Kali Audio SM-5 (C) monitor

[AM88]

NAMM interview with Kali

Seems there are no positive performance reasons they went with a passive crossover but more for studio/professional convenience? They are touting this as a better monitor though, I expect it to sound and be measurably better than their lower range counter parts. The amphion passive pro monitors are very popular online, I wonder if that is the market share they are aiming for. Amphion are comparable in price but only 2 way. It does seem like they are trying to have their cake and eat it regarding the amplification though. Passive but with optimised eq/dsp for biamped, but not triamped configuration. Good luck to them. I hope they knock the competition out of the park in terms of value.

 

[Liopleus]

Kali repled to me in the Facebook post that there will eventually be an active version:

Kali Audio

We are pleased to have announced our upcoming SM-5-C this past weekend in Anaheim. The SM-5-C is the ultimate realization of the celebrated 3-way architecture found in our IN-Series. The passive...

www.facebook.com

Don't know how long it'd take though.

 

[AM88]

Kali reply to me that there will eventually be an active version:

Kali Audio

We are pleased to have announced our upcoming SM-5-C this past weekend in Anaheim. The SM-5-C is the ultimate realization of the celebrated 3-way architecture found in our IN-Series. The passive...

www.facebook.com

Don't know how long it'd take though.

That should be an awesome speaker. No doubt a larger version will also be coming out later. If the price isn’t unreasonably high I’m sure they’ll do very well.

 

[thewas]

Kali repled to me in the Facebook post that there will eventually be an active version:

Kali Audio

We are pleased to have announced our upcoming SM-5-C this past weekend in Anaheim. The SM-5-C is the ultimate realization of the celebrated 3-way architecture found in our IN-Series. The passive...

www.facebook.com

Don't know how long it'd take though.

I am afraid its price won't be very interesting to me if the passive already costs 2.5x more than an IN-8. Personally I don't see similarily increased value for mainly an aluminum tweeter, magnetic flux linearisation in the woofer and a more rigid enclosure.

 

[Lbstyling]

@KaliAudio_Official

This looks great- coaxial AND coincident tweeter for directivity control AND time alignment. And demodulating rings in a Kali product- a first!

What's the intended market or use case for this Santa Monica lineup?

Commercial cinema? Installed sound? Recording and broadcast? eg. studios with object based audio eg. Atmos?

Judging by the larger and deeper waveguide I'm looking forward to the bigger SM 7 or 8 models with 7-8" woofers with demodulating rings for even higher sensitivity and dynamic range. Good times ahead.

Good luck @Charles Sprinkle

It's probably more than just demodulation (faraday) rings TBH. I gunna guess it's FEA optimized as this is where the reduced distortion of drivers for many manufactures is coming from due to the reduced costs of the technology.

Added to this, if a driver does not have to be optimized for flat FR, (as I assume very few will be in the next few years), you get to use low LE designs which reduces distortion quite a lot. The consequence is a driver that drops on a FR plot as the frequency falls. This just gets eq'ed up.

This is largely where the latest Neumann/genelec/KEF monitors are getting the improved distortion numbers from.

Having just bought a pair of KEF R3s (non meta) for evaluation, the question is how wide is the pattern going to be for the KALI design. If it hits 50 degrees, (and is available in white) I will simply have to buy them.

Given the M2 design and experience at Harman, I can only assume Charlie is sold on wide dispersion. But my understanding is it's very hard to get the pattern wide AND smooth FR as the diaphragm angle must 'open up' more to get it, and this has knock on effects to pistonic movement.

 

[Lbstyling]

I am afraid its price won't be very interesting to me if the passive already costs 2.5x more than an IN-8. Personally I don't see similarily increased value for mainly an aluminum tweeter, magnetic flux linearisation in the woofer and a more rigid enclosure.

Even if the spinorama competes with the genelec 'the one' range?

 

[thewas]

Even if the spinorama competes with the genelec 'the one' range?

If it would (which I personally doubt but will be happily proven wrong, also more measurements like several distortion metrics, spectral decay, vibration enclosures and more shouldn't lack significantly) then of course why not, as a significantly cheaper 8341? alternative. The price difference must still be significant though as at a Genelec you also pay extra for a proven reliability, support, highly social and ecological production in Finland.

