I first came across the Kali Project Lone Pine monitors around the same time as I tested the JBL 306P MkII monitors. When I looked at these inexpensive two-way monitors I was very surprised by exactly how good they were and how little they cost. They really were a product which made me reconsider exactly what you should be expecting to get for your money at the affordable end of the market. Having spent too long around cheap monitors which sound, well… cheap, I was astonished that you could get such quality at that price point. I didn’t know it at the time but when I spoke to the guys at Kali Audio it turns out that members of the team behind Project Lone Pine worked on the JBL 306P MkII, in a sense the Kali LP6 is the Mark 3 version, though I’m sure JBL won’t agree if they do a new version of the MkII. Unfortunately, I don’t have a pair of JBLs to compare the Kalis with but I remember them well. Do the Kalis measure up?

The first draft of this article started with a comparison between the two bicycles I own. I’ll spare you the details, it was cut for a reason, but the thrust of it was to introduce the idea of fitness for purpose and to point out that something being “good enough” isn’t a slur, it’s not even a criticism. When it’s done correctly it’s a demonstration of discipline and skill in the design process. It’s not hard to make something great with an unlimited budget. It’s a real achievement to do it to a pinchingly tight price point, which is exactly what the designers of the most inexpensive monitors are trying to do.

The LP series comes in two variants, the LP6 and the LP8. The number denotes the approximate size of the bass/mid driver in inches. The model I have is the 6-inch version, which is, not unsurprisingly, outperformed a little by the LP8 but is significantly cheaper at $149 per speaker compared to $199 each for the LP8. This is a very significant price point as it is exactly on the money compared to the popular offerings from some really big volume suppliers like Yamaha, KRK and Behringer. A super-competitive and super price-conscious area where I have to say some of the monitors I’ve heard fall short of what I’d describe as “good enough”. By Kali’s own admission the LP6 isn’t quite the best speaker in the (Lone Pine) LP range, that would be the LP8, but I suspect it is the most important and the really important question is, is it fit for purpose? Is it “good enough”?

The brief for the LP6 must have been very carefully considered. It had to offer an acceptably flat frequency response, wide sweet spot and 20dB of headroom when listening at 85dBSPL. Designing a loudspeaker is always an exercise in balancing compromises so being very clear about what the speakers need to achieve is essential. Savings must be made to achieve the price point but if you are clear about what is and what isn’t an acceptable compromise to stay true to the brief you’re at least in with a fighting chance.

The Details

The monitors themselves are moderately large, fairly light and while I can’t see any unfinished surfaces I assume the cabinet is particle board (I’ve subsequently checked, it is). The front baffle is all plastic but surprisingly solid and none of the cabinet seems too resonant, in spite of a thorough tapping all over. The cabinet has a port on the front to better accommodate those using them close to walls and is specifically designed to minimise port noise or ‘“chuffing”, something which is always going to be more audible from a front port.

The all-important frequency response figures are properly reported with the tolerance quoted. It’s a source of much irritation to me when manufacturers don’t provide these figures and some surprisingly respected brands fail to do this. In this case, the all-important lower figure is quoted as 39Hz (-10dB) and 47Hz (-3dB). The grown-ups amongst us know this isn’t the most important measure of a speaker’s worth but we still check it before almost anything else so read into that what you will! The increased use of -10dB as a figure to quote is another one I have issues with, -3dB is the figure I expect to see but I understand the pressure manufacturers must feel when their competitors quote these figures and don’t specify a tolerance. Unfortunately, understanding of equipment specs by consumers can’t be guaranteed. If a manufacturer is clear about what figure they are providing then I have no issue. Kali go even further by providing full independent test data and a link to the free viewer software necessary to inspect it. They clearly want people to see the unvarnished truth about how their speakers perform.

