Paducah Home Theater

off-axis response among multiple seating positions is actually far superior with them being vertical and it's easily provable. Much flatter. With it being horizontal you get wonky dips in the response from lobing / comb filtering shenanigans.

Unfortunately, it's an insanely huge liability and almost impossible to pull this off. You would basically have to go into the piano moving business. Literally. Issues with them: 1. They are so heavy that four people are required just to pick the things up, and even then it's not super safe. I don't even know where I could find four employees to be trained then work part time and go on business trips at the very low volume that these will be selling at. 2. They are not square so you can't use those straps that they use for some gun safes. I had floated the idea to Roy that maybe there could be a removable jig that makes the back be more square so these straps could be used but that isn't going to happen. 3. That back corner is just really hard to hang on to. I had also floated the idea to Roy that some kind of handle be installed even if it were removable which I'd still like to see but I don't think that's going to happen. 4. Getting these up even a small staircase in the garage, to a landing, then turn a 90 degree angle, is going to be insane. Literally every installation anybody has seen at this point has been in hotel ballrooms or outside or a commercial dealer showroom where you can just roll a pallet jack up to where you want them, but doing things like twisting on this landing while holding them up and not scratching them is going to be really tough. 5. Almost every sale is going to be in a different state. There are local laws, local tax, local insurance. You can't just decide to go install 400+ pound speakers in people's houses on a whim. Honestly I don't even know what to do as a professional service. It's just so far beyond the scope of a typical home theater installation. The only thing I know to do is to reimburse people for a local piano mover to be hired. I've literally been thinking about this and debating about all this and talking to Roy and others about this, for the entire past year. It's not exactly a case of laziness.

He and others always say "the smaller the room, the bigger the horn". Short story is that they'll work fine in a small room. However, and this may solicit a half angry response from the Klipsch gods, but my only thing that I'd even remotely caution about is that these are true full range speakers, and as such, they can extend down lower than where a small room's cabin gain will start. In other words, lower bass may be stronger in a small room, which most people would love, but it may make some recordings sound a little bloated. I've heard these things in the lab, in a very large reflective room at Axpona, in a very large treated room in Indianapolis, and outside. The low bass is noticeably different in the lab. This is one of the reasons I wish the DSP was not locked so we didn't have to buy a second one and do two ADA conversions if we wanted to smooth the bass out.

This was my sale, but regardless, I'm curious as to how any of the delays could possibly be any dealer's fault. There has been one delay after another. One time the wood vendor shipped veneer that wasn't matched so they had to start all over. There were delays after they realized that the Jubilees had to use the paint booth for La Scala and Klipschorn and there wasn't unlimited capacity so they had to figure some things out. etc., etc., .etc. We have been in communication with literally every detail we heard about, this entire time, he got both official and unofficial details and explanations. Michael got one of the first pair of the normal walnut ones once they started shipping. His money has been sitting in escrow which is stressful for me but given the situation that's what needed to happen. So please, school me on what I should have done better with these issues, I'd honestly like to know.

First of all it's not me saying they can only be distinguished when heard side by side. Depends on the room and material. Too many variables. Also don't forget that our memory as it pertains to audio is literally about 6 seconds long. Side by side takes the room and material and memory variables out of the equation, all of which are significant That being said, all I know is that when I listen to a Tool song at higher volumes in a reflective room with 3's, it's going to be uncomfortable, and the upper bass just doesn't have the slam that a halfway high caliber speaker ought to. Those are two very simple yet important things. The 4 is a noticeable improvement on things like this. I mean it's obvious, even without them being side by side, being played months apart. If you literally can't tell the difference at all then don't ask me to explain to you why.

Right, because I just make up random crap just to sell stuff. Look, I'm stuck with some Forte 3's at this point. I'd love to move them. I have also been lobbying for Klipsch to be able to provide an upgrade kit because I believe that Forte 3 owners should be able to get the better sound without having to buy Forte 4's. Literally, Klipsch, please make upgrade kits so I don't have to sell 4's to 3 owners. So there's that.

That being said, given the situation, I fully believe that Forte 3 users deserve an upgrade kit if at all possible. If the cabinet had changed, sure, make them buy the new version. But it hasn't. Woofer is the same. And the cabinet. and the radiator. and the mid horn. The biggest difference is the crossover and the compression driver on the mid horn. and yeah there's a new phase plug on the tweeter that's in question. Customers shouldn't have to return or sell their Forte 3's just to buy something that's almost the same thing. It's a significant financial burden on the customer and/or the dealer for no good reason, one that many aren't wiling to take on, yet they could be enjoying the same improved sound for a significantly lower price. Klipschorn upgrade kits are available and allowed. If those are, I don't understand why Forte 3 guys can't upgrade to the 4's.

