Noise-Floor / Self-Noise

Definition

The noise floor is the level of background noise present in a system even when no audio is playing. Self-noise is the portion of that noise generated by the device itself, and every piece of audio equipment produces some amount of it. In studio monitors, it's typically heard as a faint hiss at the tweeter when the room is quiet and no signal is passing. 

Do Kali Monitors Have a Noise Floor?

Yes. All studio monitors do. What we can tell you is that our Second Wave (V2) models feature a 12 dB reduction in noise floor compared to our original V1 lineup.

In practice, you'd typically need to place your ear right up to the tweeter to hear it. At a normal listening position, it's usually inaudible (or very faint) when the speakers are idle, and disappears entirely when you start playing something. Our current monitors are well-suited for nearfield work precisely because of this. 

One thing worth knowing: increasing the Input Gain beyond unity (0 dB) will raise the noise floor slightly. This is expected behavior and doesn't affect playback accuracy, but it's a good reminder to keep your gain staging dialed in and let your source do the heavy lifting on level.