Kali Audio Announces SM-8 Powered Studio Monitor

May 27 2025, 00:35
Kali Audio has announced the SM-8, an 8" model in their top-tier Project Santa Monica, or SM-Series, line of studio monitors, which already includes a 5" model. The US-based brand of studio monitors keeps expanding its successful formula, leveraging the proven 3-way coincident architecture with more refined components and craftsmanship in each iteration. The more expensive product from the company, the new SM-Series aims for improved quality for critical production applications.
 

Created in January 2018, Kali Audio is a California-based company formed by a group of former JBL employees who left following the sale of Harman to Samsung. They brought with them expertise in acoustic design, driver engineering, DSP, and perhaps most importantly, knowledge of how to source high-quality subcontracted product from China. The lead engineer at Kali is Charles Sprinkle, who is best known for the fabulous JBL M2 loudspeakers (continuously revisited by JBL in subsequent models), as well as the popular LS305 and LS308 monitors. With engineering at the forefront, the company's first foray into the home studio market, the LP series, was an immediate success, and was quickly followed by a succession of new models or similar design, with the IN series introducing a 3-way version.

Kali's design headquarters are in Burbank, California's historic audio district, surrounded by Hollywood studios, other professional audio manufacturers, and trusted retail partners. Each of Kali Audio's product lines is named after a town or city in California. The SM Series is also called Project Santa Monica.

The Kali Audio SM-8 is a 3-way monitor with an 8-inch woofer, and a 4-inch midrange with a coaxial 1-inch metal dome tweeter. Like Kali’s previous LP and 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 improved stereo image and details. As the company states, off-axis lobing that is unavoidable in 2-way loudspeakers is virtually eliminated in the SM-8.
The transducers on the SM-8 are similarly precision-engineered for high dynamic range, smooth response, and low distortion. The woofer design has been refined, and incorporates features that reduce magnetic flux modulation, bringing distortion down dramatically. The midrange has been also optimized for its role as the tweeter's coaxial waveguide. As Kali also explains, the tweeter is an aluminum dome with a special geometry that reduces high-Q ultrasonic resonances, eliminating the harsh sound that can plague metal dome designs.

THD of the SM-8 is less than 0.5% and lower frequency response is 37 Hz at -10 dB. With 300W of total power, the SM-8 can deliver 119dB SPL peaks, allowing for reference-level listening at up to 5 meters from the loudspeaker. The design also features user-editable DSP to control parametric EQs, delays, and trims per loudspeaker for room calibration. This is all processed natively on the speaker’s own DSP chip, allowing for a less complicated signal chain and no additional latency while processing room calibration.

Users can program these DSP features using a USB drive plugged into the speaker, or by networking speakers together via Ethernet. While networked, changes in processing settings happen in real time, and users can toggle between multiple tuning profiles.

According also to the company, the SM-8 monitors were designed to mounted using hardware from Triad Orbit, or any other speaker mount that uses a 4.25 x 2-inch hole pattern and can support the loudspeaker's 31 lb weight. The SM-8 is available now in the United States, with worldwide availability soon to follow. MSRP is $2499. The 5" version, the SM-5, is also available now for $1699. Demos are available in Los Angeles and Nashville; visit kaliaudio.com/demos to schedule.
www.kaliaudio.com
 
The Kali SM-8 monitor and the smaller SM-5 model.
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