Small footprint monitors for the desk: Price/Performance winner?

[TylerR]

I own the LSR 305s and have heard the HS8's, with and without Dirac. Kali's are well designed for the money, period. Maybe stop gaslighting in a forum based on science? I would understand why you might have issues with IN series, but saying everything they make is useless is disingenous.

Also, LP-6v2s are my main monitors currently, and with Dirac, they sound great. I understand it might be easy to discount anything that doesn't cost $9000 for a pair, but these are devices for sound reproduction, not furniture.

 

[galileon]

Also, LP-6v2s are my main monitors currently, and with Dirac, they sound great. I understand it might be easy to discount anything that doesn't cost $9000 for a pair, but these are devices for sound reproduction, not furniture.

They are wrong designed and materials used for the transcuders are crap. Listen to hihats, listen to overhads - > THEY ARE not REPRODUCING this frequencies. Also there is few other issues but in that price range lets say U pay for what U get. Place them next to other cheap but not kali speakers and come back with the results.
Cheers

 

[ahofer]

They are wrong designed and materials used for the transcuders are crap. Listen to hihats, listen to overhads - > THEY ARE not REPRODUCING this frequencies. Also there is few other issues but in that price range lets say U pay for what U get. Place them next to other cheap but not kali speakers and come back with the results.
Cheers

Measurements, please.

 

[galileon]

Measurements, please.

Hah U think transient response abouve 200hz can be measured? It cannot be.

 

[Steven Holt]

They are wrong designed and materials used for the transcuders are crap. Listen to hihats, listen to overhads

Man, you're not coming off too well here. 'Transcuders'?? OK, I'll ignore that. Kali is one of the most respected brands on this forum, and there has to be a reason. Now, there are two possibilities here : the Kali in question is defective (it happens), or your hearing is way screwed up. I'll put my money on the latter.

 

[galileon]

Man, you're not coming off too well here. 'Transcuders'?? OK, I'll ignore that. Kali is one of the most respected brands on this forum, and there has to be a reason. Now, there are two possibilities here : the Kali in question is defective (it happens), or your hearing is way screwed up. I'll put my money on t

Sorry my english is not perfect. Discussion makes no sense. U can come to Poland and i will buy again the pair and we can compare them to as many pairs of sperakes as U wish. Kali audio is garbage and not comparable to any properly designed speaker cheap or expensive it doesnt matter.
Blind believers cannot be convinced because marketing and paid kali propaganda did what it did.
Good luck!

 

[LTig]

Hah U think transient response abouve 200hz can be measured? It cannot be.

You can't, because you have no clue about acoustic and electronic.

 

[ahofer]

Hah U think transient response abouve 200hz can be measured? It cannot be.

I do believe it can be measured both directly and in the FR Sweep (as excess decay would show up). Yours seems to be a novel theory and requires more evidence or clarification before entertaining it further: Demonstrate you can hear it but that it isn't measurable. A proposition that is falsifiable and conditions that can be replicated.

 

[Steven Holt]

Just what the hell is 'transient response' and given the speed of sound, how on earth can you hear it??

 

[galileon]

You can't, because you have no clue about acoustic and electronic.

sure fortunatelly we have such genius like U who knows ho to do it

Just what the hell is 'transient response' and given the speed of sound, how on earth can you hear it??

This the combination of time related speaker function. Every speaker have different behaviour in that area but generally its about to be in phase aligned int the time - not only at the first sound throw at whole range but also in the time. Its somehow measured via THD for high frquencies this is very hard to measure - i dont know method because the resolution should be 1000 X higher then what we have available now ( minimal phase measurements ).
Cheers

 

[galileon]

I do believe it can be measured both directly and in the FR Sweep (as excess decay would show up). Yours seems to be a novel theory and requires more evidence or clarification before entertaining it further: Demonstrate you can hear it but that it isn't measurable. A proposition that is falsifiable and conditions that can be replicated.

