Kudos to Audio Engineer Charles Sprinkle of Kali and Amir Majidimehr, owner of AudioScienceReview and webmaster of ASR. The ASR review contributed to a quick and through examination of the situation and an immediate resolution of the problem.
Although we can assume that the new sample of the loudspeaker and its excellent measurements represents the vast majority of those that have been sold, technically, the defective speaker that tested poorly was representative of a small fraction - and perhaps a single incident them. And now, the manufacturer has reduced any likelihood of that defect recurring. No harm done to the reputation of Kali - and indeed, for most people, including me, Kali's reputation is enhanced. (I hope that Kali will issue a notice for their customers to check for this defect - and provide a fix if anyone else finds the defect in their units.)
After this incident and its resolution, the world has a nice window into to how manufacturer can best deal with problems - and how cooperation between ethical reviewers and ethical and responsive manufacturers can have benefits for everyone involved. Even though my tastes in loudspeakers does not include monitor-type loudspeakers such as this Kali example, I recognize and respect their sonic excellence, and at the close of this problem-solving episode, I have increased respect for the integrity of the company.
I like the concept of independent, open and honest consumer product testing. Almost all of the audio products tested and reviewed by
@amirm, with the exception of a very few manufacturer-supplied items, have been purchased on the open market by an audio consumer. Occasional defective products are part of that universe - read this
2014 review at Stereophile for a story of a Raven 300B amplifier that went up in smoke when first fired up...
. But yeah there are even some high end actives that don't use DSP, like the Elac Navis series.
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