Reviewer: Thomas Bartlett
If you are interested in home theatre loudspeakers, it might be worth checking out South Australian firm Krix. It has an arm to its business that produces loudspeakers for real cinemas – the ones that you pay to enter to see first release movies – all over the world.
The system here, though, is its entry-level home system, consisting of four compact Brix main and surround speakers, a Microcentrix (the purpose of which is obvious from the name), and the Seismix 1 subwoofer.
Features
Each of the Brix speakers is a compact two way kind, standing just 230 mm tall. Actually, these are the second version of the Brix, since the originals have been around since the early 90s. They are solidly constructed units with a 25 mm soft dome tweeter and a 100 mm bass/midrange driver. Because of the relatively small bass driver, the crossover between the woofer and tweeter can be higher than average, allowing them to handle more power than many speakers of this size.
The Microcentrix is a perfect match for the Brix, varying only by adding an additional 100 mm bass/midrange driver and, of course, having its longest dimension (360 mm) sideways rather than vertically.
Neither of these speakers delivers much in way of deep bass, so the Seismix 1 subwoofer has assume an important part of duties in this system, carrying the bass from all five channels in addition to delivering the low frequency effects. It is well-equipped for this task with a 255 mm driver, and 200 watts of continuous power to push it (400 watts for very brief peaks).
The review speakers were finished in a good-looking black-ash vinyl finish, but for a bit more money you can option them up with various real timber veneers to a very classy look.
Performance
The first thing that struck me about the Krix Brix/Microcentrix/Seismix 1 system was the sense of balance. It is something I try to stress all the time. For good home theatre performance, no matter whether they are state of the art units, or the lesser models achievable by we mortals, the four surround speakers must work in harmony with each other, and with the centre channel. And the subwoofer must be up to the task to support all of the small speakers.
This system achieves that. Forget about comparisons for the moment. In its own terms, the system worked as a seamless whole with excellent surround imaging. The subwoofer was easily able to keep up with the smaller speakers, and it’s high end was maintained well over into the mid-bass, where the smaller speakers could take over.
The Seismix 1 also went surprisingly deep, with some of my favourite pipe organ music shaking the room, and my innards, in a most satisfying way.
And if you just want to pop on a CD from time to time, in stereo mode the front Brix and the subwoofer combined produced a truly high quality stereo sound.
Conclusion
I’m not one for buying Australian simply because it is Australian. But in the case of this Krix system, I would suggest that you buy Australian simply because it is so good.
