Opinions are like ...... everybody has one. BUT some opinions may carry more weight than others. Mine is based on 35 yrs as an audiophile and 30 yrs experience in retail, wholesale, design and manufacturing of speaker systems. I have been familiar with the Klipschorns since 1968 when I
sold them at The Hi Fi House in SoCal.
They were and still are very impressive when certain aspects of their performance are considered. The ability to play loud and clean with very little power input goes without saying. I still remember literally becoming nauseas
due to the incredible amount of bass power in the room when demoing them at about 110 db. Macro-dynamics are outstanding-the jump factor is high. The horns have a presence and liveness that appeal to many.
Having said the above, I must now state that in many important ways the Klipschorns do not compare well with good designs of then and especially now. First we must address the fact that horns have an intrinsic coloration
which imprints itself on all music. It effects some things more negatively than others but it is always there.It simply lends an unnatural cast to the reproduction of music.
Then there is the natural aggressiveness of the horns in this design. They can and do cause listener fatigue. More rapidly for some than others. Also, in spite of their clarity and dynamics they gloss over most of the inner detail, the micro-dynamics that give that bloom and glow, the inner beauty of real music.
The Khorns are capable of moving lots of air at the bottom but do not have a lot of output below 30hz. If memory serves me the woofer is crossed to the mid at around 200hz which means that all that crucial lower midrange has to travel those many feet through the folded horn before it gets into the room. This is audible as a slightly hollow or
echoey sound in this area.
If you have ever seen a frequency response graph of the Khorns you will have noticed its resemblance to a picture of the rocky mountains. About + or - 10db. One of the most important aspects of speaker designs that sound musical is a uniform in room rsponse curve, in the + or - 3db or better range.
As to the questions of imaging and transparancy, when set up properly they can give a semblance of an image but nothing much compared to the best in class. They don't pinpoint all that well and don't give cushions of air or soundstage volume of air very well. Many people mistake the presence and clarity of the Khorns for transparency but the fact is they are really not transparent at all.
Well there is plenty more but this is turning into a trestise. So, in my not at all humble opinion, the khorns do some things very well indeed but in most ways simply don't compare with more modern and much more musically refined designs. In fact, I will go so far as to say that virtually any current well engineered speaker is a more musically accurate, if perhaps less visceral, reproducer of sound.
