Imaging, Bass, Efficiency, Dynamics!

Bright, need a generous amount of room. They are not for near field listening! Plain looking.

First off a pet peeve. I hate it when people review things for a week, month, or worse, only in the dealers room's.
Little things like break in, associated equipment, and placement make a big difference. 'Nuff said.

I have had these speakers for 2 1/2 years and in a half dozen rooms and am very happy with them. The imaging and bass for a floorstander of this size are excellent.
After almost every "audiophile" dealer tells you that Klipsch sucks you start to believe it. I demoed so many speakers in the last year and a half I couldn't begin to tell you all the brands I've listened to. I always seem to come back to the Klipsch though. The reason: dynamics and realsim. Very few speakers in the $3000 and under range seem to handle dynamics well. This is the only speaker under a grand that I've had that "They are here" experience with.
This speaker is bright and forward. No doubt about. I'm sorry, but the people who review these speakers with cheap receivers and CD players must have extensive hearing loss. The highs can be tamed successfully with cardas wire and tubed equipment though. Which leads me to my real reason for this review.
This speaker is a poor, tube lover's dream. Golden tube, Jolida, Antique sound labs, and many others mate well with these speakers. They are efficient and easy to drive and produce beautiful music. They do not do all the audiophile tricks as well as other speakers, but that is a trade off I'm willing to make. I auditioned many, many amps
and can tell the difference of each with these speakers. You can identify differences in cables and components very easily with these speakers. So I would say detail is good for a speaker of this price.
I owned Cary 572 SET's for 2 years and used them with these speakers and the sound was exceptional.

On a side note; as I got older I thought I would always be able to upgrade components. Alas, this is not the case.
I owned a system in my late 20's that cost ten times as much as the one I own now: yet, I think I am more pleased with my budget system than I ever have been with my other systems.

System consists of:
VTL 2.5 (w/NOS tubes)
Deccaware Zen Triode
Sota comet (Modified) w/ Ortophon x-3 and Cardas Phono cable
Jolida 601 cd player (w/NOS tubes)
Alpha Goertz MicroPearl interconnects
Cardas Cross interconnects
Cardas Cross cables (These were left over from my last system, and are probably overkill.)

If anyone has any mods for this speaker, I would love to hear from you as I think these will be with me for awhile.

Similar Products Used:

Theil 1.2, Heathkit horns, Totem Arro, DefTech.

Auwsome clarity. Supriseingly deep bass.

Don't expect these speaker to perform with a chaep or weak reciever, like my old Yamaha.

I've been buying hi-fi since I was 15 years old, I'm 33 now. When I decided last year to up grade my front speakers I thought the klipchs 8.5's sounded great. I also bought a C-5 center as well. When I got them home though, it took a lot of courage to finally admitt that I hated the sound. The horns souned just like horns. The bass was pretty good, but the horns were really irritating to me. I actually kept them, even though I would have been able to easily trade them at Sound Advice "good store for tradeing up". But,after a while they actually started to impress me. Can you say: break in or "burn in". Man I thought that was a bull s... term. But it's not. After running them for awhile the are much smoother, and not harsh at all. Now a year later, I've tossed my cheap Yamaha receiver and am now pumping the 8.5's with a carver pre-amp and a TFM-35. Wow! These Klipsches realy come alive with 250 watts per channel. I'm running the C-5 center with a TFM-15 amp in a bridged mode. Thats about 280 whatts just to the ceneter. These speakers will take any thing you throw their way. They always sound clear and bright.
Just remember, good wires, interconects and good amps may breed new life into your system as it did mine.

Similar Products Used:

Polk,Boston Acoustics, ect.