No it cannot. FR measurement and gated time delay will tell U nothing its like resolution 320x200 or even less but we need 8k or more to measure it.
I can put two random speakers on the wooden plate - connect active crossover and will show U perfect FR/TD measurement like U never seen and it will be the best spekaer ? or even good sounding spekaker? For sure it will be better than any kali garbage.
Cheers

 

[ahofer]

sure fortunatelly we have such genius like U who knows ho to do it

This the combination of time related speaker function. Every speaker have different behaviour in that area but generally its about to be in phase aligned int the time - not only at the first sound throw at whole range but also in the time. Its somehow measured via THD for high frquencies this is very hard to measure - i dont know method because the resolution should be 1000 X higher then what we have available now ( minimal phase measurements ).
Cheers

Current instruments are far more sensitive than the human ear, but lack the resolution to pick up this difference that you claim is obvious.

You’ve got the makings of a groundbreaking paper here. All you need to do is prove that a) it is audible and b) that the measurements are identical in quasi-anechoic (you did say above 200Hz?). Fame and fortune await you, act now.

 

[dominikz]

sure fortunatelly we have such genius like U who knows ho to do it

This the combination of time related speaker function. Every speaker have different behaviour in that area but generally its about to be in phase aligned int the time - not only at the first sound throw at whole range but also in the time. Its somehow measured via THD for high frquencies this is very hard to measure - i dont know method because the resolution should be 1000 X higher then what we have available now ( minimal phase measurements ).
Cheers

Are you aware that the frequency response (magnitude+phase) shows the exact same information as the corresponding impulse (or step) response, just presented in a different way? It is one of the crucial features of Fourier (and inverse Fourier) transform in mathematics, which is what is used to create these graphs.

It also means that the 'time-related' performance of a loudspeaker can fully be predicted from its frequency response (as long as both magnitude and phase is measured - which is normally the case). The two domains (time and frequency) are fundamentally connected.

I wrote about this before, with some examples - perhaps you will find it interesting; especially this part:

As you can see, the "steepness" of the step response (which may be what you call "transient response") depends mainly on how high in frequency the system can play.
Since humans can't hear much above 20kHz (and many much less than that) we don't need the 'transients' to be any 'sharper' than what you can achieve with a system low-passed at around 20kHz.
This is because our hearing itself is already low-passed close to 20kHz.
Any reproduced sound higher than the upper limit of your hearing will not make the 'transients' sound any more 'correct' to you - even if it makes the measured response look nicer!

Note also that we can measure much higher frequencies that we can hear - i.e. there's no problem to measure the step response of a system with an ultrasonic response. But we don't usually focus on that because normally there's no audible benefit.
For example, my measurement microphone is calibrated on-axis up to 25kHz, but I hear only up to about 16-17kHz.

Next, you might argue that 'zero-phase' crossovers are critical for accurate sound, but various well-regarded researchers argue that this is not the case in practice (here's a link to the relevant AudioXpress article with quotes from experts in the field).

It might also be worth mentioning here that a single frequency/impulse/step response is not a full descriptor of tonality in a loudspeaker.
Since loudspeakers radiate sound non-homogenously in 3D space, every point around it will have a (more or less) different measured response to one another. This is why we need to look at the full spinorama when evaluating loudspeaker, and not just the on-axis response. We're looking for both 'flat' on-axis and 'good' (even) directivity.
But even the spinorama has limitations - it is designed to only describe tonality and therefore e.g. doesn't say anything about max SPL capability or non-linear distortion. Which is why we have various additional measurements to test for that.

The suite of measurements published for current Kali Audio monitors indicate these are very well designed, good value loudspeakers; assuming they are setup correctly and not expected to play louder than they can handle. Better loudspeakers exist, sure, but at the price these seem to be pretty good!

 

[Yasuo]

Was this posted? https://www.kaliaudio.com/in-unf

 

[LTig]

sure fortunatelly we have such genius like U who knows ho to do it

You don 't need a genius, an EE is able to do this.

 

[pablolie]

Vanatoo?

I heard good stuff about those. They fit my preference of very small speakers (with good sound) when I don't use my headphones.

I use AudioEngine A2. If anyone knows something smaller that sounds better, I am all ears.

In the past, I was very happy with:

• Acoustic Energy Aego M: https://www.trustedreviews.com/reviews/acoustic-energy-aego-m-speakers
• Monsoon MM700: https://www.anandtech.com/show/430/3

Unlike many in here, I don't want full bookshelves on my workstation at home. When I want great sound quality, I typically also want to be isolated some, hence headphones are much better for that. But I live by myself, which means I don't have to carve myself personal space anywhere.

