Charles Sprinkle's Kali Audio LP-6

[Ron Texas]

For LSR 308: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/jbl-lsr-308-in-the-house.1066/#post-27832

I suppose the hiss on these starts a little above 1kHz with a broad peak at 15kHz or so.

Inaudible/unmeasurable at 10 feet where I listen to them.

With a Crown XLS 1502 hooked to my LS50's the noise floor is inaudible 6" away from the driver with my ear pointed right at it. Not bad considering the so so measured performance of the XLS 1502.

 

[restorer-john]

When one looks at all kinds of cheap audio products like wireless headphones, bluetooth speakers, and <30$ stereo amplifiers that don't exhibit hiss, it makes one wonder WHY THE F budget actives can't also be hiss free.

I've been banging on about audible residual for ages. There's no doubt some people are more sensitive to it than others, but the sheer numbers of gear I have heard hiss across demo rooms is amazing. Our speaker demo room back in the day was a very quiet room and it was only the very best gear where tweeter hiss was inaudible. Put the airconditioning on and the hiss was masked by the duct noise.

I remember when I was repping, I used to spend a fair bit of time waiting for proprietors in HiFi stores and it never ceased to amaze me that every HT demo room had audible hiss with no signal, regardless of the brand of AVR or the price.

Where speakers are near field or desk mounted, audible residual is simply not acceptable. I have some powered 2 way bluetooth bookshelf speakers I don't use due to the residual noise. I could redesign them, but I can't be bothered, it amazes me they made it to market at all.

 

[Ilkless]

In Rouslan's teardown of the 305, he claims to have found the source of the hiss as 400khz power supply parasitics leaking in to the analog input because of PCB layout. He mentions that a star grounding scheme would alleviate this compared to the ground plane/pour. If this is the case, achieving a hiss free product (in the case of JBL) would not add any extra cost to the product.

With that said, it's unlikely all budget active monitors are committing the same problem but it's intuitively tempting to infer it with Kali's because it's the same engineer for both products. When one looks at all kinds of cheap audio products like wireless headphones, bluetooth speakers, and <30$ stereo amplifiers that don't exhibit hiss, it makes one wonder WHY THE F budget actives can't also be hiss free.

This boggles my mind. Why go to incredible lengths to optimise FR and dispersion and then drop the ball on hiss?

 

[watchnerd]

sphincter-ry directional control ridges

 

[evrial]

Does these have standby/low power mode which disables the hissing? I was tempted to get LP-6 on my desk but now I'm likely staying with headphones because of that.

 

[tomtoo]

I find it interesting how companies like JBL and Kali can offer speakers that are considered good enough for a mixing console at these prices.
Even the SOTA M2's cost like 10% of what "audiophile" recommended kits cost.
Another example of audiophool mentality inflation?

Try to hear a goughing flea in a 747 engine under full power can get a very expensive undertaking. ; )

 

[thewas]

Some measurements (and review)
http://avmentor.gr/reviews/2020/kali_audio_lp_6_2.htm

 

[tomtoo]

Oh cool, this thread is a little bit old but i have a discussion with a good friend about the LP6. So i try to explain as good as i can in my humble english.

He compared them with some Canton GLX3. And he is very unhappy with the LP6 couse for him they have not the right stereowide. He compares the stereowide to a headphone. For him they are to narrow. Ok you have to know both where on axis linear EQ'd. So we both think its the waveguide that narrows tweeter dispersion. But the discussion started couse he says the LP6 is wrong. I say as long as the DI is linear its not a foult, its just different. What do you think? And are you also unhappy with the LP6 stereowide?