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Playing to what I anticipated would be the King III's strengths, the first disc of Emmylou Harris' Anthology twofer [Warner Music Australia] spun up to Paul McCartney's "Here, There and Everywhere" given a woman's insightful touch imbued with an added sense of intimacy. Of course ESLs do intimacy well and it brought a tear to my eye listening to Emmylou's interpretation of this classic. Surprising was how solid and central the image of Emmylou hung in the air before me. 7 x LF film diaphragms and 3 x HF drivers per speaker distributed across a 70 x 177cm area do not equate to the single point-source approximation of a Quad ESL or even the two closely coupled drivers of my Audio Note AN/Es or Dynaudio monitors.


From the King Sound website: "The electrostatic loudspeaker is very simple in concept but difficult to construct successfully in practice. lts operation relies on electrostatic attraction and repulsion in much the same way as a piece of thin paper attracted to a rubber balloon is charged by rubbing it against fabric.The electrically charged ultra-thin conductive film diaphragm is tensioned and placed close between two metal grids. When a high voltage audio signal is applied to the metal grids, the diaphragm moves in response to the signal, moving towards the grid which at that instant is oppositely charged, and away from the grid which has the same charge as the diaphragm. The diaphragm responds in an essentially linear manner, producing sound waves which are a very accurate reproduction of the original sound."


My reservations with multi-driver speaker systems had been largely placated by the Volterras last year yet their drivers were at least perfectly aligned along a vertical plane. When moving from a single source-point speaker to a more conventional design (in my case from Tannoy dual concentrics to Revel Peformas) I had found it disappointing at first but my brain soon adapted and made order from the initial impression of chaos. Despite a grand total of 20 drivers the King IIIs conjured up a perfectly convincing centrally positioned image of the artist, with acoustic and electric guitar, harmonica, pedal steel and piano separated very nicely across a wide and deep soundstage. The multiple drivers caused no blurring or lack of focus when it came to imagery and a line drawn to bisect the speakers horizontally—so there'd be equal radiating surface above and below—would be 31.5 inches up roughly equating to ear level. The King IIIs naturally tilt forwards and each foot has two leveling feet to adjust fore and aft tilt yet I had no inclination to adjust them one way or the other during their stay.


What did make a considerable difference was swapping the left and right speakers so that the HF drivers ran down the inner rather than outer edges. This resulted in the soundstage becoming somewhat constricted and it was necessary to reduce the toe-in to widen things out again. In a larger room it would have been interesting to play around and move the speakers further apart then reintroduce some toe-in. But in my living room I swapped the speakers back so that the HF drivers were at the outer edges. This is how they stayed.


After consideration the silver grill cloth of the rear did look more stylish so a quick changeover seemed in order. Although the two top plastic pins quickly lined up and were pressed home into the frame's inserts, none of the side pins lined up with the sockets as the spacing differed from those of the rear. The covers weren't interchangeable after all. Another opportunity missed. My interest in the Podium Sound Model 1 speaker system all those years ago was in part due to their low-frequency performance. How would the King IIIs compare? After dusting off Erykah Badu's Baduism [Universal Records], the intro titled "Rimshot" wrought havoc with the EAR 509s as one channel was definitely distorting. eBay once again became the first port of call. An amp which seemed to tick most of the boxes was the Plinius SA-103 which had received a glowing review by 6moons this January. Rated at 125wpc into 8Ω (220wpc into 4Ω, 60wpc when class A is selected), its power output seemed borderline when considering my purchase had to drive the most demanding speakers I might acquire for review yet the £3,100 'Buy it Now' price seemed to offer zero opportunity for negotiation. On the other hand numerous references were made in particular to the SA-103's grip so considering its 50 amp peak output I was inclined to believe these accounts. I eventually managed to buy the amp for £2,800. The review could recommence and now we were cooking.