havatampa

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Price Paid:  $100.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I can't help it. I just cannot walk away from a bargain. I'm always hitting the yard sales and pawn shops for stereo, P.A., and DJ gear. Rolling thru' Best Buy one day, I spotted a pair of speakers as close out items. KLH 9152's. Hmmm, 4-way 15's for a hundred bucks? Kinda big, but who cares, KLH is generally a good brand, so I shoved 'em in the back seat (a mean feat) of my old car and lugged 'em home. I first hooked them up to a stereo 50 watt receiver and over all, sounded pretty good. Then I dug out an old Samsung receiver with 100 watts a channel and these boxes rocked. You could feel the low end; no sub necessary. What some ppl would say is crummy workmanship is actually what helped these cabinets work. Stiff cabinets require the drivers to do ALL the work, so you need more power and push them even harder to get more SPL. Thinner wall construction allow the drivers to use the cabs to resonate and develop the sound. I built a pair of stands and getting them up off the floor helped to clean up the sound quite a bit. KLH is a smart company that builds smart products. No, I wouldn't go by the specs (I hardly ever listen to specs)and crank 300 watts RMS into 'em, but a true 150 watt amp would probably get out all there is to get. A better receiver or pre-amp amp combo would clean up the sound even more, but I'm all about the bargain here. Sure, go get u some Wharfdales, or JBL's and be happy with the zeros in your bank account. I went back and tried to get another pair of these the next day, but they were gone. BTW, I'm still looking... Ahhh well, these boxes are well over ten years old, and I've had NO problems with rattling, blown drivers or hardware breaking down what-so-ever. And yes, I crank 'em. I run no external EQ, but I have tried it and don't feel like there are any holes or bumps glaring so much to go through the trouble. Sure, I've heard much better sounding boxes, we all have but for the money, $200.00 for the pair, they simply cannot be beat.

Strengths:
Value, never found any boxes even close for this price.

Weaknesses:
Well, their not JBL's, so they could be a touch cleaner.

Similar Products Used:
My (very old) large Advents are cleaner, but won't generate near the SPL.

Price Paid:  $150.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I bought these speakers on clearance in 1999... one for $60 and one for $90. The style of music you listen to will greatly effect what you think of these speakers. KLH targeted the "starving college student" market and their prices reflect it. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. I've run these speakers through two receivers. An Awia 120 watt and a Sony 80 watt. I'll agree with the previous reviewers, these speakers can not handle 300 watts. You can't even go off the rule that they'd be able to handle 150 watts RMS. These speakers caused my Awia to overload many times and actually damaged the board in the receiver. Granted, I listen to stuff with a fair amount of bass (Carcass... Cryptopsy... Soilwork) and I listened to it fairly loud. These speakers lack any sort of clarity at any level, but they will play things loud for cheap if you can pair it with a reciever that will work well with them. 80 watts seems about optimal. After owning these for about a year, I bought another cheap item from KLH, their 100 watt powered sub. Using the sub to take some of the lower bass off of the 15" of the 9154 allowed it to sound just a little bit better. I'm thinking this is because the box the speakers are in has all kind of resonance and clouds up the sound you're hearing. I'm no audio expert, but this is how it's been explained to me in the past. I read the line below that you'd be better off with some Cerwin's, but that's only if you can afford them. The standard "Starving Student" can't. I paid for both of the KLH's what I would have paid for 1 Cerwin Vega at the time and I got a good 5 years out of em before they started to pay the price for the beating I've been giving them (blown the low-mid in one of them). If you're looking for loud plus cheap and you spot these at a garage sale for $50, you won't be dissapointed. If you're looking for quality AND loud AND cheap, this isn't it. You get what you pay for.

Strengths:
Loud. That's about it.

Weaknesses:
Poor cabinet construction with lots of resonance. Can't handle what KLH says they can. 4 way? Struggle to make it to the 3rd way.

Similar Products Used:
None... didn't have the budget until recently.

Price Paid:  $100.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
These things arent as good as everyone makes them out to be. 300 watts!?!?!? Im sure thats the peak but it would only be able to hold it for like a second. These things have a hard time carrying 50 watts rms. All 4 tweets gone within the first 4 months. Radio shack tweets took the romping alot better than the klh's. Boxes are very poor. Subs havent blown yet but are very weak and loose.Ive known many people to purchase these speakers and they are crap. I am the only one out of all the people i know who bought some to still have mine.yes they are cheap but for the extra money you can pick up a pair of cerwins that will last you alot longer.of course if u dont beat on speakers then they will last but if u dont listen to loud music then why are u getting big speakers?

Strengths:
$$PRICE$$

Weaknesses:
tweeters, subs, crossovers, mids are decent. these arent durable at all.

Similar Products Used:
sony, technics, yamaha, ohm, fisher

Price Paid:  $200.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
Thier good for about 2 years than things start to fall apart, subs & tweeds are still good but the mid is shot. they keep making my reciver overload

Strengths:
Great bass Good hi

Weaknesses:
they get shot after about a year

Similar Products Used:
pioneer

Price Paid:  $90.00

Summary:
The speakers turn out great if you put some work into them. First, you have to buy a sound absorbing material and line the walls inside the speaker with it. Then you should use a glue gun to add extra reinforcement of the back wooden ply sheet. After this duct tape the wires inside the speaker to reduce rattling. Lastly, you should take out the cones in the port ducts. These cones have no use because they do not change frequences in the speaker. Without these cones you can increase the playing volume and your bass to amazing ranges.

Strengths:
With tweeking these type of speaker has better bass and great highs than most brand in the market place today.

Weaknesses:
These are by-far the heaviest and area consuming 15" speakers I have ever bought.

Similar Products Used:
sharp, pioneer, bose, jbl, boston A. A., ...