Are Klipsch speakers really that bright?

In response to the original poster......Are Klipsch speakers really that bright?

Opinions from those that love them say no.

Opinions from those that don't love them say yes.

Opinions from some former owners say yes, too bright.

And at least one former owner said he wished he'd never gotten rid of them.

Some say low power tube amps are the key to making Klipsch speakers shine.

Some say SS is just as good.

That's the closest to my opinion on Klipsch I've read here.

Adding to that I'd say this: IMHO, old Klipsch Heritage speakers give the most bang for buck. I'm not talking about loudness factor. A matter of fact I'm talking about detail at moderate volume. Dynamic range and signal to noise ratio is just incredible during late night listening sessions when you can't crank the juice as we all like to do. Classic rock and roll from the 60's and 70's are my listening pleasure. Yeah Greg you say, but how accurate is it's reproduction? Well, if you like piano, Klipsch horns are up there with the high priced elites on certain elements....again, IMO. S/N ration and decay of Bill Evans piano are real sounding to me on vinyl. And how does Miles Davis's horn sound coming from a Klipsch horn? Like he's in the room. Female jazz vocals are another highlight. Just my opinion of course. To some this is just the opposite. And it very well may be.

My opinion on speakers in general is as follows:

If it sounds good to you it is good......until you decide different. Don't let anyone decide for you. Being an audiophile is a sound project in progress. It never stops. That speaker of yours is "the sheet" until you find something else or figure out a way to alter the sound to your liking. Different amp, pre-amp, roll tubes, environment....the list goes on.

Best case scenario IMO. Have 2 stereo systems to play with. Twice the potential to open up your mind and ears to the fact that....there is no perfect or best. It's YOUR ears that truly matter in the final opinion. Not what I say or someone else.

Please forgive me for therant.

 

I've got a pair of Heresys in my TV room system. I find them perfectly acceptable tonally as long as one uses them as PWK designed them to be used, i.e. sitting flat on the floor and either hard against a back wall or in a corner. The tweeter level is IIRC about 6db higher than the bass to compensate for this usage context. I live in a typical UK house, so small rooms compared to folk in the USA and find the Heresys very good indeed. They far prefer tubes to solid state IME and I like them best at pretty low levels, I'd certainly not describe them as a headbanger's speaker as they can harden up at volume. Use them in the right place and well within their performance envelope and they are great speakers IMO. Very clear, fast, fun and coherent.

Tony.

 

You guys should go over to the Klipsch site and check out the upgrades for them, then decide.

Jay

 

I upgraded my crossovers with caps from Bob Crites, it definitely improved the sound, smoother and clearer. My Heresys date from 1984 so the electrolytic cap would probably have drifted out of spec by now, though I suspect the upgrade represents far more than that. I was very happy with the result.

Tony.

 

Same here, with my '86 Heresy II's.

Before the re-cap, they were shrill and basically unlistenable. After, they were completely transformed. No further need for toilet paper on the treble horn!

I wonder if a lot of the negativity towards Klipsch stems from listening to examples with out-of-spec, old caps?

 

This is what I need to do. I love my Heresys, but knowing they are not what they should be, bugs me.

 

It's actually very easy as the crossovers are on wooden boards and the drivers are connected to them with screw connectors, i.e. it's easy to get the crossover right out of the boxes to work on. I believe Heresy IIs are a little more awkward to work on as the cabinet backs don't come off, I assume that just means taking the bass unit out.

Here's a pic of my crossovers before I'd recapped them (I didn't think to take a pic afterwards, but they've got a fresh electrolytic and two white Sonicaps now):



My Heresys are the mid-point between the MkI and MkII, they have MkI cabs, bass unit and tweeter, Mk II mid horn and E-2 crossover.

Tony.

 

If you enjoy audio history, those back issues of Dope From Hope are interesting reading. They don't always discuss just Klipsch speakers, and PWK could certainly be a provocative writer.

 

I've read it before and I'll concede that I didn't really consider the timeline of the designs when making the La Scala and Khorn comparison although I do recall the Khorn being earlier, but timeline be damned, I'm really talking about the speaker design and it's suitable function. Perhaps I just don't agree with what PWK was trying to do. It does not make any sense to build a PA style box and load it with PA style drivers to place in a small room in a home. It makes even less sense to then add a center speaker with the same, ridiculous, output level to fill in the "hole in the middle". In a typical, large US household room (and I'll be generous), say 20' long and 15' wide, you'd still be way too close to those monsters to get the sound to reintegrate properly. I do like the Cornwall design best of the bunch as it forms a tighter group, has a forward facing woofer for direct radiation, and is slim enough to go in larger rooms and allow some distance from them for seating, although still not enough, IMO. I could not get the Cornwalls in my 14 x 16' room comfortably. So,regardless of which came first or second, the La Scala was the best design for the only function that it was really well suited for. I can't stand the sound of a La Squala personally but in a movie house and with a huge subwoofer system and active crossovers, it would easily fill a huge space. So while it might be a novel read to review the history of the Khorn, the Belle, etc, it doesn't change their design and the result of their situational usage, intended or misused. And I'll reiterate, even if I was installing a system in a huge, commercial movie theater back in the day, I'd have chosen the Altecs. Paul must have been deaf is all I can figure. I'll give him points for build quality on the old stuff though. That and enough people seemed to fancy his designs enough to make him rich I'd imagine.
-Bill

 

Yeah, you really need lots of room for horns to work properly. You never see horns in close field monitors, do you? I like my Heresys, but I consider them Rock 'n Roll speakers. At a party, in a large room, patio, out on the deck, or even a rented hall, these speakers really deliver the music.

