This is a review and detailed measurements of the Kali Audio LP-6 powered monitor (speaker). I purchased it for testing I think back in February or March. There has been a lot of requests to test it so I thought I do it before the year is over! The LP-6 costs US $149 on Amazon including Prime shipping.
The design of the LP-6 is understated with none of the plasticky look of its competitor (JBL 306P):
As you can see it is front ported. The back panel shows the various controls:
Measurements and listening tests were performed using the default settings you see above.
The LP-6 is bi-amped which I assume also means DSP crossover.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
All measurements are referenced to the tweeter axis. I could not find anything regarding this in the manual.
Temperature was around 60 degrees F which is on the cool side but I don't think there is an impact on the data.
Kali LP-6 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Please don't be alarmed by the high SPL numbers. These are not real (NFS does not know about the amplification gain in the speaker). Actual level is pretty close to what I measure most speakers at.
Response is very good with some resonances around 1 kHz. There is also a bit of reduction in level/shelving in bass response.
Directivity which is a measure of how close radiation is relative to on-axis is very good. This makes it easy to EQ the sound in addition to the speaker being room friendly.
Early window is therefore similar to on-axis response:
Note that these are not necessarily the strongest reflections in near-field listening. And that, makes the following prediction of in-room response less accurate:
Still, other than noted issues, response is quite acceptable especially when we consider the price of this monitor.
Let's dig into the issue with disturbance around 1 kHz by looking at the near-field measurement of the woofer, port and tweeter:
Looks like our problem is that port resonance is too high and at a frequency where the woofer is already being rolled off. So as a result it causes those two bumps in the woofer response. The tweeter also has a rise above 10 kHz which seems to be diffraction based as it did not show up in off-axis response.
Distortion measurements don't paint a pretty picture despite statements to the contrary on Kali website:
The bright sign though is the fact that deep bass distortion is controlled and never gets above the fundamental signal itself as it often does in budget speakers.
Note: the above measurements have extended response to 30 kHz. This lets us see if the speaker has internal ADC/filtering which the KALI LP-6 seems to have. It also allows us to see the distortion products to higher frequency. LP-6's response stops at around 22 kHz so likely has an ADC running at 48 kHz sampling.
Note 2: I need to verify that the Klippel system did not limit the measurements on its own that way. When I test a passive speaker next, I will find out if this is so. Right now I don't think it is the limiting factor.
Directivity as noted is very good as seen in both beam width and contour graphs:
Vertical directivity gives more freedom than usual although I suggest you stay at or slightly below tweeter center:
Otherwise you get some accentuation of that resonance around 900 Hz.
Kali LP-6 Speaker Listing Tests
I have a very harsh test environment for larger monitors like the LP-6. I just drop them on my desk, with a half inch pad under it. I don't touch any of the controls and just listen. First impression of the LP-6 was quite good. Lots of detail, ability to get quite loud with some kind of soft compression that was much less noticeable in other monitors. I tried to improve the situation still, using equalization:
Starting on the right, the filter at 965 Hz reduced some of harshness and opened the sound a bit. Bass was shy so I dialed up the 70 Hz broad filter. That filled in the bass quite nicely with no increase in distortion.
My speaker killer tracks were reproduced with almost no distortion. Some of which was because the deep bass was not reproduced loudly. Turning up the level way high caused a few ticks here and there which may be due to internal amplifier running out of juice. Thankfully it did not bottom out the woofer at all which was nice. I have tested monitors costing thousands of dollars which produce extreme amount of distortion when pressed. Not so with Kali LP-6.
With the above EQ in place, the experience was very, very nice. I stat there listening to track after track and realizing once more how important accurate on and off-axis response is. The experience comes surprisingly close to other speakers so designed.
I tested for the audibility of hiss. Spectrally the noise is not as annoying as it is with some other active speakers. I measured with a ruler when the noise subsided and it was about 24 inches/60 centimeters. Even in my close in listening, it was not a problem. That said, I do wish that the noise was not there.
Conclusions
The Kali LP-6 despite its ridiculously low price produced excellent performance. Had it not had so much distortion and a couple of response issues, I would have given it my highest ratings. This is a wonderfully designed monitor which is going to perform better than any passive speaker system you can put together in its price class.
