Definition
Distortion occurs when an audio signal is altered from its original form - typically because a device is being pushed beyond its operating limits. At its most extreme, this shows up as clipping: a harsh, crackling sound caused by a signal that's been driven harder than the system can cleanly reproduce. But distortion exists on a spectrum, and not all of it sounds obviously broken.
Distortion and Your Kali Monitors
We publish distortion specs for every Kali speaker, and generally, distortion decreases as you move up the line. That said, even our most modest monitors are capable of clean, accurate playback that'll serve you and your mixes well.
Kali Safety Features
Each of our speakers have a limiter built in, and hitting the limiter repeatedly will also be audible as distortion. If you trip the limiter hard enough and for long enough, the speakers may shut down to recover. If you have questions about how this may apply to your particular setup and surrounding gear, we recommend requesting a live agent to discuss.
Other Contexts
Not all distortion is the enemy! Tape saturation, harmonic distortion, and soft clipping are intentional tools in music production; often described as warm, rich, or full. Some of the most beloved sounds in recorded music have them, and entire plugin categories exist to recreate such effects.
When you're tracking, mixing, or making critical decisions about your sound, you want your monitors to be as clean and transparent as possible, so that the distortion you choose to add is a creative decision, not something your playback chain is sneaking in. Best practices in Gain Staging are your friend here.
Subwoofers can Lower Distortion!
Adding a subwoofer to your setup has two major advantages!
The obvious one: you can hear lower frequencies. Bass extension, sub-bass energy, the material that translates to club systems and car stereos. A subwoofer brings all of that into your monitoring setup.
The less obvious one: your main monitors will actually distort less. The bottom octave of a woofer's frequency range is where it has to work the hardest, and is where distortion is most likely to creep in. When a subwoofer takes over that range, your mains are free from their most demanding workload. The result is a system that's cleaner, more accurate, and more capable overall.
It's one of the most underrated arguments for adding a WS-6.2 or WS-12 V2 to your setup, even if you're not necessarily working in bass-heavy genres.
You can find the full user guide for every Kali product at kaliaudio.com/documents