 

[galileon]

Are you aware that the frequency response (magnitude+phase) shows the exact same information as the corresponding impulse (or step) response, just presented in a different way? It is one of the crucial features of Fourier (and inverse Fourier) transform in mathematics, which is what is used to create these graphs.

It also means that the 'time-related' performance of a loudspeaker can fully be predicted from its frequency response (as long as both magnitude and phase is measured - which is normally the case). The two domains (time and frequency) are fundamentally connected.

I wrote about this before, with some examples - perhaps you will find it interesting; especially this part:


As you can see, the "steepness" of the step response (which may be what you call "transient response") depends mainly on how high in frequency the system can play.
Since humans can't hear much above 20kHz (and many much less than that) we don't need the 'transients' to be any 'sharper' than what you can achieve with a system low-passed at around 20kHz.
This is because our hearing itself is already low-passed close to 20kHz.
Any reproduced sound higher than the upper limit of your hearing will not make the 'transients' sound any more 'correct' to you - even if it makes the measured response look nicer!

Note also that we can measure much higher frequencies that we can hear - i.e. there's no problem to measure the step response of a system with an ultrasonic response. But we don't usually focus on that because normally there's no audible benefit.
For example, my measurement microphone is calibrated on-axis up to 25kHz, but I hear only up to about 16-17kHz.

Next, you might argue that 'zero-phase' crossovers are critical for accurate sound, but various well-regarded researchers argue that this is not the case in practice (here's a link to the relevant AudioXpress article with quotes from experts in the field).

It might also be worth mentioning here that a single frequency/impulse/step response is not a full descriptor of tonality in a loudspeaker.
Since loudspeakers radiate sound non-homogenously in 3D space, every point around it will have a (more or less) different measured response to one another. This is why we need to look at the full spinorama when evaluating loudspeaker, and not just the on-axis response. We're looking for both 'flat' on-axis and 'good' (even) directivity.
But even the spinorama has limitations - it is designed to only describe tonality and therefore e.g. doesn't say anything about max SPL capability or non-linear distortion. Which is why we have various additional measurements to test for that.

The suite of measurements published for current Kali Audio monitors indicate these are very well designed, good value loudspeakers; assuming they are setup correctly and not expected to play louder than they can handle. Better loudspeakers exist, sure, but at the price these seem to be pretty good!

Hello,
Sure i know it and i have acourate But U are still refering to sound preasure measurements. The thing i am trying to say it that the speed of converter ( speaker ) especially in the area above 200hz where the speed of the sound and wave lengths not letting us to be trapped and distingued between refrection or direct sound ( phase ). In my opinion just kali tweeter is too slow in speed and its causing this king of ugly effect or the material is to soft somehow not properly constructed.
Its possible to catch this issue by series of quick impulses - and measurement by dedicated application - but unfortunatelly i am too busy to do it now and proove it on the screen.
There is not best option to put this thing next to some proper speaker and just listen to the top-end like cymbals, hihats etc. They are totally not there when listening on thing named kali.

I made also some recording centering mic to the tweeter and this is also visible at waveform - so meybe its visible at impulse response too bit ideally would be to make the very quick hipassed series of IR and measure it - i sent this thing back so cant do it now.

Thank U

 

[dominikz]

But U are still refering to sound preasure measurements.

Sound pressure is directly proportional to loudspeaker membrane movement because loudspeaker movement is what is causing the air to move.
And anyway, sound pressure is what we hear - so if the measured sound pressure is 'correct' the sound we hear will also be 'correct', regardless of what is happening to create the sound pressure in the first place.

The thing i am trying to say it that the speed of converter ( speaker ) especially in the area above 200hz where the speed of the sound and wave lengths not letting us to be trapped and distingued between refrection or direct sound ( phase ).