I am very pleased to put the Kali LP-6 on my recommendation list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The design of the LP-6 is understated with none of the plasticky look of its competitor (JBL 306P):
As you can see it is front ported. The back panel shows the various controls:
Measurements and listening tests were performed using the default settings you see above.
The LP-6 is bi-amped which I assume also means DSP crossover.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
All measurements are referenced to the tweeter axis. I could not find anything regarding this in the manual.
Temperature was around 60 degrees F which is on the cool side but I don't think there is an impact on the data.
Kali LP-6 Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Please don't be alarmed by the high SPL numbers. These are not real (NFS does not know about the amplification gain in the speaker). Actual level is pretty close to what I measure most speakers at.
Response is very good with some resonances around 1 kHz. There is also a bit of reduction in level/shelving in bass response.
Directivity which is a measure of how close radiation is relative to on-axis is very good. This makes it easy to EQ the sound in addition to the speaker being room friendly.
Early window is therefore similar to on-axis response:
Note that these are not necessarily the strongest reflections in near-field listening. And that, makes the following prediction of in-room response less accurate:
Still, other than noted issues, response is quite acceptable especially when we consider the price of this monitor.
Let's dig into the issue with disturbance around 1 kHz by looking at the near-field measurement of the woofer, port and tweeter:
Looks like our problem is that port resonance is too high and at a frequency where the woofer is already being rolled off. So as a result it causes those two bumps in the woofer response. The tweeter also has a rise above 10 kHz which seems to be diffraction based as it did not show up in off-axis response.
Distortion measurements don't paint a pretty picture despite statements to the contrary on Kali website:
The bright sign though is the fact that deep bass distortion is controlled and never gets above the fundamental signal itself as it often does in budget speakers.
Note: the above measurements have extended response to 30 kHz. This lets us see if the speaker has internal ADC/filtering which the KALI LP-6 seems to have. It also allows us to see the distortion products to higher frequency. LP-6's response stops at around 22 kHz so likely has an ADC running at 48 kHz sampling.
Note 2: I need to verify that the Klippel system did not limit the measurements on its own that way. When I test a passive speaker next, I will find out if this is so. Right now I don't think it is the limiting factor.
Directivity as noted is very good as seen in both beam width and contour graphs:
Vertical directivity gives more freedom than usual although I suggest you stay at or slightly below tweeter center:
Otherwise you get some accentuation of that resonance around 900 Hz.
Kali LP-6 Speaker Listing Tests
I have a very harsh test environment for larger monitors like the LP-6. I just drop them on my desk, with a half inch pad under it. I don't touch any of the controls and just listen. First impression of the LP-6 was quite good. Lots of detail, ability to get quite loud with some kind of soft compression that was much less noticeable in other monitors. I tried to improve the situation still, using equalization:
Starting on the right, the filter at 965 Hz reduced some of harshness and opened the sound a bit. Bass was shy so I dialed up the 70 Hz broad filter. That filled in the bass quite nicely with no increase in distortion.
My speaker killer tracks were reproduced with almost no distortion. Some of which was because the deep bass was not reproduced loudly. Turning up the level way high caused a few ticks here and there which may be due to internal amplifier running out of juice. Thankfully it did not bottom out the woofer at all which was nice. I have tested monitors costing thousands of dollars which produce extreme amount of distortion when pressed. Not so with Kali LP-6.
With the above EQ in place, the experience was very, very nice. I stat there listening to track after track and realizing once more how important accurate on and off-axis response is. The experience comes surprisingly close to other speakers so designed.
I tested for the audibility of hiss. Spectrally the noise is not as annoying as it is with some other active speakers. I measured with a ruler when the noise subsided and it was about 24 inches/60 centimeters. Even in my close in listening, it was not a problem. That said, I do wish that the noise was not there.
Conclusions
The Kali LP-6 despite its ridiculously low price produced excellent performance. Had it not had so much distortion and a couple of response issues, I would have given it my highest ratings. This is a wonderfully designed monitor which is going to perform better than any passive speaker system you can put together in its price class.
I am very pleased to put the Kali LP-6 on my recommendation list.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
