Kali LP8 vs Presonus Eris E8 XT, Spinorama and EQ design inside

[Maiky76]

Hi,

Provided the decent results produced by the Kali IN8 (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...udio-monitor-review.10897/page-51#post-413363) and Presonus 5 XT (https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ctive-speaker-review.13436/page-3#post-477799)

I decided to do a similar work and see what their siblings were up to.
@amirm haven’t measured any of the 2 way 8inch but Audioholics did and provided graphs that I digitized and subsequently used to design some EQs as per usual.

Kali does provide some data see there:
https://www.kaliaudio.com/lone-pine-studio-monitors#lonepine-data-downloads
which is highly commendable but the resolution seems very low and not really suitable for my regular routines.

The contenders:
Kali LP8, 199USD/unit street price
Review from Audioholics
https://www.audioholics.com/bookshelf-speaker-reviews/kali-audio-lp-8

Presonus Eris E8 XT, 260USD/unit street price
Review from Audioholics
https://www.audioholics.com/bookshelf-speaker-reviews/presonus-eris-e8-xt

Notes on the limits of the exercise:

• I have spliced the LF of the ON to the other curves and simulated the directivity, so it's probably not perfect but, I hope, a reasonable approximation.
• The scores are only indicative as the resolution of the scans, although interpolated to a correct 1/20th octave step, is most probably too coarse.
• The calculated scores are not directly comparable to the others form ASR but I would be inclined to say that the EQ benefits are correctly captured and the comparison between the two speakers is fair
• The EQs are designed in the context of regular stereo use i.e. domestic environment, no warranty is provided for a near field use in a studio environment.

The Spinorama data of both speakers is attached for whom it may be useful, just change the file extension from .zip to .xlsx

Here is the synthesized Kali LP8 Spinorama with no EQ, score 6.24
One may notice the trough 785Hz that might be related to the BR port of the acoustic load just beneath the woofer, maybe similar to the JBL705
Also the HF response is very typical to a waveguide loaded dome tweeter.

Here is the synthesized Presonus Eris E8XT Spinorama with no EQ, score 5.73
Also the HF response is very typical to a waveguide loaded dome tweeter.
It seems that there more voicing going on but I might be wrong...

Here is the comparison, both without EQ
The Kali looks both flatter and smoother, better out-of-the-box.
The speakers have clearly the similar attribute with regards to directivity i.e. ERDI and SPDI.

The EQs

Here is the EQ design for the Kali LP8:
Minimal work is required showing good optimization, the EQ would need to be carefully tested.
Score: 6.82

Type    freq       Gain     Q
PEQ     130.0,     0.70,   2.70,...
PEQ     171.0,    -0.43,   0.75,...
PEQ     362.0,     1.56,   4.51,...
PEQ     432.0,    -1.58,   2.20,...
PEQ    2442.0,     1.24,   4.73,...
PEQ    3041.0,    -0.67,   5.50,...
PEQ    3831.0,     0.86,   3.66,...
PEQ   17007.0,    -3.56,   3.08,...

And the EQed Spinorama

Here is the EQ design for the Presonus Eris E8XT:
A bit more work to extract the most form this speaker
Score: 6.86

Type    freq       Gain     Q
PEQ      86.3,    -1.32,   1.97,...
PEQ     377.0,     1.10,   8.10,...
PEQ     687.0,    -2.30,   9.50,...
PEQ    1431.0,    -0.93,   2.07,...
PEQ    2212.0,     0.66,   3.66,...
PEQ    3225.0,    -0.55,   7.00,...
PEQ    6513.0,     2.00,   2.45,...
PEQ   14400.0,    -2.90,   3.70,...

And the EQed Spinorama

Finally the EQed comparison
Once EQed the speakers are very similar with probably the Eris might be sounding a bit clearer, see the Regression-tonal data attached.
Overall difficult to say which would be better only based on the EQed data alone.

They both look like bargains to me based on this set of data as they extend down to the mid 30s, seem to have a great directivity and with the amps and DRC built in can probably play fairly loud. I cannot see any consumer speaker competing with them at the same price.
One may add something like a Raspberry PI + audio interface + camilla DSP to have very decent system with all the bells and whistles at very low price.
In the case of the Kali the EQ might not even be needed...

It would be great if ASR could measure the LSR308, Yamaha HS8, ADAM T8V to get a good look at this type of speakers that may represent a sweet spot for many people. Even the Kali LP6, LSR306, Yamaha HS7,ADAM T7V would be great not only for the consumer market but, maybe more importantly, for music producers/the home studio crowd to try to break the audio circle of confusion…

 

[amirm]

It would be great if ASR could measure the LSR308, Yamaha HS8, ADAM T8V to get a good look at this type of speaker that may represent a sweet spot for may people.

I have the T8V, HS8 and LSR308 here already. What I haven't had time is measuring them. Which one of the three you want me to test first?

 

[Maiky76]

I have the T8V, HS8 and LSR308 here already. What I haven't had time is measuring them. Which one of the three you want me to test first?

Man, first world problem... The Adam because of the fancy tweeter then.

 

[amirm]

Good deal as the company sent that to me long, long time ago and I need to get it tested.

 

[stevenswall]

Agreed, the Adam. I'd love to see the dispersion on that in 3D.

 

[thewas]

Excellent work again, some real bargains!

Finally the EQed comparison
Once EQed the speakers are very similar with probably the Eris might be sounding a bit clearer, see the Regression-tonal data attached.
Overall difficult to say which would be better only based on the EQed data alone.

