Chroma pretty much nailed it, I'll add that, with just what comes in the box, you can aim these right at your ears. That won't be true of most traditional boxes, on a typical desk, flanking your computer display. So be sure to ask yourself exactly what you'll need to do to get the Kali's in the proper orientation. For me it was a big deal, I didn't want to make my computer desk awkward to accommodate the speaker. At the same time, I didn't want to give up too much on sound—these are comfortable on the ergonomics, and still manage to be a good listening reference, so the tradeoffs worked well for me. You may have a different situation.
And, with just what comes in the box, you can equalize to room, so pretty decent value.
I've had mine for nine months, the loudness thing was initially an annoyance, not being able to crank certain types of music as much as others. But that was mostly under "impress your friends" circumstances, where you're playing music way louder than you normally would, just to see how far much bigger than their size they sound. Most types of music can play way louder than is comfortable, it's the bass-heavy stuff, especially when accompanied by a more delicate top end that makes you want to bring the volume up. And the issue is mainly when you want the advertised "40 Hz". It just take too much from the amplification to DSP-it up to a flat 40. Move it up to 50 and you'll rarely overdrive at any level you want to listen at. IK was simply overly eager to impress people with "40-20k"—it does it, just not very loud if the source material really has a lot down there (most music doesn't).
But the bass control works on top of the cal. Depending on your calibration, it may set you to 40 Hz—if it does, you can bump it up to 50 Hz. My cal set it to 50, but if it hadn't I'd probably move it there—I'm never wanting for loudness. And, most types of music aren't that bass heavy to start with. You can absolutely rip your ears off with metal and classic rock, most pop, and classical and jazz don't have deep.