 

On Heresy II's like mine, everything is tightly packed onto a small round "cup" with the speaker terminals that screws onto the back panel. You have to have good soldering skills to do it - which is why I send the cup off to Bob Crites.

 

Near

True, Horns are NOT for near field listening. When you get nearer than say, 8 feet (for me, at least), you hear that dreaded horn honk and not the music.

 

What does that say about the rest of us?

Your opinion has been noted. Over and over and over again.

 

Speak for yourself then. I've had to read the same old "yeah Klipsch" posts many times myself. A few others here besides myself are reformed, ex-Klipsch owners. What does that say about them? I don't like leopard spandex either, but hey, that's just me...

Have fun listening to whatever you enjoy. I'd keep an ear open to other types of speakers also though.
-Bill

 

Ok, what do you guys think of the RF-7s. Which went back into production last year...

 

An inacurrate statement; how well horns work in a given size room depends of the dispersion pattern of the horns; for instance 60 degree horizontal pattern horns may not work well in a small room but 90 or 120 degree horns might. And coaxes using horn treble like Altec 604 Duplexes and Tannoy Dual Concentrics can work very well in small rooms. Indeed, the ability of horns to control directivity can make them a better solution for small rooms than direct radiators which usually have fairly willy-nilly directivity.

I used Altec Model 19s in a small room and the speakers had seamless integration and on good recordings would throw an image of great depth and width. The 19s were designed with the crossover placed at the frequency where the treble horn and the direct radiating 15" woofer have the same horizontal dispersion pattern, a reason the speakers are seamless and image well; the same idea was used in the JBL 4430 monitor which also used a 15" direct radiating woofer and horn treble.

Among companies that have made near field monitors with horn treble are Tannoy, JBL Pro and Urei.

I respectfully submit that your generalizations about horns may be based on limited experience.

 

Interesting post!

 

Can't say that I agree completely there. There is a world of difference in a Tannoy Dual Concentric driver and a large flare horn with a deep throat. The Tannoys work well because it is as close as is possible to the woofer center, in fact it is the woofer center . Other monitors that have very shallow "horn loaded" tweeters (and they are probably more correctly called quasi-horn loaded designs as they are so small) place them very close to the woofer. That is necessary for a nearfield monitor. The benefit is that they don't sound like "horns" but like sound coming from a single point in space. Farther field positions can use larger horns with less penalty. Nearfield is one area where smaller is always better.

In farther field applications, larger monitors do work well and provide greater output and dynamics. Many have a deeper frequency response as well but that is not always desired in a studio setting for every task. Subs can be cut in and out as needed and used for the times when you do want full range output.
-Bill

 

Traditional Tannoy Dual Concentics use compression drivers with phase plugs and the woofer cone itself is the horn. The horn is large enough to support the lowest range intended to be reproduced by the treble driver. And as I'm sure you know some Tannoys use an additional front horn in front of the cone and many over the years have used rear loading basshorns.

Similar coaxes using the woofer cone to form the horn are made by Radian, Beyma and B&C.

Many modern compression driver-horn systems, especially those intended to be crossed over at fairly high frequncies (compared to older practice) to direct radiating woofers, use higher flare rates in the throat than earlier systems and thus have shallower throats, indeed with some systems the driver's phase plug is quite visible in the throat.

Regards

 

No, they are not bright. They are hard.

Hukk

 

Love 'em. If one has the opinion that these are "bright", then he/she might want to get a decent amp or perhaps a well-mastered recording.

I can't speak to other Klipsch designs, but the RF-7's sound glorious for the price point. I've been fortunate enough to have owned or auditioned many speakers over the years, and any statement that the RF-7's are "bright" relative to other common "quality" speakers is completely inconsistent with my experience (Martin Logan, Thiel, Polk, Boston Acoustics, Infinity, B&W).

 

That's not far from the truth. He had tinnitus and other hearing problems from the munitions testing he did for WWII. It's been suggested to me by one former Klipsch employee that the reason PWK was obsessed with low loudspeaker intermodulation distortion (he's written dozens of papers on the subject) is that it created beat frequencies with his tinnitus.

 

Cool. Thanks for your assessment. They look like a lot of speaker for the money. Great bang-for-buck, I take it. Plus, free shipping and a liberal return policy from Klipsch helps! In addition, they're made in Hope!

I hate to say it, but this is a more realistic buy for me than the $10000 JBLs I've been dreaming about.

 

Tomorrow I pick up a pair of mint KG4.2s. I'm used to hearing the excellent Quad 11L2 monitors augmented with an SVS sub. The Quads aren't bright at all so if the Klipsch are, it should be obvious from the minute I fire them up.

I report my findings of the comparison...

 

I love my RF7s too. I don't think they are bright at all and I've had them in 2 different rooms and driven by various receivers such Yamaha, Onkyo and Nad.

They don't image as well as my Maggies, but then again, few speakers do. Compared to Maggies the RF7s don't have the crystaline highs, but in the midrange they are great.

After reading many posts I came to realize that Klipsch's, and depending on the models, have their lovers and haters.

When I auditioned speakers prior to purchase I realized, at least to my ears, that they lifted a veil in the midrange that other speakers I listened to had.

When I went to a HiFi show in NYC a few years back, many of the very pricey speakers had too much 'sizzle' for me, especially in regards to riding a high hat and cymbals - they were way to edgy for my ears. The RF7s are, IMO, hardly like that.

But then again, beauty is in the ears of the beholder.