Controversial question #207

[Tom Adams]

I think we all agree that Klipsch speakers (as well as other horn loaded speakers) are very revealing and accurate speakers. And, generally speaking, more so than the vast majority of direct radiating speakers. In fact, many of us here have noted that with Klipsch speakers, the sound of a poorly recorded or engineered CD (album?) is exacerbated. Whereas, once again - generally speaking, direct radiating speakers tend to be a bit more forgiving of poor recordings. So, the question is, is the accuracy and revealing nature of Klipsch speakers a good thing given the plethora of recorded music out there that's par at best?

Tom Adams

[Clint Phare]

"direct radiating speakers tend to be a bit more forgiving of poor recordings." Yea, the majority of mass marketed speakers tend to be just that. Just note that there are a great deal of direct radiating speakers that are as revealing- maybe even more so than Klipsch. This is something I often wondered about, do you go for a dead acurate speaker( ie- Klipsch ) or very musical speaker ( may I suggest Dynaudio? ) I think it also matters if your using them for home theatre or two channel listening.

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Just who is Dylan's Jokerman anyways?

[t-man]

Tom,

I believe that the amp plays just as important a role here. Many amps have a certain "color" to them that make them more forgiving at the expense of accuracy. Others, like my Denon, are very transparent. Most everything sounded the same with my old Sony/Klipsch combo, and now it's like rolling the dice each time a put a new CD in.

T-man

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KG 5.5 (mains)

KG 2.2v (center)

KLF-C7 (center in storage)

KG 1 (rears)

KSW-12 (sub)

Denon AVR 681/1601

Toshiba SD-3109 DVD

Kenwood LVD700 LD

Sony CD changer

Sony 27" Trinitron

Sony PLX I

[WMcD]

Being philosophical:

It is like looking at a great, or not so great, work of art with and without wearing glasses.

It is what it is and taking off the glasses doesn't make better.

Gil

[cc1091]

While I agree that Klipsch speakers are revealing, I do not always agree that on Klipsch speakers "..the sound of a poorly recorded or engineered CD (album?) is exacerbated." I have found that the sound of a poorly recorded album sounds as good as it is going to get on good quality speakers. While your statement seems true when I listen to a poorly recorded album on a system with very run of the mill direct radiating speakers (Realistic Pro-7s in this case), I simply need to listen to the same recording on my B&W 602 speakers (also direct radiating) to see that the recording is junk. My Klipsch Heresys and Rp-3s also reveal that it is a junk recording, but here I can make it sound as musical as it can be by adding an EQ into the system.

By contrast, my audition of a pair of B&W Nautilus 802s connected to a pair of Krell Mono blocks with $10,000 speaker wire revealed that even those recordings that I thought were good on my home system were actually junk too (the store had some CD's that proved to me that it wasn't the system that sounded bad..nor was it my wax filled ears causing the problems <hehe> ). On this system only the great CD's would ever sound good (oddly though, I didn't find that I was as surrounded by live sound like I am with Klipsch speakers..the sound only existed in a plane that was somewhere in front of me).

For my money, a pair of speakers needs to be forgiving of bad recordings, yet show the sparkle of good and great recordings alike. I'll live without the $80,000+ stereo system, as long as I can have my Klipsch speakers to show the way with all types of music sources.