Kali Audio IN-8v2 (Second Wave) 3-Way Studio Monitor Review

[TheDichotomist]

So... Probably a silly question, and mostly hypothetical/overthinking ... but does anybody know if adding extra internal bracing to the cabinet on the IN-8 might damp the 160-ish Hz resonance? Or would even low profile added mass just stuff up the port tuning?

Are cabinet resonances even a problem in this speaker? I know they aren't super problematic in measurements, but at least in mixing circles, engineers have mentioned hearing the cabinet a bit, particularly in the IN-8 (v1) and seem to indicate that the bass reproduction (pitch and timing) isn't super great on these monitors.

 

[NTK]

So... Probably a silly question, and mostly hypothetical/overthinking ... but does anybody know if adding extra internal bracing to the cabinet on the IN-8 might damp the 160-ish Hz resonance? Or would even low profile added mass just stuff up the port tuning?

It may. Below is from a paper by the folks at Technical University of Denmark (DTU).

Construction of Lightweight Loudspeaker Enclosures

orbit.dtu.dk

They tested a bass cabinet. Figure 1 is the baseline. Figure 2 added some lining on the inside cabinet walls. Figure 3 added perpendicular bracing (see Figure 5 c). Figure 4 added interior corners triangular bracing (see Figure 5 d). You can see that there was a 170 Hz resonance that was effectively removed by the bracing. The lining was effective for attenuating the cabinet internal acoustic resonances.

 

[Cataudio]

I just got a pair of these and have a question that might sound a bit stupid but here I go: I use them for listening music and watching movies from a couch and I'm not sure how to place them.

I made a classic equilateral triangle with the center of the couch, with 3m distance and 10-20° out from the direction of the tip of the triangle. However when seating to the lateral positions of the couch the balance shifts heavily and the closer speaker reappears a lot.

Previously I had the JBL 305 but with the speakers much closer each other (2m between each speaker / 3m from the couch) and facing straight ahead, not toed in. It seems to me that changing the listening position on the couch didn't affect the experience as much. However, since they are very different regarding waveguide and directivity I'm not sure I can hope to get with the Kali's the same forgiveness I had with the JBL's.

Do you have any tip that could help me improving my setup? I know they are monitors and no one sane in his mind would want to sacrifice their imaging, but a more family-friendly placement would be nice to add as an option.

 

[Ellebob]

As a generalization the closer the speakers are together the less you will get that shift where you hear one more speaker more dominant and you will have a larger sweet spot. However, the tradeoff is you will lose that big soundstage and envelopment you get with speakers being further apart.

 

[audio2920]

I wouldn't have thought the 308 vs IN8 would be radically different in this regard..? Back in the 308s old position, do the IN8s perform more like the 308? Or is that not an option?

 

[Cataudio]

Indeed they don't. I put the 305 in the same position as the in-8 and they perform the same. As Ellebob said, it was the closer distance between the speakers that made the sweetspot wider.

 

[neRok]

I just got a pair of these and have a question that might sound a bit stupid but here I go: I use them for listening music and watching movies from a couch and I'm not sure how to place them.

I made a classic equilateral triangle with the center of the couch, with 3m distance and 10-20° out from the direction of the tip of the triangle. However when seating to the lateral positions of the couch the balance shifts heavily and the closer speaker reappears a lot.

Previously I had the JBL 305 but with the speakers much closer each other (2m between each speaker / 3m from the couch) and facing straight ahead, not toed in. It seems to me that changing the listening position on the couch didn't affect the experience as much. However, since they are very different regarding waveguide and directivity I'm not sure I can hope to get with the Kali's the same forgiveness I had with the JBL's.

Do you have any tip that could help me improving my setup? I know they are monitors and no one sane in his mind would want to sacrifice their imaging, but a more family-friendly placement would be nice to add as an option.

I haven't got any experience setting up multi-seat home theater, but just thinking it from a basic SPL point of view, you might to toe them all the way in, rather than "toed to triangle, then toed out".

Edit: To explain: Light blue guy is sitting in a good spot, with equal sound. Dark blue guy however is hearing 2x loudness boosts from the left, AND 2x loudness decreases from the right.
Meanwhile gold guy is also sitting in a good spot with equal sound. Hot-pink chick may also be hearing good sound, because each side averages out to equal.

 

[Cataudio]

Thank you very much for your answer, I see how it makes sense and I'll try that. It definitely needs some time to try and compare different configurations with distance and angles.