 

[dziemian]

U less Kali makes a speaker similar to Genelec The One with an affordable price point around $1000 I dont see a point in this new design

 

[ernestcarl]

I am afraid its price won't be very interesting to me if the passive already costs 2.5x more than an IN-8. Personally I don't see similarily increased value for mainly an aluminum tweeter, magnetic flux linearisation in the woofer and a more rigid enclosure.

Eagerly awaiting a review and the Klippel spin...

I know it's more expensive... However, personally, instead of upgrading my Neumann KH120 to the newer "II" version, I'd rather go for three-way coax studio monitors like these. Sure, the Genelec Ones would be a good candidate as well; but, if I wanted something mountable with separate amplification and DSP, I think I'd still consider the Kali SM in my short-list.

 

[wavetransformer]

I am afraid its price won't be very interesting to me if the passive already costs 2.5x more than an IN-8. Personally I don't see similarily increased value for mainly an aluminum tweeter, magnetic flux linearisation in the woofer and a more rigid enclosure.

In the first place, if you look at any speaker lineup from any manufacturer (and this isn't even specific to speakers), the graph of value versus price from entry-level to flagship generally does not rise linearly. This is almost a law of nature.

 

[thewas]

In the first place, if you look at any speaker lineup from any manufacturer (and this isn't even specific to speakers), the graph of value versus price from entry-level to flagship generally does not rise linearly. This is almost a law of nature.

Of course, but guessing than an active version would cost more than 300% of the IN-8 price for an improvement that I guess to be something like 30%, makes it for me not interesting anymore, also because these are price regions where there is much more competition, YMMV.

 

[dziemian]

Any news on these? I have not found any review yet

 

[Biblob]

That subwoofer looks nice though, also for a very competitive price, compared to the Kef KC62 and the SVS 3000 Micro.

 

[Lbstyling]

Hmmmn... Since I did not get an answer, I presume this isn't as simple or straightforward as simply copying and pasting a few PEQs after all.

I just set the chanel power limit to any number under the limit of the speaker. It's on the main settings page. Can't miss it.

I would also set 'soft clip' to on, but that's more personal preference.

 

[audio2920]

The limiter requirement for warranty is a deal breaker for me too. I can implement PEQ in my existing monitoring chain, but not limiting. (I'm not swapping all 11 channels of hypex amplification I've already got kicking around to use "their" amps, nor making the signal path more tortured than it already is.)

And how would you prove you'd got it exactly right in the event of a warranty claim? I think Kali are pretty good on their customer facing stuff, so I don't expect it'd be a problem, but they surely *could* just say your limiter was 1% hotter than it should have been and that broke the speaker; no warranty for you.

It's a shame because I really like the IN8 as a mixing tool, regardless of price point, and an "IN8 Pro" appeals to me. But this isn't quite it, for me. I guess if you're doing a build from scratch it's OK.

 

[Ellebob]

If someone has some measuring equipment you could play a test tone file and measure the speaker output. Then set the volume limit which most processors/receivers have to not go over that voltage.

 

[audio2920]

Sure, and many studios will already have DSP amps and/or external processors (XTA or BSS probably) which do have limiters - even if they haven't previously been used.

My current setup just doesn't have anything in the monitor path with a limiter. Which I do appreciate is my problem, not Kali's. It's just that I've not come across a warranty that is invalidated specifically by lack of a limiter. Of course, while the wording may differ, but few manufacturers will actually swap drivers under warranty if they come back covered in soot with the coils melted out of them. So maybe in practice it's little more than semantics..?

Maybe I'll run my current setup for another year or two to realise some kind of ROI out of it, and then when I (eventually) transition everything over to Dante, as I do so, I'll keep these in mind and see if I can fit them in. And of course by then we might have some data on them, even if not NFS'd by Amir.

 

[ernestcarl]

I just set the chanel power limit to any number under the limit of the speaker. It's on the main settings page. Can't miss it.

I would also set 'soft clip' to on, but that's more personal preference.

Thanks. I will be experimenting on how to apply compressor/limiter settings on a RX699 PA speaker -- although, more sophisticated limiting (frequency range dependent) is not possible on the miniDSP I will be using.

 

[Pritaudio]

It’s an active crossover you are paying for.
they are supposed to provide a complete product across all frequency and range of volumes.
they can then choose what to compromise on your behalf.

 

[Sam Ash]

Interesting indeed, looking forward to a comprehensive review.