When you say "speed of converter ( speaker )" are you refering to how fast the loudspeaker membrane is moving?
If so, please note that the loudspeaker membrane always moves at the exact speed required to reproduce a certain frequency - the only question is how efficiently it can move at that frequency and whether any additional frequencies are generated in the output (non-linear distortion) - both can be measured.
If the loudspeaker membrane moved at a different speed than required by the input signal, the loudspeaker would no longer be reproducing the correct frequency - and that is something we would easily see in measurements. This would be modulation (pitch-shifting?) and is not something loudspeakers do.

Further, we can absolutely measure loudspeaker direct sound response without influence of reflections (i.e. anechoic) at frequencies *above* approx. 200Hz - this can be done even in normal rooms by using temporal gating; as long as the loudspeaker and microphone are sufficiently away from reflective surfaces. Here's a very nice guide on this topic prepared by @napilopez.

Frequencies *below* 200Hz are the ones which are difficult to measure anechoically - for this you need either a very large space, a calibrated anechoic room, or a Klippel NFS.

In my opinion just kali tweeter is too slow in speed and its causing this king of ugly effect or the material is to soft somehow not properly constructed.

Kali IN series loudspeakers have an on-axis response dip in the 10kHz area, which is apparently an artifact of their coaxial design, and their response is actually flatter slightly off-axis (e.g. 10°-20°) - which means they need to be toed-in accordingly to achieve the best direct sound response.

Its possible to catch this issue by series of quick impulses - and measurement by dedicated application - but unfortunatelly i am too busy to do it now and proove it on the screen.
There is not best option to put this thing next to some proper speaker and just listen to the top-end like cymbals, hihats etc. They are totally not there when listening on thing named kali.

I made also some recording centering mic to the tweeter and this is also visible at waveform - so meybe its visible at impulse response too bit ideally would be to make the very quick hipassed series of IR and measure it - i sent this thing back so cant do it now.

That's unfortunate, it would definitely be interesting to see some measurements - it might make it easier to understand the issue you were having.

Of course everyone is free to like or dislike any piece of gear for any reason, it's just that in a science-based community it is always good practice to back claims with hard data. So far available data on Kali doesn't show any major issues, considering the price and intended use.

 

[galileon]

Sound pressure is directly proportional to loudspeaker membrane movement because loudspeaker movement is what is causing the air to move.
And anyway, sound pressure is what we hear - so if the measured sound pressure is 'correct' the sound we hear will also be 'correct', regardless of what is happening to create the sound pressure in the first place.

When you say "speed of converter ( speaker )" are you refering to how fast the loudspeaker membrane is moving?
If so, please note that the loudspeaker membrane always moves at the exact speed required to reproduce a certain frequency - the only question is how efficiently it can move at that frequency and whether any additional frequencies are generated in the output (non-linear distortion) - both can be measured.
If the loudspeaker membrane moved at a different speed than required by the input signal, the loudspeaker would no longer be reproducing the correct frequency - and that is something we would easily see in measurements. This would be modulation (pitch-shifting?) and is not something loudspeakers do.

Further, we can absolutely measure loudspeaker direct sound response without influence of reflections (i.e. anechoic) at frequencies *above* approx. 200Hz - this can be done even in normal rooms by using temporal gating; as long as the loudspeaker and microphone are sufficiently away from reflective surfaces. Here's a very nice guide on this topic prepared by @napilopez.

Frequencies *below* 200Hz are the ones which are difficult to measure anechoically - for this you need either a very large space, a calibrated anechoic room, or a Klippel NFS.

Kali IN series loudspeakers have an on-axis response dip in the 10kHz area, which is apparently an artifact of their coaxial design, and their response is actually flatter slightly off-axis (e.g. 10°-20°) - which means they need to be toed-in accordingly to achieve the best direct sound response.

That's unfortunate, it would definitely be interesting to see some measurements - it might make it easier to understand the issue you were having.

Of course everyone is free to like or dislike any piece of gear for any reason, it's just that in a science-based community it is always good practice to back claims with hard data. So far available data on Kali doesn't show any major issues, considering the price and intended use.

If U state that measurement via 48000 smoothed cycles device and windowed phase smoothing will show U everything and especially thing i am mentioning about - then there is not sense to discuss any more. Kali is crappy junk. Cheers and many people who are not paid bt them knows that.

 

[Shrek6]

somethin what they sell.and aome people call it accidentially speakers