AES 2019: Kali Audio Announces new IN-8 Coincident Studio Monitor
by The Press Desk   3rd October 2019

I've been in contact with Kali about getting a replacement - they just shipped it the other day since their warehouse was out of stock before this past weekend. I've had them both hooked up regardless (although the extra hiss in the one speaker can be a bit annoying at times). I should have the new one in a few days.

In regards to the sound, I wouldn't say it's a massive improvement over the LP-8, but everything sounds a little more defined / clean mix wise. The stereo image is more realistic IMO. In terms of translation, I'm getting as good, if not better results than my LP-8s. Hearing the finer details in a mix easily is the biggest improvement for me over the LP-8. Any oddities in a mix are much more apparent. While the LP-8s are also good at this, the IN-8 takes it a step further to where I don't need to listen as critically trying to find problem areas.

I'm pretty familiar with the sound of Kalis having owned the LP-8s since their release. In regards to the frequencies you mentioned, I don't have to guess with those areas too much whether I'm using the LPs or the INs. The IN-8s do make mixing a lot easier as a whole (when comparing the LPs), so it's a thumbs up from me.

I like the Yamahas, but they sounded hyped in comparison to the Kali LPs when doing a side by side. I think you can get good results with either, but you have to know your speakers / mixing room.

So do you think the upgrade was worth it? As you didn't see any massive improvement, do you think the price difference is justifiable ?

Regarding the hs5's when I tested them at the store the vocals already seemed duller compared to the hs7's. But I went for them keeping in mind that I would keep them as a 2nd pair along with a 7 or 8 inch pair I would purchase later. Its a good speaker , quite revealing, a bit of ns10 replica but with its own sound character.
But I am thinking whether it is supposed to sound that dull anyways. I mean I heard a hs5 vs hs7 sound test in youtube and the difference between them didn't match what I heard in the store ( note that I am speaking about differences, not actual response, which of course is impossible to match with real life test). I mean, I wouldn't say that in the test the 5's sounded duller than the 7's. Also if something sounds harsh in the mid/hi mid area I may miss it if not checked with a second pair.

Anyway I may open a separate thread for this issue. Currently I am thinking of another pair and IN-8's as well as APS Klasiks 2020 are the two main candidates, though I feel the APS's are gaining ground lately... We'll see...

Now I wonder how close the HS-5's is to my NS-10's. I have never heard them side by side. The schematics are pretty close from the look of it. People hated the HS-5's when they came out, because of the poor bass response, but that's the hole point of the NS-10's. I bet the NS-7 are even farther from the original Yamaha sound, but could of course be a great speaker for the price, anyway... just my 2c, Sorry, off topic!

From a sound perspective, I think so. From a QC perspective, I'm still on the fence about that. I bought the pair of IN-8s one month ago and one of them was defective - the self hiss from the speaker was too loud (3-4 dB louder than the "good" IN-8 in the pair). I've since received a replacement directly from Kali, but that one also has the same exact hiss issue (completely identical level of hiss when compared to the first defective one).

I'm now waiting for another a replacement from Sweetwater, which looks like it won't be arriving until the end of next week, hopefully. I'm being as understanding as I can, but I'm starting to get frustrated. Usually when I have these kinds of issues with gear I return the item and move on, but I'm a bit invested in Kali stuff. I love the sound profile of their speakers, get great mixing results, and they're affordable. I did a bunch of shootouts with my LP-8s against other speakers in this price range and like the Kalis best.

What I will say is that when I compared the LP-8s to the Yamaha HS-8, the LPs sounded very dull in comparison. IMHO, I think this is because the Yamahas have a more hyped frequency response, which is not what I wanted. I still think you can get great results with the Yamahas, but my ears gravitated to the more neutral sound of the Kalis.

FYI Kali Audio received the long awaited 3d party Frequency/Distortion analysis plots a couple of days ago.
They are in the process of publishing them in their web site, however they already shared an image in their FB page to get an idea of how they look. I guess it has been quite smoothed (probably 1/6 smoothing) but they look quite balanced, apart from the dip in the highs we are all aware of. (It is a common on axis issue of coincident speakers).







