Kali Audio IN-8 Studio Monitor Review

[Thomas savage]

I put a link and note there to new measurements already.

Can we put it in the first page ( if one's looking on a phone ) so after first paragraph at the top.

 

[bobbooo]

Can we put it in the first page ( if one's looking on a phone ) so after first paragraph at the top.

Yeah people could easily miss it as is when scrolling down to the measurements. A headless Panther is still the first thing you notice right now.

 

[napilopez]

This is great to see! Thank you for the retest Amir, and I especially appreciate seeing the compression tests - interesting that there doesn't seem to be any at all! Looks like a well designed speaker indeed.

That said, I think this test also speaks the the value of intuition sometimes. Of course, data is king, and all we had was the data from a broken speaker. But in the same way Amir was relieved that he didn't like the sound of the broken one, I'm relieved that measurements of a speaker from such a well-regarded designer's company are in fact good, and that he can still design a good speaker without access to Harman's toys . Amir was right to think the speaker sounded bad, we were right to think something was amiss.

At the same time, this probably would have been less drama if anechoic measurements were publicly available via Kali in the first place. So I'm looking forward to seeing those soon, and how they presumably line up.

 

[thewas]

They have REW in the RTA mode, which will display pink noise as a "flat" response. (Equal energy per octave.)
If they put REW in the Spectrum mode white noise would display as a "flat" response.

Exactly!

By the way thank you @amirm very much for remeasuring the Kali and am glad to see that it seems that I am not so deaf as I liked mine from the beginning (although having too low bass wouldn't be a big problem for me as I anyway room EQ speakers below 300 Hz) and my primitive room room measurements weren't too wrong either.

 

[Absolute]

Well, look at that! Excellent measurements after all. Beautiful off-axis response like one would expect from a good coaxial speaker.
I'd buy this in a heartbeat if not for the noise/hiss it makes due to the amplifier (I'm a weirdo in that sense).
I'm very happy that Amir actually bought his own speaker from a vendor to re-test as that removes any suspicion of a golden sample.

Congratulations to Kali Audio for redeeming your reputation with excellent product performance.

@amirm is it possible to update the reviews with the newest one showing as standard and the old one hidden in a spoiler? I can only speak for myself, but there's a lot of times I just scroll to the measurements without reading a single word. If there are more people in the world like me, having the review of the first broken version showing first/easiest will affect how some people think and feel about a product/manufacturer. I don't think we need to make it easy for stupid people like me to draw the wrong conclusions and skip a purchase or spread misinformation all over the internet.

 

[maty]

Why does nobody comment on the prevalence of the third harmonic?

The cheap class D amps... I can understand that a second dominant harmonic is preferred, within reasonable values, or clean profile, but that of the third dominant harmonic...

http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-thd.htm

 

[Absolute]

@maty because of price point and uncertainty of the accuracy of said distortion measurements.

 

[Costas EAR]

The broken kali was better?

Amir said that thd measurements are not so accurate for now..

 

[MZKM]

So I finally braved the cold garage and measured my purchased sample of Kali IN-8. Here are the results in a more extensive manner per our later tests.

Let's get the most important message out:
View attachment 48334

Yup. The problem with anemic bass is gone. This makes sense as Charles reported that the tested sample had a bad woofer. Likely that lowered its output capability. Sans the cancellation around 8 to 10 kHz, this is a very smooth response. It shows up just as well in predicted in-room response:

View attachment 48335

I ran a few tests at different output level to see if there is any bass compression and there was none:

View attachment 48336

Tested level was third from the top. At the highest level, the IN-8 was quite unhappy (audibly) in attempting to reproduce the very low frequencies but even then, the in-band response was not impacted.

Unfortunately I did not run the levels in the ascending order so the distortion graphs are for lowest output level. Here they are in percentages:

View attachment 48338

Advanced Measurements
View attachment 48340

View attachment 48339

View attachment 48341

View attachment 48342

View attachment 48343

Eye-candy Speaker Measurements
I drilled down into the soundfield (all up wave front from the speaker) at crossover frequencies of the woofer to midrange and midrange to tweeter:

View attachment 48344

The microphone is at the tweeter level so naturally the loudest sound is coming from the woofer so below the "nref" axis. We have one unified speaker instead of two distinct ones playing their own tunes which is what we want to see.

Same story repeats in the transition between the midrange and tweeter:

View attachment 48345

So boring in a good way.

Measurement Accuracy
Here is the polar plot for the highest measured frequency of 20 kHz:

View attachment 48346

This produces the most elongated measurement allowing us to see if it peaks at 0 degree. And it essentially does. I am not taking a protractor and poking a hole in the tweeter to align it with the microphone. So this is as good as it gets.

Conclusion
Seems like the mystery is resolved. The Kali IN-8 is indeed a well-designed speaker when it is not broken. I am relieved I did not like the sound of the broken one.

Now someone needs to buy this speaker from me so that I can use the money to eat lunch tomorrow. No, it is not at a discount. It is the only Kali IN-8 with $100,000 measurement data!

