handles. However, seeing as how the box has a 35mm pole socket, it stands to reason that users might be lifting the box onto a tripod with some regularity.

The back of the cabinet has 110 to 240 VAC Neutrik powerCON in and thru connectors, and XLR in and thru audio connections that can be used for both analog audio and AES/EBU. When inputting AES/EBU, the box has sample rate conversion for signals up to 192k. There is also a pair of RJ-45 network ports on the cabinet that can be used to control the cabinet’s DSP from a Windows computer running KS Audio’s “KS Remote Control” software (more on that below).

Among the things I really appreciated about the back panel of the cabinet were the level and delay controls, accessible from easy to use navigation buttons on the back of the amplifier module. Basic level and delay adjustments can be made right from the cabinet, without having to connect a computer and open up the software, which is a nice time-saving feature.

KS was kind enough to provide me with a pair of CPD 14’s for this review, and I set them up in what I considered an ideal environment for a cabinet of this type — a small room with decent acoustics that is of similar size to what these boxes might actually be used in. With the boxes set up, I started running some of my typical test tracks through the system, and I was immediately impressed with what I heard. The low-end was punchy and tight, thanks to the dual 10-inch low drivers (not often found on a cabinet of this type), and the mids were silky smooth and didn’t get harsh when pushed hard. I listened through a few tracks with female vocals and horns that tend to reveal harsh midrange, and didn’t find any problems in the 2 kHz to 4 kHz range.

What really impressed me were the highs, and I mean the “high highs.” I was hearing things on the ride cymbal, for example, that I wasn’t used to hearing. A quick measurement in SMAART (see Fig. 1) revealed these boxes to have remarkably flat frequency and phase response up through 20 kHz. In fact, these were some of the flattest boxes I’ve ever seen and heard. When the speakers were delivered to me for testing, my contact at KS took time to emphasize their desire to have to boxes be as neutral as possible. “What goes in is what comes out,” so to speak, and I found this to be very true with CPD 14.

Not only was the box incredibly flat, but it sounded pleasing to the ear. Not all “flat” boxes I’ve heard sound subjectively “good,” but the CPD 14 had a excellent sonic character. In addition to sounding great with music, the CPD 14 really shined with speech as well. In fact, in a lot of the CPD 14’s intended applications, speech and vocal performance would be of paramount importance, and the box handled both with ease.

Finally, once I had familiarized myself with the sound and coverage of the CPD 14, I opened up the KS Remote Control software (see Fig. 2).  At this point, I didn’t feel like the box needed much additional processing, but I wanted to have a look at this software offering. After downloading and installing the very lightweight software, I connected my computer directly to the cabinet, and the software discovered the box immediately. From there, I was able to change things like gain, delay and polarity, as well as access several bands of parametric EQ, which were hardly required for a box that was already tuned so well from the manufacturer, but could come in handy in certain situations.

Impressions

In conclusion, I was impressed with the CPD 14 and KS Audio in general. Several of my colleagues who listened to the cabinet also remarked about how neutral it was. For a manufacturer that I had never heard of, it was a real treat to find a new, unique speaker that was truly different from anything I had ever seen and heard.

At A Glance

A New Approach to Column Speakers

KS Audio puts a twist on traditional column designs, with a high-power, high-performance 3-way system that features dual 1-inch woofers, advanced onboard FIR processing and both AES/EBU and analog inputs.

KS Audio CPD 14

PROS

• Slim profile
• Extended LF response compared to most column type boxes
• Remarkably flat frequency and phase response all the way up to 20kHz

CONS

• Heavy
• No handles to lift or carry the cabinet
• Expensive

Specs