True, the Eris seems to have a bit smoother directivity on the mids which would make it my first choice if all other is equal, but if not I would chose the one with the less nonlinear distortions, especially to multitone signals, hope someone would measure those too similar to the Sound & Recording tests.

 

[Rockfella]

War of the 8s now

 

[Chromatischism]

Came here after seeing the Audioholics chat:

Good stuff.

 

[sweetchaos]

Came here after seeing the Audioholics chat:

Good stuff.

Saw it.
Those RBH PM-8 (active) are $4,000/pair...yikes!
Kali LP-8 is only $400/pair and was considered best value for money from James and Matt, with 2 downsides (1. higher hiss than other studio monitors and 2. industrial look of speaker)
We need Amir to measure either LP model.
They also mentioned the ASR IN-8 review, because a user commented...which lead to Matt going on about Kali's lack of quality control.

 

[Chromatischism]

James raised a very interesting point. An Outlaw 976 (and I would add a Denon X3700H) plus a complete surround setup of the Kali LP-8's or Presonus E8 XT's would be a pretty serious system for the money. It's too bad about the hiss, though. I couldn't imagine having that many speakers hissing in a small room.

 

[AnalogSteph]

They also mentioned the ASR IN-8 review, because a user commented...which lead to Matt going on about Kali's lack of quality control.

* perceived

I would very much agree with James though, our IN-8 review should be updated in a way that makes the updated measurements essentially unmissable. From Kali folks' comments it was obvious that they are very much aware of the importance of QC and that there actually is a fair bit of it in place, it just seems that official protocol was not being followed when the first review sample came through.

Regarding the hiss issue, keep in mind that on speakers like the JBLs and Kalis this can be very much aggravated when using unbalanced connections, as a ground loop invites mains-side power supply noise. Resolving this may require cabling with a pinout that is not actually available off-the-shelf, which is another hurdle to be overcome.

 

[infinitesymphony]

Thanks for doing this, @Maiky76. Wish we had an archive of these speaker EQ corrections and post-EQ scores similar to the headphone indexes jaakkopasanen, oratory1990 et al have put together.

Mackie have a solution in a similar price range: CR8-XBT ($350/pair) and CR8S subwoofer ($200) that might slot somewhere into the mix.

Would love to see the respective matching subwoofers tested: JBL LSR310s, PreSonus Temblor T8 or T10, etc. It might help to decide how much desktop space to take up by 5" vs. 8" monitors.

 

[ernestcarl]

Saw it.
Those RBH PM-8 (active) are $4,000/pair...yikes!
Kali LP-8 is only $400/pair and was considered best value for money from James and Matt, with 2 downsides (1. higher hiss than other studio monitors and 2. industrial look of speaker)
We need Amir to measure either LP model.
They also mentioned the ASR IN-8 review, because a user commented...which lead to Matt going on about Kali's lack of quality control.

It was a little strange that they included it in the roster. Surely there must be some other higher-end bookshelf monitors out there that look good and measure well at a lower price point. They do look really nice though. Just a bit too much of a “luxury” kind of audio item for cheap old me.

 

[richard12511]

It was a little strange that they included it in the roster. Surely there must be some other higher-end bookshelf monitors out there that look good and measure well at a lower price point. They do look really nice though. Just a bit too much of a “luxury” kind of audio item for cheap old me.

Audioholics loves RBH. The owner owns their flagship 7ft towers.

 

[flipflop]

Wish we had an archive of these speaker EQ corrections and post-EQ scores similar to the headphone indexes jaakkopasanen, oratory1990 et al have put together.

https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/eqs.html
https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/scores.html

 

[ernestcarl]

Audioholics loves RBH. The owner owns their flagship 7ft towers.

Ah, that does kind of explain it. I’m just not all too familiar with all the luxury audio brands — maybe other than Revel which seems to be an ASR favorite.

 

[Shazb0t]

I would like to see some of these large RBH speakers on the Klippel. I've always liked Audioholics/Gene's philosophy on audio. I hope that RBH would stand up.

 

[infinitesymphony]

https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/eqs.html
https://pierreaubert.github.io/spinorama/scores.html

That's pretty cool. The one question mark in my mind is that he seems to use a lot of EQ bands with high swings to accomplish his corrections.

For example, on the Edifier R1280T, he uses +12 dB at 2002 Hz followed by -8 dB at 2053 Hz both with a Q of around 5, which means those bands are going to be heavily counteracting each other. The correction Maiky76 came up with used fewer bands and was gentler, and the resulting preference score was the same. I'm curious about how these swings actually play out, because I thought that the general recommendation was to avoid boosting over a certain amount.

 

[flipflop]

For example, on the Edifier R1280T, he uses +12 dB at 2002 Hz followed by -8 dB at 2053 Hz both with a Q of around 5, which means those bands are going to be heavily counteracting each other.

That's just how the autogenerate function in REW works. Nothing wrong with it in theory.

The correction Maiky76 came up with used fewer bands and was gentler, and the resulting preference score was the same.

Pierre is working on a way to host several EQs for a single speaker model. When it's ready, we can host EQs with fewer bands.

I'm curious about how these swings actually play out, because I thought that the general recommendation was to avoid boosting over a certain amount.

It's the aggregate boost that's important, not individual bands. The Edifier R1280T EQ doesn't require more than a 2.1 dB reduction of the preamp.

 

[hestejoe]

I listened to the Kali LP8 in a store and was very impressed, particularly for the price. Is it correct that there is not a spinorama available for them? I think it would be informative for me to judge them against other monitors that I haven't listened to yet.