Kali Audio is officially backing Happy’s 2026 Needle in the Hay competition, throwing some very useful studio gear into this year’s prize pool.
The annual comp has always been about finding independent Australian artists early and giving them something genuinely useful to work with.
This year, that means more than $50,000 worth of prizes, including gear, industry support and 250 vinyl pressings from Zenith Records.
Not a bad return for sending in a song.
Needle in the Hay has been digging through Australia’s independent music scene since 2017, with previous winners and alumni including Joan & The Giants, Spacey Jane, Tones and I, Maple Glider and Kardajala Kirridarra.
Kali Audio now joins the party with prizes for all three podium spots, and fittingly, it’s all gear artists can actually put straight to work.
First prize: Kali Audio IN-UNF
First place will pick up Kali Audio’s IN-UNF Ultra-Nearfield studio monitoring system, designed specifically for producers and musicians working from a desktop setup.
Built to deliver reference-level, full-range monitoring from around 0.8 metres away, the IN-UNF is made for those increasingly common situations where the “studio” might be a bedroom, home office or wherever else you can squeeze a desk and an interface.
For emerging artists producing, recording and mixing their own material, that makes it a pretty serious addition to the setup.
Second prize: Kali Audio LP-UNF
Second place scores the LP-UNF, another ultra-nearfield monitoring system built with smaller working spaces in mind.
The compact setup promises full-range audio, detailed stereo imaging and enough output to get proper mixing work done without demanding a huge studio footprint.
It also comes in black, white, blue and red, for anyone who believes studio monitors should at least vaguely match the room they live in.
Third prize: Kali Audio HP-1 headphones
Third place isn’t going home empty-handed either.
Kali Audio is putting up a pair of its HP-1 Multi-Reference Headphones, an over-ear design featuring 40mm drivers, DSP-powered processing and three tuning modes designed to give producers different perspectives when checking a mix.
They’re the sort of headphones that could very easily become a permanent fixture in an artist’s backpack, home setup or late-night production sessions.
Taken together, the Kali prizes fit neatly with what Needle in the Hay is trying to do: find good music, give it a platform and hopefully leave artists with something that helps them make the next thing even better.
Needle in the Hay 2026 is open now.
Think your tune has a shot? Submit your track to Needle in the Hay 2026 here and check out Kali Audio to see more of the studio gear behind this year’s prizes.
