and another brief review that basically says that they hiss too much and were returned:
I listened to the second review with my Etymotic ER4SR's at high volume - could not hear any speaker noise
sometimes early adopters get lucky...
I'm the guy who made the hiss video. Wait until 2 seconds after the blue light comes on. The first several seconds are just so that the listener can acclimatize to the sound of my fridge in the background.
Sorry for not doing a longer review, I was incredibly frustrated with the hiss on these and have been listening to speakers for over a year now trying to find something worth it to me.
These are like getting a 4K OLED TV for 70% off... But with 1% of the pixels randomly going white.
People who can't hear the hiss, it's not a personal slight, but many can. I used to wear ear plugs in the shower if the water running was too loud, and frequently plug my ears at the movies or wear ear plugs/filters, and am 27. I also wear ear plugs while mowing the lawn, and work in a quiet office. Chances are either a persons room isn't quiet enough, or there is some loss of hearing at whatever frequencies these hiss at.
Hiss wise, from most to least I've ever heard: Kali Audio IN-8, JBL LSR308, JBL LSR104, Mackie HR824, Genelec 1030, Harman Kardon Soundsticks, Elac Navis, which has no hiss because they use a class D as a power supply to a class AB amp.
I was 2 meters from the speakers at points, and it's not the source, see my thread on Reddit about details... https://www.reddit.com/r/audiophile/comments/duxszn
Also took them to a studio with fully balanced connections, power conditioning, etc. and the his was the same. even tweaking the switches on the back, the Yamaha HS8 we put them in place of was much more clear for voices, so I'm not sure if that is a bright speaker or he had his switches emphasizing treble, but that would be the one potential nitpick though we only compared them for 30 minutes or so.
Since then I've gotten a pair of Devialet Phantoms, which also use amplifiers that don't hiss, but haven't been able to get them to sound right nearfield, even with their wide and even dispersion.
At this point it's looking like I will need to settle, find a non-coaxial that has good vertical dispersion, or save for a discontinued Genelec 8260.
(I haven't seen anything yet where the engineers pay attention to not hissing, minimizing diffraction, controlling the dispersion, using a coincident driver for even vertical dispersion, actually having bass extension, and an incredibly solid cabinet. Besides the Devialet Phantom, but it has it's own connectivity and app issues.)
obviously the Kali's are for mature audiences only...
I have them for my Hifi setup, so a listening distance of approximately 2 meters and I can hear it slightly when no music played, but does it really bother me? No, I use them only when I want to listen to music and when not I switch them off or even their automatic stand-by is enabled so imho it's only problem if you use them closely and have long silence breaks between your listening.I have them 2.75m from listening position in typical living room, hiss not audible. Good for me.
About amp noise I can partially agree but bass extension? I hope you use the SAM/GLM on your Genelec to see that usually a lower extension just leads to more filtering there due to room gain and first room mode, see also https://www.hifi-selbstbau.de/grund...sinn-und-unsinn-einer-grenzfrequenz-von-20-hz^I got lucky with the sound, but the hiss was intolerable. Now I have Genelec 8260 monitors. I wish Kali had gone to the $1000 price range to improve the amp noise and bass extension.
Kali made the same mistake twice
But, I found them painfully annoying to use up close due to the absurd level of hiss coming from the MFD/HFD. With the master volume dial on the back set to 12 o’clock, the noise was audible at over 3m away (pushing 10 feet!) How does this even happen? I understand the need to cut a few corners to keep the monitors priced appropriately, but when I have a $200 set of cheap active monitors produce less self-noise than this, there’s really no excuse.
All in all, it’s hard to recommend them for near-field users. However, if you aren’t as critical or sensitive to hiss, I’d say they’re worth a shot. Despite all, they are indeed nice monitors. Not much fatigue to speak of. Hiss aside, SOLID effort, Kali, but start using better amps...
I bought a set of LP-6's, loved the sound but sadly the hiss was too much for me. Maybe a power conditioner would have helped, it was a pretty present white noise sound.
I asked Kali Audio about the noise in the IN-8 and they said:
"We achieved a 6dB reduction in tweeter noise, but there is some noise from the midrange, so overall noise reduction is 2dB"
About amp noise I can partially agree but bass extension? I hope you use the SAM/GLM on your Genelec to see that usually a lower extension just leads to more filtering there due to room gain and first room mode, see also https://www.hifi-selbstbau.de/grund...sinn-und-unsinn-einer-grenzfrequenz-von-20-hz
His problem seems to be caused by internal very? high gain - to save money - used in amplification (tweeter with cheap class D in cheap JBL, Kali and others studio monitors). If unbalanced connections are also used, noise increases.
* Have you verified the above?
* Are you using balanced connections? Rear volume at 0 dB.
Genelec users, with class D too, do not complain about that problem.
But you must keep in mind that almost everything in this universe is a compromise, so if a loudspeaker or bassreflex is tuned unnecessarily low you have at the same also disadvantages in other disciplines, there ain't no such thing like free lunch.Yes, I use GLM. They are extending down to 20hz, quite flat, with a null at 100hz I'm working on.
I always want lower extension, even if it's a tiny room and the speakers can play 160dB at 8hz... Just like I'd rather have an OLED TV capable of being as bright as the sun, and insanely, disgustingly, stupidly oversaturated... I can simply calibrate it and turn things down.