Hi Everybody,
Hope you’re doing marvellously well!
In today’s video, Nick Sowden from La Barca Sound myself, and mix engineer Alex Elliott review Kali Audio’s LP-UNF Ultra Nearfield Monitoring System and give you our take on these impressive monitors.
A few notable specifics:
The Kali Audio LP-UNF Speakers are intended for small or large listening environments (i.e. they’re perfect for an apartment, or home where one can’t play mixes at high volumes), and as Kali themselves say, “Without taking up a huge amount of space, and without annoying your neighbors.”
Indeed!
The key idea is that they’re designed to produce sonic fidelity at closer ranges. What this means is, in addition to being modular and convenient in less-than-desirable settings, they also don’t seem to require much calibration.
In fact, Kali Audio’s whole goal for this model is to Kali’s whole goal with this model of speakers is to produce “faithful” sound in most any context.
We’ll circle back to that point in a minute – first a few notable features:
The LP-UNFs, unlike some other monitors have:
- One active, powered speaker, containing all electronics and inputs.
- The second speaker is passive, and pairs with the active one.
Simple design.
They’re also Bluetooth-ready and easy to connect to at that. I myself was taken aback by “connect-ability” and ease of use. I’ve spent more time trying to connect my phone to any number of speakers, and this was effortless. Just long-press the front-facing volume buttons for three seconds, connect your device and you’re ready to go.
This may seem like a minor detail but it gives engineers more freedom to test their mixes and reference material in a way you couldn’t before. And, at the very least, these speakers can be used in multiple ways, one of which is without hard-wired connections.
Now, what does this all mean for calibration and room sound?
Alexander Elliott’s review speaks for itself:
“Bruv! What? These sound way larger than they actually are.”
“The amount of low-end that we’re able to get out of such a small speaker is beyond me. I don’t understand it…these should be more (expensive)”
“Super punchy….for that price to be able to still get a sense of the stereo field; to be able to hear reverbs and to be able to have this large sound stage beyond the speakers themselves…is absolutely dope.”
Elliott briefly explains how good quality monitors, despite the “great innovations” in home recording – higher quality mics and interfaces at affordable prices – have always been a “barrier to entry”, due to price – how, generally the higher price tag typically gets you higher quality speakers.
To level-set the excitement from his initial impression, he decided to spend a couple of days with them, testing them out on actual client mixes for a few days and came back with the following appraisal:
“They actually are really fantastic speakers for the price….[they’re a] fantastic second set of monitors”
He had been coincidentally struggling with some problem areas on a mix – kick too loud, vocals too quiet – and after switching over to the LP-UNFs made those issues seem “really obvious”.
Leading him to summarize that he would not only recommend to beginners but also to professionals who need a good, honest alternative monitor reference in their mixing workflow.
Nick and I both, anecdotally, felt that it gave us a true sound from reference tracks we played at La Barca, right out of the box.
Nick later ran a test on them, using IK Multimedia’s ARC4 Studio System Analysis Software to “measure what these speakers are actually putting out in [the] room.”
He compared them to the Kali IN-5s and found that (again) out of the box, they had competitive near-field frequency response with little-to-no adjustments. He even commented that he records off-site often enough that he may want to add these to his kit.
I think all that adds up to a well-made, and multipurpose product that can provide many benefits to engineers and producers of all levels.
See the whole breakdown here.
Thanks ever so much for watching and be sure to enter the giveaway below!
Have Marvellous Day,
Warren
