Review: Klipsch Klipschorn Speaker


Category: Speakers

What can I say about my K-horns? As do many of us, I have spent most of my life searching for "perfect" speakers, moving up the pricing ladder and trying different technologies (planar, ribbon, dynamic) always looking to get the sound "right". Well I came to these Klipschorns by accident. An acquaintance was moving and could not manage to take them with him (they ARE huge!) For only $1,500 I grabbed'em and have never looked back! Way below the budget amount I thought I would have to spend for my "perfect" speakers, and certainly not falling into any of the technology categories I imagined such audio bliss would come from. These "horns", these megaphone-type speakers. How can they produce "right" sound? LOL! Well after a few short days of listening I knew I had found what I had been looking for all along. I thus have come to two conclusions as a result of my experience with the K-horns; 1. That listening tests are the only true way to pick components, forget specs and 2. That price and reviews are not reliable guides. I thought I knew what I was looking for, but that was the problem; looking instead of listening. I won't recommend the K-horns to you, but I will tell you this they give you a unique perspective on music, one that is coming back into vogue (look at the reviews of the Avantgarde speakers), one that is emotionally involving and one that, for me, gives me the most enjoyable window into my music. Let me tell you what the K-horns excel at; they have dynamics like no other speakers, dynamic contrasts virtually explode from them. their level of detail in the mids and highs are something like no other speaker I have heard, clarity, definition, speed. That is the third major strength, speed, they produce and release a note, a sound, faster than almost any other speaker I have heard. The closest "speedy" speaker I have heard were Magnapan units, but they could not produce the dynamics that a K-horn can. Do K-horns go down to 20hz? Forget the specs! No they don't but they produce strong, tight, bass down into the low 40s/upper 30s and that is quite enough for what I listen to. I have never heard a K-horn owner complain about lack of Bass. They probably don't go all the way up to 20mhz either but the cymbal, piano and bell sounds that emanate of them provide me with a level of realism I have never experienced before. Imaging? superb! great, wide soundstage with images well placed. One warning, you need extremely good upstream components with these speakers, since they are ultrasensitive (>100db) they reveal every nuance of the source, the preamplification or the power amps they are mated with. I suggested tubes, tubes, tubes. There is also a healthy tweaking community that can help the audio enthusiast get the last little bit of audio nirvana from their K-horns. Don't worry about getting them set up correctly, you have to place them in the room corners, no choice, they use the walls as the finishing touches on their bass horn enclosures. If you don't have the appropriate space forget these speakers (go for Belles) Do I read the audio magazines and pine after B&W 801s and Revel Studios? Well yes, but after walking into stores to listen I walk out with the realization that my speakers are truely unique and the differences in sound are just that...differences, neither better or worse than any other. What works best for you and your music? How do you put together a system that reproduces for you what you hear in your head? The only way to find out is to get out there and listen, I recommend that you audition a pair of Klipschorns, they just may be the speakers you have been waiting to hear. If you are ever in San Salvador, give me call and we'll listen together, but watch out! You may be bitten by the K-horn bug and shipping in Central America is Hellishly expensive!

Associated gear
Click to view my Virtual System

Similar products
Magnaplanar MG-3, Paradigm reference 100s, JMLabs Electra,Polk.
sunnysal
Mike thanks for your email. Let's compare our notes! I'll respond privately to you both with a rather long-ish writeup. But not tonight; we have a big crash project going on here at the satellite uplink station that has me rather tied up for the next several days. I will get back to y'all though.
Am I the only one here who finds their midrange to be dreadfully colored, and to sound like a PA-system?

Oh well, to each his own.
No - I would agree. Horns honk. I cannot listen to them. I don't care what horns we are talking about, Klipsch or Avant Garde or whatever other exotic horn design you want to bring up. The midrange is closed down, and horribly colored. The highs tend to be shrill and yet somehow at the same time rolled off. And I have never, ever, ever heard a hybrid horn speaker where the bass integrates properly with the mids and highs. The Avant Gardes have dreadfully poor bass integration which is inexcusible for such an expensive speaker. It's the same reason that hybrid electrostats don't sound good. But don't get me started on that either. I'm sure I've already upset the apple cart enough.
As the saying goes: trash in... trash out! Of course
K-Horns can sound bad if you have inferior equipment driving the speakers. K-Horns are probably the most honest speakers on the market. On the other hand, reference equipment, a well tuned room, and proper acoustical treatments can allow these gems to show off their true colors.
I would agree that k-horns ARE revealing, so you do have to be careful about component selection. One hears that same comment time and time again about the best audio components, that they are niot tolerant of inferior or porrly matched ancillary units. K-horns are finicky as well, for someone who takes the time to build a system around them, the rewards are tremendous! warm regards and thanks for contributing to the review, tony