Напольная акустика — Vivid KAYA 25

The KAYA 25 is the compact floorstander in the KAYA range from Vivid Audio, the South African company founded in 2002 with Laurence Dickie leading its design work. The model takes styling cues from the older OVAL range and shares technology with the GIYA loudspeakers. Pricing starts at USD 12,300.

Key specs that matter

The KAYA 25 uses a two-way layout with two drivers. High frequencies come from the D26, a 26 mm alloy dome loaded by a tapered tube, and a single C125D 125 mm alloy cone covers everything below the 3,000 Hz crossover point. Vivid quotes a frequency range of 40 Hz to 25 kHz at the 6 dB down points and puts the first breakup mode of the tweeter at 44 kHz, well above the audible band. Sensitivity is 86 dB at 2.83 V and 1 m on axis. Impedance is 8 ohm nominal and never falls below 7.5 ohm. Second and third harmonic distortion stays below 0.5 percent across the range at 1 W. Each speaker is 1,160 mm tall, 263 mm wide and 340 mm deep and weighs 24 kg, and a packed pair weighs 60 kg in a carton of 1,245 x 680 x 450 mm.

Engineering and use context

The enclosure is formed from a Soric-cored sandwich with glass fibre reinforcement in its inner and outer layers, pressed using a double vacuum process taken from race car manufacturing, with a curved, non-parallel shape that avoids flat opposing walls. Soric foam is also used inside as absorption. The bass section is an exponentially tapered tube working together with a reflex port, and the absorber horn for that tube is hidden inside the stand section. Behind the tweeter a conical tube absorbs the rear wave of the dome. The C125D woofer uses a radial rare-earth magnet of the kind Vivid had earlier fitted only to GIYA bass drivers, and it is bolted in from behind with hex screws on silicone damping rings. A machined aluminium base accepts spikes or soft pads. Standard colours are Oyster Matte, Piano Black and Lexus Pearl White, and any custom PPG automotive colour can be ordered instead.

Pairing

Vivid recommends amplifiers of 25 to 125 W. The near-constant load with its high minimum places little current demand on the amplifier, so lower-powered solid-state and valve designs are both workable partners as long as they reach the needed level with the modest sensitivity. With limited deep bass extension, the speaker is sized for smaller listening spaces.

Alternatives

The Vivid Audio KAYA 45 is a bigger floorstanding KAYA, which spreads four drivers over three ways.