Too bad you' ve been so unlucky with your pair. From your words I understand you are satisfied sound wise with the upgrade but I guess not that "astonished" if you will (since you used the phrase "I think so", but I get you have to burn them in first and have them working properly in mixing conditions before you judge them right).

Really, is the hiss that bad as they say, or is it something you can live with? Also what's your distance from them at sweet spot?

I may have myself a demo audition soon in my town, but to be honest I am more biased towards the aps Klasiks 2020 lately, the improved version of the greatly successful Klasiks monitors. Anyways, please let us know how you like your pair as soon as you get the replacement. :-)

Final verdict: the IN-8s got returned and I'm back to using my LP-8s. I received 2 replacement IN-8s, giving me a total of 3 defective units. I had only one with a normal amount of self hiss to compare everything else to (from the original pair). I did look past the hiss to give a proper listening test, but after A/B'ing them against my LP-8s I can't say I'm missing much by returning the IN-8s.

Maybe the bass was slightly more defined than my LP-8s? Maybe. I personally felt that the IN-8s sounded duller in the high end when going back and forth. Stereo image? In my opinion, splitting hairs. Again.... I liked the LP-8s better in this regard as well. I just 'felt' stereo imaging more with the LPs whereas the IN-8s sounded smeared. Believe me, this came as a huge surprise considering what everyone else has been saying about the IN-8s.

Back to the hiss....

LP-8s - A higher pitched hiss. Is it kind of loud? Yes. Have I gotten used to it because I love the LPs in all other respects? Yes.

IN-8 - Darker, but IMO just as noticeable as the LP in it's own way. This is me talking about the one good unit I had. I've confirmed with Kali that the IN-8s are supposed to have around 2 dB less self hiss when compared to the LP-8. Doing a listening test, I don't agree with this. The good IN-8 had a similar level of self noise, just a different tone.

I didn't want to stop at the listening test since saying what I think I hear is very subjective. I decided to setup my Zoom H4N pro to record the hiss of the good IN-8, the 3 noisy IN-8s, and one of my LP-8s. In every recording I placed the zoom 2 1/2" off the center of the midrange tweeter / tweeter. This is where you're really perceiving the hiss from with the Kalis and while the woofer also hisses, it's much much deeper and not something my ears pick up on. I didn't place the field recorder at my actual listening distance since this test is about comparing the raw hiss levels and not about whether Kali speakers have loud hiss levels (we all know the answer to that at this point).

All speakers had their volume's at center detent position, dip switches set the same, and nothing plugged in besides the IEC cable for power. I've attached screenshots of the loudness meter readings for each speaker. At the top of each instance of Youlean Loudness meter is the label for each speaker. See integrated loudness in each instance. I've also attached a REW reading of my room with the LP-8s. It's been heavily treated with GIK panels / bass traps / etc. It's not perfect, but I feel I have a decent listening space.

The one good IN-8 is .4 LUFS louder than my LP-8....? The other units obviously being much worse. I'm not an expert in how these kinds of tests should be done, but between what my ears were telling me and what my loudness meter is telling me... I'm not so sure the issue is on my end. The good news is that I'm happy with my LP-8s and will keep using them for the foreseeable future. Hiss aside, the LP series are really great.

I can't say the same about the IN-8s IMO. I purchased them with the hopes of a little less self hiss, better imaging, and a more detailed listening experience. I can't say I had a marked improvement over the LP-8s and couldn't justify keeping them, defects aside. All IMHO of course . . .

Someone has written a very in-depth review of them on Thomann:

https://www.thomann.de/gb/kali_audio_in_8.htm

I'm guessing you're referring to one or more posts I've made about the IN-8 and the hiss?

The director of marketing at Kali actually reached out to me as he and the team had seen some of my issues posted, and they'd found a component that was likely in my case outside of their required tolerance.