Side note: in an equilateral triange with standard angle, with movies you don't feel as much you are in a bad position compared to when you listen to music. The difficulty is rather to have a nice listening experience of the music from the different seats. That doesn't change anything theorically but in practice it does because I might want to preserve the imaging and sound stage as I listen to music alone very often.

 

[neRok]

I might want to preserve the imaging and sound stage as I listen to music alone very often.

Yer, that makes sense. But there's quite an easy fix that lets you easily swap between "music mode" and "movie mode" - and that's a few bits of tape on the floor/cabinet! Just move the speaker to match best position.

If you've got DSP, there's 2 other things you can try. The simpler method is to add some "crossfade" EQ, so that a bit of the opposite-channel is played in both speakers, which would likely reduce the "off-axis" problem. The advanced method of doing basically the same thing is called "Mid-Side (M/S) processing", which is when you basically splitting (filter) the audio to 3 channels - left-only, common, right-only. Once you've got those 3 parts, you can then EQ and mix them as you want. For example, you might make the left speaker output [100% mid] + [90% left] + [30% right with 2ms delay].

Edit: The difference/problem may also be in the ~100Hz range, because whilst the 308 and IN8 are both 8", the JBL's are rear port with some sort of high-pass filters that define their bottom end, whilst the Kali are front port with some sort of high-pass filters that define their bottom end. Those differences in port-position with regards to the room+listener, along with potential differences in filters, means that they may quite different timing characterstics, and so in your room, it's possible that Kali IN8 is "acting worse". But you will need a mic to test that.

 

[Cataudio]

That's great help, thank you so much. I wouldn't think of the crossfade option and will definitely try to setup that. Changing positions would be the best solution but it's not possible in my case because of the furnitures between the speakers. I could only change their angle.

About the front port vs rear port obviously I can't tell. In the sweet spot the In-8's sound so much better in the low end it's incredible and I feel the room's acoustic is much more penalizing with the JBL's. Outside of the sweet spot, when both played in an equilateral triangle, I feel they have the same problem but it's no A/B listening comparison at all. I did not tried the Kali's with a short distance between speakers yet.

 

[Joeyd33]

I just got a pair of these and have a question that might sound a bit stupid but here I go: I use them for listening music and watching movies from a couch and I'm not sure how to place them.

I made a classic equilateral triangle with the center of the couch, with 3m distance and 10-20° out from the direction of the tip of the triangle. However when seating to the lateral positions of the couch the balance shifts heavily and the closer speaker reappears a lot.

Previously I had the JBL 305 but with the speakers much closer each other (2m between each speaker / 3m from the couch) and facing straight ahead, not toed in. It seems to me that changing the listening position on the couch didn't affect the experience as much. However, since they are very different regarding waveguide and directivity I'm not sure I can hope to get with the Kali's the same forgiveness I had with the JBL's.

Do you have any tip that could help me improving my setup? I know they are monitors and no one sane in his mind would want to sacrifice their imaging, but a more family-friendly placement would be nice to add as an option.

I have my Kali in-8v2's toed in a bit.

I also have the JBL 306's..while they fix a lot of the issues I had with the 305s to me they don't sound as warm. I did a test yesterday as the 306 as the center channel but I found that they don't mix well and take away from the Kali Audio. I love my Kali's for home theater and I have mine spread far apart and love it. If I had a movie room I'd love an all Kali Audio setup for movies.

My parents got the full Sonos setup and I just can't get into it..it constantly feels like I'm hearing the speakers take turns with the sounds at times,and the soundbar doesn't give that wide and large sound the kali's do. At times it can be impressive for a few sounds and then it just sounds like a bottom tv speaker.

Even with my bootleg setup for movies , (I'm only using a Fosi Audio ZD3, not a real home audio receiver), I run the JBL 306s for the rear and they go great with the Kali's in that aspect. Even though I'm running them just in stereo it still sounds like a lot of the time that its actually setup as a proper home theater. It really gives a nice bubble sound at times but I do get that sound effect of the sound being too much at the sides due to how I'm running everything just from the zd3 instead of a proper home audio setup. I don't even run a subwoofer either. There have only been a few moments where I did wish that I did have a sub but for 90% of the time I love the Kali/JBL setup.

Like watching The Creator the other day was awesome. Like when you hear the robots running on wood, the kalis bass is so nice that its not just bass you hear, but its like hearing the proper reverb and almost like the texture of the bass rather than just hearing booming bass (if that makes sense to you?).