Musician Audio Knight V.2 loudspeakers by Terry London

A few years ago, I reviewed the original Musician Audio Knight 1 stand-mounted monitor (reviewed here) and found it so superlative in its performance/build quality vs. cost ratio ($2000 for the pair) that I selected it for Stereo Times “Most Wanted “list as my budget speaker of the year. At the end of last year, Arthur Power, owner of Power-Holdings, Inc., the U.S. distributor for Musician Audio in North America, informed me that a second generation of the Knight speaker, called the V.2, had just been released and asked if I would be interested in reviewing it. My answer was a quick, positive “YES” after the great experience with the first generation of this speaker.

Here are the three changes that Musician Audio made in the Knight monitor V.2 compared to the original model:

1. The elimination of double speaker cable terminals. The same very high-quality binding posts are used, but only a single pair instead of two.
2. Much-improved components in the crossover, and using a different frequency range as the crossover point between the tweeter and midrange/woofer drivers. Musician Audio was “tight-lipped” about the specific parts and crossover point, so that’s the best I can do to convey information on this important upgrade/tweak. The Knight V.2 speaker uses the same 6 and a half inch polymer midrange/woofer driver and a 1-inch (one of the most musical/detailed with no harshness or etch transducers I have ever heard, regardless of price) soft dome tweeter composed of a 28-core/layer silk dome with a special glue coating and a front-loaded acoustic lens.
3. The original Knight monitor came only in a beautiful, matched red horse-eye wood veneer with hand-applied 18 layers of lacquer. The Knight V.2 model can be ordered in either the red horse-eye color or the new honey-amber horse-eye color. Both are visually spectacular; it is a matter of personal taste which color you might select. I have had speakers in for review that cost magnitudes more and do not come close to the perfectly matched veneer and hand-applied lacquer finish of this $2000 pair. The Knight V.2 monitor retains the pentagonal (five-sided) sculpted front baffle, along with embedded magnets to secure the high-quality grille. Each speaker weighs a hearty 35 pounds. Musician Audio is a highly regarded OEM of speaker enclosures for many of the world’s very high-end manufacturers.

Here are some of the sonic virtues that enamored me to the first generation of the Knight 1 and what has been improved in the V.2 model.

1. The Knight 1 was among the highest performers in spatiality, producing a large three-dimensional soundstage and making the speaker itself disappear. Because V.2 has an even lower noise floor, resulting in greater transparency, individual players are even more holographic, with a sense of space around them. Because the V.2 offers more of a “see-through” quality, what I call the sound-space, which are the ambient cues, allows you to more clearly and realistically experience what the acoustic space was like where the music was recorded.
2. The Knight 1’s transient speed and aliveness always allowed the listener to experience the PRAT of the music without ever turning harsh or “in your face” at virtually any sane volume level. The Knight V.2 offers the same speed/dynamics with a slightly higher level of effortlessness and liquidity.
3. The Knight 1 offered excellent overall timbre, color, and tonality, with a natural, realistic perspective across the mid- and high frequencies. As my readers know, the most important aspect in any piece of gear for me is tonality/color/timbres. No other sonic virtues matter to my pleasure in listening to music if the tonality/color is correct. The Knight V.2 offers slightly higher color purity and intensity across instruments. I attribute this improvement to the greater transparency and clarity in Version 2.
4. The Knight 1’s power band (from the lower mid-range to the upper bass) is excellent at presenting the “foundation” of the music without giving a sense of a frequency bump found in many stand-mount two-way speakers. Therefore, the Knight 1 stayed linear throughout its range. The Knight V.2 retains this virtue and adds a more controlled, accurate lower-bass response. I do not believe the V.2 goes deeper than the first-generation Knight monitor. However, the V. 2 sounds tighter/faster than the prior model.

Does the above-stated information regarding the sonic improvements in the Knight V.2 speaker indicate an evolution or a revolution over the original Knight 1? My conclusion: Musician Audio took their terrific-performing Knight 1 speaker, with a few tweaks/changes, to a real but delicate/slightly higher level of sonic achievement. Therefore, Knight V.2 is an evolutionary perspective. The Knight 1 still offers wonderful performance, but the V.2 adds incremental improvements that lead to consistently higher levels of musical enjoyment. Many companies dramatically raise the price of their equipment when they introduce a new generation MK2 model. I give great credit to Musician Audio for keeping the Knight V. 2’s price the same as the older model’s. I believe the Knight V.2, for the above reasons, deserves to be placed on “The Most Wanted Component” list and is one of the greatest bargains on the market today.

Specifications: Musician Audio Knight V.2 speaker
Price: $2000
Drivers: 1-inch soft dome silk tweeter, 6 and a half-inch polymer midrange/woofer
Weight: 35 pounds per speaker
The Knight V.2 speaker measures 10″ in width, 15″ in depth, and 13″ in height.
Sensitivity: 86dB
Frequency response: 50Hz to 20KHz
One pair of speaker wire terminals
Website: MUSICIAN (musician-audio.com)
Email: zhai@musician-audio.com

TJ’s Associated Equipment
Source: Reimyo DAP-999EX Toku DAC
Pro-ject Reference CD transport & LTA power supply
Audio Note (UK) DAC 4.1 balanced signature
Amplification:
Coda 5.5 amplifier
Plinius SA-50 amplifier
Naiu Labs Ella MKII amplifier
AricAudio Custom Balanced 5751 tube-based preamplifier
Loudspeakers:
Rosso Fiorentino Arno 40
NSMT System Two
Tekton Design Ulfberth
Sonus Faber Auditor Ellipsa speaker
Accessories:
Jena Labs reference AES/EBU digital cable
Vermouth Audio Black Pearl MKIII XLRs
Vermouth reference speaker cable
Audio Archon power cords
Krolo Design reference rack & footers
Puritan Labs grounding system and power conditioner