Kali Audio SM-8 3-Way Powered Studio Monitor

The Kali Audio SM-8 is a powered 3-way studio monitor with a 5-inch woofer, and a 4-inch midrange with a coaxial 1-inch metal dome tweeter. Part of Kali’s flagship Santa Monica series of speakers, the SM-8 combines Kali’s proven 3-way coincident architecture with uncompromising components to deliver unparalleled imaging, accuracy, and detail for critical mixing applications. SM-Series speakers feature user-definable DSP for room calibration. Each speaker can process up to 8 parametric EQs, 10ms of delay and 18 dB of trim. This allows you to tune the speakers for your room, delivering accurate monitoring that will translate without second guessing.

Like Kali’s acclaimed IN-Series loudspeakers, the SM-8 is an acoustic point source, and special care has been taken with the unique geometry around the midrange to ensure a seamless transition to the edge of the speaker. This gives the loudspeaker an ideal directivity characteristic, resulting in an engrossing stereo image where details are lifelike and crisp. Off axis lobing that is unavoidable in 2-way loudspeakers is virtually eliminated in the SM-8.

3-WAY, COINCIDENT ARCHITECTURE

The SM-Series speakers use a coincident 3-way design. The midrange and tweeter are coaxial, meaning that they share an acoustic center. In other words, the tweeter sits within the midrange. They are also coincident, meaning that they are physically time-aligned. This eliminates directivity and phase problems that are unavoidable in non-coaxial designs. This architecture, together with the physical placement and crossover of the woofer, makes each SM-Series speaker an acoustic point source. This gives the loudspeaker an ideal directivity characteristic, resulting in a lifelike stereo image where details are placed clearly and consistently. Being a 3-way, the SM-Series has a dedicated midrange transducer. This unburdens the woofer, resulting in lower distortion from the lower response of the loudspeaker through the high mids. This makes the SM-Series a very natural, musical sounding loudspeaker through the high mids. This makes the SM-Series a very natural, musical sounding loudspeaker, and it makes it very easy to hear every element of your mix clearly.

ONBOARD DSP

Each SM-Series speaker is capable of processing its own room calibration. Users can adjust 8 parametric EQs, delays, and trims per loudspeaker to get their speakers accurate in their rooms. The DSP can be accessed via ethernet on the back of each speaker, allowing for real time adjustments and button press switching between different tuning profiles. DSP parameters can also be updated via USB drive, with a convenient socket on the front of the speaker. In either case, per-loudspeaker tunings can be saved to the speaker’s DIP switches for easy recall. Because the DSP is processed in the speaker, there is no question of whether the DSP is active, or where it’s living in the signal chain. Sources can be changed and signal can be re-routed without losing room tuning parameters. Room calibration parameters live on the same DSP chip that the speaker is already using, so there is no added latency while processing room calibration. DSP latency is under 3 ms, allowing for tracking with room calibration active.

DRIVERS AND LOW NOISE PORT TUBE

The SM-Series’ woofer incorporates components that assist in inductance linearization and flux stabilization. These features reduce magnetic flux modulation, meaning that the voice coil is moving through a clean magnetic field, which dramatically reduces distortion.

The midrange is not only optimized for its own frequency handling, but also for its role as the tweeter’s waveguide. It controls the directivity of the tweeter so that off-axis reflections in all directions are congruent with the direct sound of the loudspeaker, which is part of what gives the SM-Series such excellent imaging. Peak-to-peak excursion on the midrange does not exceed 1mm, eliminating intermodulation distortion that is typical in coaxial design. The baffle around the midrange follows the shape of that driver, blending seamlessly from the edge of the driver and into the rest of the speaker cabinet. This eliminates on-axis diffraction artifacts in the frequency resposne, and helps reinforce the excellent imaging characteristics of the SM-Series.

The tweeter on the SM-Series is a 1-inch aluminum dome. The dynamic response of the aluminum is excellent, resulting in clear high frequency response without distortion. The tweeter uses a unique geometry to reduce high-Q ultrasonic resonances, eliminating harshness that can make metal tweeters fatiguing over time.

On most port tubes, air leaves at different speeds from different points of the opening, creating noisy turbulence. This turbulence can be heard as "chuffing," or an audible air sound coming from the system. This sound will add to the noise floor and obscure the details of the low end. The port tube on the SM-Series was designed to ensure that all of the air leaves the port tube at the same velocity. This helps add to the low end response of the subwoofer, while keeping the bass clean, tight, and devoid of extra noise.

KALI AUDIO SM-8 FEATURES:

• 3-way active studio monitor for immersive audio and surround applications
• 8-inch flux-stabilized woofer provides clean and powerful bass low-end
• 4-inch coaxial midrange driver and 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeter give ultra-realistic imaging with outstanding directivity
• Low-noise port provides extended bass response
• Low-diffraction midrange baffle provides smooth on-axis response
• 8-band EQ, delay, and trim controls allow you to dial in effective room calibration
• Kali Control Panel app allows real-time control of various parameters via Ethernet connection
• USB-A input on the front of the speaker can be used to load firmware and tunings to the loudspeaker
• Recessed input panel for easier wall and ceiling mounting