I will link the review post to this one.

Now comes the question, how did the first one pass quality control? Or, did it somehow get damaged in shipping?

 

[tomtoo]

I think all was showing in the direction of a broken speaker. And it shows also how importend a subjective listening test is. Thats why i wish @amirm would do the listening first. Than there would be no talk about confirmation bias like in this thread.
Overall i'am happy with the outcome. And with the reaction from Kali. Shit happens, let's analyse it, only than we can learn.

 

[maty]

We know that the garage where he measure is not an anechoic room but I guess the Klippel device is in the middle of the room, so it seems is true dominant H3. The levels are surely not reliable. But dominant H3 at > 1 kHz... at least I do not want.

When I make these comments I am always thinking of high quality recordings and great dynamic range, with acoustic and / or electrified instrumentation and voices without Autotune. Ant not in terrible studio recordings like: http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/year?artist=Billie+Eilish

As for the defective speaker, it is hard to believe that a visual inspection will pass, although being so black ... Knowing the abuse suffered by the huge package, maybe a better packaging ... It would not be bad to include photographs of the packaging when a problem is detected in the measurement of new products.

 

[maty]

Almost seven years ago I decided to buy passive KEF Q100 5.25" Uni-Q coaxial loudspeakers, the harmonic profile of the drivers, with H3 << H2 was important. H3 < H2 is usual with passive speakers and physics. When the amplification changes the order is that something is not being done well. It is a shame that KEF saved on the quality of the crossover components and, above all, on the furniture: thin MDF, without damping.

https://www.erinsaudiocorner.com/drive-units/kef-q100-drive-unit/

Woofer Harmonic Distortion

Tweeter Harmonic Distortion

https://purifi-audio.com/transducers/

PTT6.5W04-01A

 

[miero]

Would it be possible to improve a readability of SPL horizontal/vertical graphs? For example split positive and negative angles into different images, or adjust colors of negative and positive angles?

 

[MZKM]

Here is the spin data.

Preference Rating
SCORE: 5.1
SCORE w/ subwoofer: 6.8 (7.4 if using listening window over on-axis, but on-axis is likely the intended listening axis)

@amirm, both this and the Selah have varying SPL in the bass for vertical plots, why is this?

 

[Juhazi]

I'm not Amir, but my guess is, that it is because measurement is so close to baffle - the relative distance to the woofer changes "too much" off-axis compared to the mid/tweeter which is closer to pivot point. It might be problematic for the calculation of reflection-eliminating too. When the mic rotates, reflections change much more than with the speaker on a turntable.

 

[lamda18]

Conclusion
Seems like the mystery is resolved. The Kali IN-8 is indeed a well-designed speaker when it is not broken. I am relieved I did not like the sound of the broken one.

What about "hiss"?

 

[edechamps]

@MZKM It might be worth having both the original IN-8 measurement as well as the new one in the master spreadsheet. Just add something like "(DAMAGED)" to the speaker name to differentiate the broken one. I think it could be interesting to see how damage can affect a speaker's preference score.

 

[MZKM]

@MZKM It might be worth having both the original IN-8 measurement as well as the new one in the master spreadsheet. Just add something like "(DAMAGED)" to the speaker name to differentiate the broken one. I think it could be interesting to see how damage can affect a speaker's preference score.

@amirm did not publish them.

 

[MZKM]

Apologies for the delay. We wanted to understand what happened, We were able to get the loudspeaker you reviewed back from our dealer since there are not many returns, but we just received it this week. It was immediately evident that the loudspeaker is indeed damaged. Perhaps you missed it, but the surround is pulled away from the frame as can be seen in the picture you took (attached, circled).

View attachment 48196


From another angle, this is what it looks like.
View attachment 48197


Even with the damage, I was not able to reproduce your measurements unless the speaker was pushed all the way into limit. I'm only using a portable rig on ground plane, so we are having this sample and another from inventory sent to an independent lab for full measurement set. We will publish their results.

It is hard for me to understand how a clearly defective loudspeaker would somehow slip through 100% end of line testing including visual inspection rub/buzz, frequency response, and distortion test (3 separate stations). At the same time, I never would have anticipated that the surround could come loose during shipping / handling, as it is captured between the rear mounted frame and the baffle. I will be initiating 8 discipline problem solving action in order to fully understand how this could have happened. Rest assured we will diligently work to make sure this odd defect doesn't happen again.

Best regards,
Charles

Quick question, it's not covered in the manual, so are these intended to be used with full toe-in (aimed to the listeners ears), or used facing straight? Is that dip ~10kHz used to combat the widened directivity in that region, both horizontally and vertically (similar to what Geddes does)?: (Never mind, already answered)

 

[maty]

Being studio monitors it is assumed that it is to listen to them on-axis.

A three-way with coaxial is always problematic even for KEF.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-of-the-kef-r3s.7867/post-189744

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-of-the-kef-r3s.7867/post-203438