The drivers are a 6.5” bass driver which features an unusually large voice coil and a soft dome tweeter set into an asymmetrical waveguide. The use of a waveguide to control the directivity of the tweeter was a major feature of my test article on the JBL306P MkII. This waveguide controls the directivity and Kali describe this as a “3D Imaging Waveguide”. It looks like a conventional asymmetric waveguide to me, a little deeper than many of the very shallow devices found on 2-way monitors and so potentially loading the tweeter more than is typical. Horn design is a big subject and not one I’m going to try to get too deep with but I’m hearing characteristics in this speaker, which I’m thinking might well be attributable to the contribution the waveguide is making.

Something I was very very impressed with was the level of noise present when the monitors were idle. My ancient Genelecs, which I was using for comparison are rather noisy, nothing that would bother you in use but leaning in it is possible to hear a hiss from them. A good measure of the current level of background noise in my studio is whether I can hear my monitors over the general low-level computer noise floor. If I can hear them then that’s a good thing! The LP6s were absolutely silent, too silent. I then remembered that they have an auto-mute, sleep mode from which they are woken by audio hitting the input! An LED between the drivers lights blue to indicate active monitors and orange to signify muted speakers. One slight niggle I have with the LP6s is that they take just a little too long to wake, to the extent that makes me think they aren’t working. They time out after about 20 minutes and it only takes about 3 seconds for them to wake. In terms of noise, the LP6s do produce a little noise, at least as much as my Genelecs.

Specifications

• Amplifier Class: D

• Power Configuration: Bi-Amped

• LF Power: 40 W (Continuous)

• HF Power: 40 W (Continuous)

• Total Power: 80 W (Continuous)

• LF Driver: 6.5" Woofer

• HF Driver: 1" Soft Dome Tweeter

• Freq. Response (-10 dB): 39 Hz - 25 kHz

• Frequency Range (±3 dB): 47 Hz - 21 kHz

• Crossover: 1.5 kHz

• Listening Distance (85 dB Continuous output): 2.2 Meters

• Max SPL: 112 dB

• System THD: (94 dB @ 1 M) <3% 80 Hz - 1.7 kHz <2% above 400 Hz

• Unbalanced Inputs: 1 x RCA

• Balanced Inputs: 1 x TRS 1 x XLR TRS/XLR

• Input Sensitivity: +4 dB RCA Input Sensitivity: -10 dB

• HF Trim: -2 dB, ±0 dB, +2 dB

• LF Trim: -2 dB, ±0 dB, +2 dB

• Enclosure: Front Ported

• Height: 14.125 Inches (35.9 cm) 16.5 Inches (48.2 cm)

• Width: 8.75 Inches (22.2 cm) 10 Inches (36.8 cm)

• Depth: 10.25 Inches (26 cm) 11.25 Inches (32.4 cm)

• Weight: 15.54 lbs (7.01 kg) 19.8 lbs (9 kg)

Boundary EQ Settings:

• Free space (On stands, away from walls)

• On Stands, within 0.5 meters of a wall

• Against a wall

• Meter Bridge

• Wall Mount

• On a desk, away from walls

• On a desk, within 0.5 meters of a wall

The drivers are powered by twin 40W class D amplifiers, it doesn’t sound like much but returning to my earlier point about building to a spec, the components have been carefully matched to meet the brief of 85dBSPL with 20dB of headroom from 2.2 metres. In a speaker designed to offer such good value for money, it would be a waste to have a larger amplifier than is necessary to meet the spec. The crossover frequency is at 1.5KHz, which is lower than I expected and indeed according to the specs published by Kali the larger LP8 crosses over at 1.8KHz. so we have a larger driver crossing over higher? I suspect this was desirable to meet the spec for that speaker with its greater specified listening distance of 2.8 meters needing a greater MaxSPL of 114dBSPL rather than the LP6’s 112dBSPL. The LP8 also has a 40W amplifier driving the tweeter but a larger 60W amplifier driving the larger 8” woofer.

The back panel houses an IEC power input, a slightly awkward to find power switch and analogue inputs on XLR and TRS (+4dBU) a phono input (-10dBV) and a series of dip switches, which control boundary EQ settings for installation near to, or far from walls, desk, console and tabletop correction and bass and treble contouring. No searching for the manual to interpret the settings, they are printed on the back of the speakers in large, clear diagrams. There is also a trim pot which can adjust input level from minus infinity to +6dB.