They sent me a new pair that still had noticeable hiss from the listening position, but seemed less ragged (like a soft pink noise instead of periodically hearing muted electronic squeals and such,) and would be fine for those who aren't much bothered by hiss, or for use with a TV. As a package for the price, I don't think there's a competitor (frequency response, dispersion, volume) until you step up to a Devialet Phantom Reactor which is significantly more expensive and has a terrible app and some connectivity issues, or a Genelec coaxial monitor that fixes the latter two issues at the cost of less bass unless you go with a used 8260.

I got a pair last week and here are my thoughts on the IN-8 so far;

- Bass - I went from a 5.1 setup using Equator D5 speakers with bass management. The ability to now run stereo in "full range" without bass management is great. The bass seems clean to me, and surprisingly low. I probably wouldn't consider it as "tight" as I would want. However, to get that sound I'd either maybe have to get a closed system which brings with it some tradeoffs that I don't want, or it'd have to be significantly more expensive.

- Loudness vs distortion - Speaking of clean the other thing I wanted was a higher SPL at the listening level without the sound feeling distorted or compressed. As great as the D5s were for the money they did feel a bit cramped even before I heard outright distortion. The IN-8 by comparison have allowed me to crank things up loud without any audible distortion or compression. Certainly I'd have to go beyond my comfort zone as far as loudness goes before level will be a problem on these speakers, and that's different from my previous setup. I should mention that the same is true for many smaller size speakers in that pushing them to get the desired SPL leads to a sound I don't like. Small Genelecs for example.

- The hiss is there, but to me it's a non-issue. I have these set up in my work space at home. This is an apartment and although I have treatment on the walls I don't have it in the walls, so it's not an entirely quiet space. Even when it is very quiet and the noise is audible when I'm not playing anything back it actually doesn't bother me at all. So to me noise is a non-issue. Heck, I'd even go as far as saying that these would work for me in a studio that's actually reasonably quiet.

- Tonally they were very different from the D5. The D5 was definitely mid-range forward, on purpose from what I understand. The idea was to hype a certain range to make it "easier" to work on that range. I don't really mind this difference as I think the forwardness in that range made me tire faster on the D5s. I can definitely listen to louder material longer on these (lower distortion helps as well). It has taken some time though to get used to some of the frequency spectrum on these as it's quite different. I'm not sure exactly where that is, but depending on how I feel about it and how my mixes end up translating I may tune that a bit.

And on that note I did experiment with the switches on the back quite a bit. It's a bit annoying that they're not super-clear about exactly what the indexed boundary switches do, or exactly where the shelves start. I certainly had to reassess the room and its response when setting these up. I ended up using the boundary switches in an appropriate position which I feel gives me a good balance in the room in the mix position.

- Soundstage is wide and deep compared to previously. One thing I'm wondering about is if the marketed even response over wider angles actually leads to more room reflections, and that in turn the room makes itself more 'heard' than previously. It's not really a matter of me hearing things 'slap back' or even the reverberation of the room but more that the room may be coloring the sound more than before... or perhaps I should say differently than before. At any rate this makes it more obvious that I'm not working in a real studio. I'll have to further treat the room I think to get it to where I want.

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All in all I think these are great for the money. Soundstage is really good, tonally they're good, distortion seems very low, plenty of detail... I have a hard time believing there's anything better at this price point.

I made what I think was a reasonable conscious choice going for a speaker that could play back louder with less distortion, and in turn possibly gave up a few other things. I can imagine for example that there are other speakers with a frequency response I would prefer over these, but then those would likely be unable to play back cleanly at the same level. Similarly there's a tradeoff to be made in the low end I think, for similar reasons.

Finally - I've ordered a third plus two LP6 to complete the upgrade of this 5.1 setup. The sub is a cheap one that isn't even worth mentioning and it'll probably be dedicated to LFE work only in my new setup. I use this setup for work and occasionally deliver 5.1 mixes for TV.

I would highly recommend anyone in the market for new speakers in this price range to check these out. So far I'm a fan.