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Kali LP-6 Review: Studio Monitor

amirm

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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):

Kali LP-6 Review 2-way Monitor.jpg


As you can see it is front ported. The back panel shows the various controls:

Kali LP-6 Review 2-way Monitor back panel inputs dip switches.jpg


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:

Kali LP-6 Measurements Spinorama CEA-2034 Frequency Response.png


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:

Kali LP-6 Measurements Spinorama CEA-2034 Early window reflections Frequency Response.png


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:

Kali LP-6 Measurements Spinorama CEA-2034 Predicted In-room Frequency Response.png


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:

Kali LP-6 Measurements near-field driver frequency response.png


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:

Kali LP-6 Measurements relative THD distortion.png


Kali LP-6 Measurements THD distortion.png


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:

Kali LP-6 Measurements horizontal beam width.png


Kali LP-6 Measurements horizontal directivity.png


Vertical directivity gives more freedom than usual although I suggest you stay at or slightly below tweeter center:
Kali LP-6 Measurements vertical directivity.png


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:
Kali LP-6 2-way Monitor Equalization.png


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/
 

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  • Kali LP6 Spinorama.zip
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Ericglo

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Thanks for this review. I think this was the one I was most interested in since Charles Sprinkle was the designer.
 

ROOSKIE

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Incredible what $298 full retail for a pair gets in performance.
Very cool.
Between JBL and Kali anyone on a budget is served very well.
 

digicidal

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The mids look too janky but for the price I don't think I'll complain.
I think much of the horror in the 1K area comes from how flat the rest is. If you compare that to anything from Klipsch (OK many others too)... or view it with the amount of smoothing many manufacturers employ in their marketing... it's comparatively razor-flat.

On the other hand, the fact that they didn't just embrace a much higher price point than the JBL 306's and use amplification which eliminates the hum is a real disappointment. I'm sure there's some unit-specific variance (supposedly some people get noise-free JBLs too) but after trying dozens myself - that's harder than hitting the lottery. If Adam can do it with the TV7's at only $100 more, I'm less inclined to accept it in other brands.

To be fair however... "only $100 more" is actually a 66% increase in MSRP in this case! So I agree - for the price not worth complaining about either.
 

ROOSKIE

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The mids look too janky but for the price I don't think I'll complain.
Just eq them.
Look at the excellent directivity, PEQ will likely work great and thus elevate it to serious heights (at least for medium volume listening, to much distortion for high levels.)
 

sweetchaos

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This was a long anticipated review, thanks!

This model is in direct competition with JBL 306P MKII.
Both have 6.5" woofer, both US$150/ea right now (excluding last years JBL pricing of US100/ea), while Kali LP-6 is never on sale.
JBL 306P MKII has dual 56w amps, while Kali LP-6 has dual 40w amps.
JBL 306P MKII claims 110dB (max peak SPL), while Kali LP-6 claims 112dB (max SPL).

I love the fact that we have some good competition in the *budget category* now.

I wonder why Kali didn't make a 5" model? :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:

YSC

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yet another excellent budget studio monitor! it's really kind of looking like a golden age where below the price point of the KH80DSP or 8020D you can get quite a few great sounding and accurate monitors at a much lower cost (Adam TXVs, Kali LPX, JBL JP30X etc.)
 

Xulonn

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Here's an interesting 2019 speaker/room calibration discussion in Waren Huart's studio including a Kali rep and a Sonarworks (calibration software) rep. Warren is very enthusiastic about both the LP-6's and the LP-8's - and his enthusiasm seems genuine. (I think it would also be interesting to measure the response in a given room with the various switchable DSP settings on the back of the Kali's.)

 

JohnYang1997

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I think much of the horror in the 1K area comes from how flat the rest is. If you compare that to anything from Klipsch (OK many others too)... or view it with the amount of smoothing many manufacturers employ in their marketing... it's comparatively razor-flat.

On the other hand, the fact that they didn't just embrace a much higher price point than the JBL 306's and use amplification which eliminates the hum is a real disappointment. I'm sure there's some unit-specific variance (supposedly some people get noise-free JBLs too) but after trying dozens myself - that's harder than hitting the lottery. If Adam can do it with the TV7's at only $100 more, I'm less inclined to accept it in other brands.

To be fair however... "only $100 more" is actually a 66% increase in MSRP in this case! So I agree - for the price not worth complaining about either.
I was looking at kh80 and MTM recently. so
But really how narrow the peak is is a little scary to me along with the distortion. But then again for the price can't complain. The bass and treble are superb.
 

JohnYang1997

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Just eq them.
Look at the excellent directivity, PEQ will likely work great and thus elevate it to serious heights (at least for medium volume listening, to much distortion for high levels.)
I recently purchased a pair of iLoud MTM(for much higher price) would love to see how that compares.
 

HooStat

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If you add their sub, which has a cross-over in it specific for their speakers, you could have a "full range" speaker for < $1000, including amplification.
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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I recently purchased a pair of iLoud MTM(for much higher price) would love to see how that compares.
I bought them as well and will test....
 

stunta

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Just eq them.
Look at the excellent directivity, PEQ will likely work great and thus elevate it to serious heights (at least for medium volume listening, to much distortion for high levels.)

Not sure if this speaker has internal ADC + DSP, but if it does, I would expect the manufacturer to do the EQ for me. If it doesn't then, perhaps they should consider that if its the more economical way towards better response.
 

YSC

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I was looking at kh80 and MTM recently. so
But really how narrow the peak is is a little scary to me along with the distortion. But then again for the price can't complain. The bass and treble are superb.
can you elobrate more on why the narrow peak is scary? the amplitude seems not too grate at ~3db from neutral?
 

JRAudio

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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):

View attachment 96542

As you can see it is front ported. The back panel shows the various controls:

View attachment 96544

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:

View attachment 96545

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:

View attachment 96546

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:

View attachment 96547

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:

View attachment 96548

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:

View attachment 96549

View attachment 96550

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:

View attachment 96551

View attachment 96552

Vertical directivity gives more freedom than usual although I suggest you stay at or slightly below tweeter center:
View attachment 96553

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:
View attachment 96554

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/

Hi Amir. Thank you very much in extending / opening your measurements up to 30 kHz. Lets us see / hope, that the limitation we see here, is not due to the Klippel system. And as always. Great work. Thanks. Juergen
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):

View attachment 96542

As you can see it is front ported. The back panel shows the various controls:

View attachment 96544

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:

View attachment 96545

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:

View attachment 96546

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:

View attachment 96547

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:

View attachment 96548

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:

View attachment 96549

View attachment 96550

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:

View attachment 96551

View attachment 96552

Vertical directivity gives more freedom than usual although I suggest you stay at or slightly below tweeter center:
View attachment 96553

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:
View attachment 96554

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/

Thank you very much in extending / opening your measurements up to 30 kHz. Lets us see / hope, that the limitation we see here, is not due to the Klippel system. And as always. Great work. Thanks.
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):

View attachment 96542

As you can see it is front ported. The back panel shows the various controls:

View attachment 96544

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:

View attachment 96545

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:

View attachment 96546

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:

View attachment 96547

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:

View attachment 96548

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:

View attachment 96549

View attachment 96550

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:

View attachment 96551

View attachment 96552

Vertical directivity gives more freedom than usual although I suggest you stay at or slightly below tweeter center:
View attachment 96553

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:
View attachment 96554

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.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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