In terms of bass, the IN‑5 acquitted itself well in that Kali have not been too greedy in terms of trading LF bandwidth extension against timing and pitch accuracy. The IN‑5 doesn’t have the bass quality of a high‑end closed‑box monitor, but at its remarkable price that would be expecting too much. The bass it plays is useful and trustworthy in a nearfield mix context, and I think an improvement on what I remember of the IN‑8, which I felt was a little overcooked. The compromises inherent in bass performance from a small ported monitor appear to have been handled pretty well.

Diagram 1: A close‑mic measurement of the IN‑5 bass driver, revealing a port tuning frequency of around 43Hz. I'll describe the benefits of dual-coincident drivers in a few paragraphs time, but first there's a little more general IN‑8 description to run through. The IN‑8 is not a small monitor. I had read the dimensions from the spec sheet before the monitors arrived but I was still slightly surprised at just how substantial an IN‑8 turned out to be in the flesh. At 10.4kg each they're not particularly heavy, so there ought not to be any great issue with mounting arrangements. With the IN-8s themselves, the front-firing port assists bass response, its unusual smiley-face shape designed to reduce noisy air turbulence. It’s clearly a well-thought-out design, as no chuffing is audible at any point during our tests, even at moderately high volume. While the IN-8s are capable of high SPLs before distorting, an in-built limiter circuit protects the monitor from unsafe voltage levels if the input signal is too high. Settings wise I used the aforementioned dip switch settings for a monitor on a speaker stand less than half a meter from the wall and left everything else alone… initially anyway. The excellent news is that the response across the frequency range does seem to be largely accurate. The bass is tamed and tight for the most part and not coloured. Kali Audio only launched at the start of 2018 but it already has big ambitions, a great naming philosophy and a debut monitor that seems, on the face of it, to be incredible value for money. The Southern Californian’s first release is the LP-6, the ‘LP’ standing for ‘Lone Pine’ (which is actually a small town in the Eastern Sierra that is the first port of call for climbers wishing to scale Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the United States outside of Alaska, fact fans).Aside from the sometimes overgenerous low-end response, our only real criticism of the monitors’ tonal balance is a slight bloom in the upper bass that could be perceived as added warmth. Beyond that, the IN-8s’ clarity, coherence and capaciousness is sweetly seductive. Protective limiters prevent harmful voltage from ever reaching the drivers, so there is no risk of blowing these speakers. These have been updated for the 2nd Wave, allowing for 3 dB higher output. Kali Audio’s three-way IN-8s are unusual yet highly competent monitors. If you favour tonal integration, sharp focus and a holographic soundstage above all else, they’ll likely cater to all your monitoring requirements. Do I really need this? All rooms are subject to a phenomenon called room modes, where bass builds up in certain parts of the room, and cancels in other parts of the room. Room modes can make it hard to make critical decisions about the bass in your mix. This phenomenon can be particularly bad in small rooms, and many people choose to use smaller speakers in these rooms. The thought is that, because the smaller speaker doesn’t play as low, it will be less likely to excite room modes and overwhelm the room with bass.

Kalis products are designed and engineered in California, and each of our product lines is named after a town or city in California. Lone Pine, our debut line of studio monitors, gets its name from a town in the Eastern Sierra from which climbers disembark to summit Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in the lower 48 states. Much like this climb, we felt that our debut line was ambitious, challenging, and a little risky. Mountain View, an accessory for connecting Bluetooth devices with professional audio systems, was named after the town in which several large tech companies, including Google, are headquartered. As these companies insist on removing physical audio connectors from their devices, we thought this name would be a fun way to put them on notice. This means that anywhere within that listening distance, you can listen for long periods of time at reference volume, and momentary peaks such as bass drops or explosion effects will come through clearly and with minimal distortion. The LP-6 has enough output for most 1-2 person setups, and the LP-8 can handle larger setups easily. The volume control is indented in the central position, which is recommended for normal use, though while slight adjustment may be necessary in some situations, monitoring levels should be controlled from your mixer or DAW. Output power is 40W for the treble and 40 / 60W for the midbass, LP-6 and LP8 respectively. Maximum listening distance is 2.9 m for the LP-6 and 3.6 m for the LP8. Kali’s maximum listening distance figures define the distance at which the speakers can maintain a continuous 85dB SPL with 20dB of dynamic headroom, allowing for large momentary peaks to be played at reference volume without overload or distortion. These compact monitors from new company Kali Audio strike an enticing balance between performance and affordability.Argentina Armenia Australia Bahrain Bangladesh Bhutan Bolivia Brazil Cambodia Canada Caricom Chile Colombia Ecuador Egypt Hong Kong India Indonesia Iraq Israel Japan Korea Kuwait Malaysia Mexico Myanmar(Burma) Nepal Nigeria Oman Peru Philippines Qatar Saudi Arabia Singapore South Africa Taiwan Thailand UAE Vietnam In all our years testing monitors there is really no better feeling than playing a mix you have been working on through better monitors; just hearing the clarity, the extra width and extra dynamic range. Adjustments are provided for installations on stands or on desks close to a wall (within 0.5 m) or against a wall (as close as possible allowing for cables). There are also curves for placement on a sole bridge or on a desktop with stands or purpose-built studio desk with monitor platforms. Yes, I know that is unfair to compare a set of 300-quid speakers to monitors that cost a couple of grand more but what impresses me with the PMCs is their flat response, something the LP-6s are attempting to emulate, so this method should reveal how the Lone Pines stand up in that regard. Kali Audio’s opening salvo in the speaker market is a great one. The company set out to design an accurate speaker at a very low price and they have gone and done it with the LP-6s. They really are some of the best monitors you can get at this price and can easily out punch models twice their price or more.

This much power also makes the WS-12 a capable live subwoofer. Its enclosure is 18mm plywood and it has handles for easy carrying. Kali’s team made sure that it will fit in small passenger cars, so you can take it with you even when you’re calling a ride to get to your gig!The LP-6s deliver a sound that punches well above their price point. If you were to blind test them against speakers a lot higher in price tag, I’m pretty sure you’d be surprised as how well they stand up. Similarly, if you were to do the same against monitors at their price point, I think they’d stand head and shoulders above them.

The IN‑5 is slightly larger than I imagined when I first saw images online, though it still falls comfortably into nearfield monitor dimensions so shouldn’t present too many challenges to fit into even small studio spaces. At just over 8kg the IN‑5 is also unlikely to present any mounting structure problems — although, as with any monitor, it is important to provide a rigid, stable and non‑resonant mounting platform. Kali Audio’s unique front port is another result of extensive R&D and is a huge boon for small or bedroom studios where you need to place your monitors near a wall. This shape came about from running airflow simulations on a dedicated engineering laptop for four days straight. It fixes many of the issues that front-firing ports face, eliminates noise and lets you position your speakers anywhere in your studio space without worrying about unruly bass frequencies. The innovative waveguide design is another product of Kali Audio’s meticulous research process and ensures that the sound is spread out in an ideal way. This gives you a clear and detailed stereo image that you’d usually find on a much more expensive monitor. Best-in-class WoofersThe only issue here was that we weren’t expecting this euphoric moment as these speakers come in at half the price of our reference monitors. At best we were expecting them to hopefully match the response of the more expensive speakers; instead they gave us that ‘wow’ moment anyway.