How Do The Kali LP6 Sound?

OK, enough about the speaker construction, how do they sound? My first impressions, level matched against my pair of Genelec 1029a’s with a 1091a Sub are of detail and clarity with excellent HF transient response and a distinctly mid-forward character compared to the Genelecs. I was impressed by the resolution of low-level detail with reverb tails coming across particularly well.

Running my standard test tracks from Tidal confirmed the specifications in that there is plenty of bass but the really deep stuff is beyond their reach. Not really a valid criticism of a small-ish two-way monitor. A favourite test track for bottom-end response is Protection by Massive Attack. The kicks and slightly overdriven 40Hz sub-bass mirror each other. Small speakers miss the fundamental of the sub altogether but more interestingly speakers with poor time response due to cabinet porting issues suffer from the sub-bass pulling out of time against the kicks. My Genelecs are a worst-case scenario for this issue as the 1091a sub is a bandpass design. It wins easily against the LP6s for deep bass but this type of cabinet suffers from such poor time-domain response that the sub-bass sounds like its playing a 32nd note late! Happily, even with the sub off, the sub-bass starts and more importantly stops in reasonable shape against the kicks.

Another favourite test track is No-One Knows by Queens of the Stone Age, a track I’ve used for a long time as a good indicator of midrange voicing and for two way monitors an important test of the behaviour through the crossover. The main riff features snares on 2 and 4 doubled by a thick distorted guitar, the whole track is a masterclass in the midrange but different monitors tend to either favour the upper mids of the snare or the lower mids of the guitar. Which of these is more prominent is very informative about the performance through this region. The LP6 managed this test very commendably. Overall I found them to be focused towards the upper midrange but this test suggested they were flatter than I expected. The frequency response graph shows a small bump around 1KHz, which I can believe but through the mids, which after all if the bit which really matters, they are very tidy indeed. My overriding impression of these monitors is of great transients. They really do sound snappy. I wonder to what extent the horn loading of the tweeter due to the deep waveguide is contributing to this sense of detail. Whatever it is it works.

Who Should Buy The LP6?

Who should buy these monitors? Are they “beginner” monitors, destined to be traded up for something more professional when the budget permits? I’d say no. Returning to my earlier statement about fitness for purpose, they are indeed “good enough”, and by that, I mean good enough for pretty much anyone. For budget stereo users looking for their first pair of monitors, these absolutely should be, if not at the top of your list, they should be very close to it because if you decide to upgrade these would be a very useful second reference. In the same way as you so often see a pair of modest nearfields in studios with really top drawer monitoring, these would be a perfectly acceptable alternative to some fairly grown-up monitors. Plenty of pairs of NS10s should be feeling worried…

On the subject of NS10s I do think that for any user who is looking for a second, alternative reference, these LP6s would fit the bill but particularly for anyone who isn’t looking to complement another pair of ported 2-way monitors. For the same reasons as the time domain advantages of a sealed box like an NS10 is useful to people mixing on ported speakers, someone using something other than 2-way ported monitors stands to gain the most from a truly alternative reference. For example, someone using 3 way sealed box monitors… For the record, I use Neumann KH310s, which are 3-way sealed boxes. If I didn’t already have some 2 way ported monitors as a B pair I’d be thinking about it!

The other group who absolutely should consider these monitors is people looking to get into immersive formats, either surround or particularly Dolby Atmos. The cost of entry to Dolby Atmos is a big disincentive to anyone wanting to explore the possibilities, particularly as Atmos music mixing seems to be gaining traction but isn’t yet a required format. The cost of the eleven speakers needed for 7.1.4 and a suitable sub could be around $2000. As someone who really wants to explore Dolby Atmos workflows These Kalis are absolutely at the top of my list as when you’re looking at these channel counts every saving you can make on your monitoring is multiplied many times. Cheap has never been this good, or maybe good has never been this cheap. Try some and decide for yourself.