Kali Audio IN8V2 Studio Monitor

Kali Audio IN-8 Studio Monitors

Kali’s IN-8 studio monitors are some of the most innovative studio monitors ever made. Combining the natural advantages of a 3-way design with hyper-realistic imaging of a co-axial mid-range and tweeter, they offer more transparency, lower distortion, and a soundstage that must be heard to be believed.
At the same time, the coaxial architecture of the midrange and tweeter result in hyper-realistic imaging. This means that you’ll be able to hear subtle details in your mix with pinpoint precision.
The design of the system comes together to allow the IN-Series monitors to act as acoustic point sources. They enjoy all the benefits of both traditional 3-way systems and traditional coaxial speakers, with none of the drawbacks traditionally associated with either.
All of this makes the IN-8 extremely accurate and easy to mix on. You’ll be able to work faster and with more confidence, and your mixes are going to translate to other systems with less work.

The new 2nd Wave in IN-8 and IN-5 features the latest technology developed by Kali. A new amplifier platform realizes a 12 dB reduction in self noise vs. the original IN-8, lower distortion, higher output, and better reliability.

Clarity

The IN-Series monitors have very low distortion. This is the result of unburdening both the woofer and the tweeter, so that both are doing less work; the tweeter is only focused on high frequencies, and the woofer only has to worry about bass.

Taking up the space in between in the hero of the IN-Series: the 4-Inch, profile-optimized midrange driver. This driver has a lot of work to do. In addition to reproducing midrange frequencies, it also acts as the waveguide for the tweeter. This means that the shape needed to be precisely engineered to provide an ideal dispersion characteristic for the tweeter.

It also means that the midrange needs to stay still. In many other co-axial or concentric systems, high excursion from the larger driver causes intermodulation distortion, and degrades the accuracy of the system. The midrange on the IN-Series is limited to less than 1 millimeter peak-to-peak excursion, making it acoustically stationary while still providing midrange to keep up with the powerful woofer and tweeter.

The Listening Sweet Spot

Kali Audio defines a listening distance as the maximum distance at which the speakers can play continuously at 85 dB while maintaining 20 dB dynamic headroom.

So you can listen for long periods of time at reference volume anywhere within that listening distance. Momentary peaks such as bass drops or explosion effects will come through clearly and with minimal distortion. The IN-8 has enough output for most 1-2 person setups, but it can handle larger setups with ease.

Boundary EQ Control

The location of a speaker in a space can drastically change its frequency response. A speaker placed against a wall or on a desk will sound very different than a speaker placed on a stand, even in a well-treated space. Hard surfaces like walls, desk tops, and recording consoles can change the low end frequency response of the monitor, and degrade the overall clarity of the sound.

Most of the common positions are fairly predictable and easily corrected. Kali’s team did our Boundary EQ tuning at The Village Studios in Los Angeles, and came up with boundary compensation EQ settings to help you get the optimum sound for where you need to put your speakers.