The biggest problem with the Forte 3 is that the crossovers had somewhat of a budget cap. The new ones didn't have the same restrictions and have a more complex crossover. You can easily tell the difference. It's warmer, much more comfortable at higher volumes especially in an untreated room, and the upper bass actually has some slam / punch, as a good speaker should. The woofer and radiator and cabinet is actually the exact same thing but anybody who comes to the conclusion that it should sound the same has obviously neglected the crossover issue. The Forte 3's are plenty pleasant on a lot of material but the problem is that in a highly reflective room they can be very harsh at higher volumes plus the upper bass just isn't there. Forte 4's fix all of these shortcomings. Some material like mellow jazz piano, you may not notice a huge difference. Fire up some Tool at high volumes and it's a different story. It's not insignificant. It's not imperceptible. It's not small. Nobody who has heard both would say this.

Unfortunately that's bullshit. It's a huge difference. Biggest difference I could ever imagine on a new version of the same speaker. That's wny king bonehead was asking if you heard them side by side. It's not the same. Like at all. Imperceptible is delusional.

You haven't even mentioned a gain knob. The perfect integrated amp would have a separate gain knob for the amplifier but none exist that I am aware of. Sounds stupid but strap a HINT6 to some Klipschorns and you can hear the noise floor pretty obviously. If you get that same setup but in separates form you have a gain knob, yet it's almost the same thing, the preamp is literally identical.

We have more trouble with shipping these things than anything else. It's not just our carriers, we've had them damaged from Klipsch to us more than once. Just very fragile with literally zero internal stuffing of any kind. The box just collapses and that's that. Even if they don't stack stuff, other customers tend to try to ship tall items and don't strap them down or whatever so stuff tends to fall. Doesn't take much and you get a shattered 402 horn. All we can do is deal with the fallout afterwards. Either that or spend like $700 a shipment to rent an actual crate and pay for the extra weight. Unfortunately it's just one of those things where you have to risk it, there's no good answer.

Impromptu photoshoot with my videographer. I mean, Klipsch's videographer. I mean... we share him.

As a salesman I'm going to of course go along with the idea that the new ones make the old ones sound cheap but I mean, I'm in sales lol. The old ones are no slouch so I wouldn't be quick to be embarassed or whatever about only having those. Of course the low extension is obvious and expected but the old ones can still take your breath away in some scenarious, like literally, it feels funny to breathe if you're really spanking them. I did notice that the new ones sounded quite a bit bigger especially with certain instruments like snare drums. The new ones are the most realistic snare drums I have ever heard. So there's that. The blending is the biggest improvement in my opinion. The 402 effortlessly meshes up with the bass bin in a way that the old ones struggled to do. There are other differences but those are the biggest things I can notice.

sure

I thought it was super cool watching him just enjoy them. That room sounded surprisingly good, basically the entire room had foam acoustic panels all the way around plus was very large. That's not at Hope, that's at the Hotel Carmichael ballroom in Carmel Indiana during the national sales meeting last week.

regular edition. they won't even talk to us about the 75th at this point. I don't know what's going on but 35K for the regular walnut and black.

That entire 45 minute video was done based on a half page outline, I mostly just talked. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what else I could have included from a technical standpoint. Not sure what the confusion is on the bass bin either. It was one woofer that was ported, they realized they could fit another woofer and do so without the tuning changing, so they did. I'm pretty sure the ports are on the bottom if I remember correctly. I'm assuming it's the honeycomb design like the 1502/1802. Xmax? it's 5/8". it's a 19.6 hz horn. 3 db down point is 18 hz. Seriously like what else is there to wonder about. You have to remember that these events are like, well you pretty much better be a sponge or have a tape recorder or video rolling which was prohibited, or take hella good notes. Roy doesn't exactly give a lecture where everything is laid out either, you have to follow him around like a creep and hang on to any tidbids of information that he happens to release. That's the best I can do given the situation.

$35K. Universal pricing. I've seen 28, 30, 35, 38... both Vlad and my rep is saying 35 at this point.

they won’t say. It was supposedly designed from the ground up, they didn’t just grab one off the shelf. All I know is that both a Xilica and I think a nicer rack mount minidsp was given to the engineer at Klipsch and told that it has to at least be on par with these.

All you can do is flip the switch from balanced to unbalanced, and turn the gain knobs on the front. However there is nothing stopping somebody from also running the signal through a xilica if they so desire.

Roy.

sorry bro. I’m sure you could do much better. As for me, I’m tapped out, that’s the best I can do. If you guys are debating where the ports are, I’m pretty sure Roy specifically told us in the class that the ports are on the bottom so it can couple with the ground.

First jubilee video

That's not a good way to match up a system in my opinion. You could have a fairly low power amp with Klipsch speakers that will hit Reference yet have two 4,000 watt speakerpower amps and it could be perfectly balanced. You could also have a high powered multichannel amp and a single fairly weak amp on a 15" horn and it will scare the bejeezus out of you when the bass hits. Just kind of more to it than that.