Klipsch Palladium P-39F?

The palladium is most definitely now a product designed simply to see how far they can push the hifi money spenders with their brand, its not a ground breaking speaker or design, as a matter of fact the only real advancment for klipsch personally(but already done by many others) is the cabinet design taking into account the shape and pushing it as far as possible to eliminate the basic acoustic issues with your run of the mill rectangle design.

They are now well over double what they should cost, at 15 k you figure street could get you a pair for 11,500 to 12,500. Used I would be shocked to see much more than 7500 bucks made back on them.. However in the U.S. you will likely see very few pairs used if any because nobody is going to pay that retail price or near it for these. Whatever, I mean they have the money to experiment and toy around with the industry to see what they can pull off and thats exactly why they decided to try this. And don't worry as with all klipsch product you will see these in 18 to 24 months getting blown out on dealers floors for very low street prices probably when they don't sell..

This past weekend I had a chance to listen to the P-38F in comparison to thiel 3.7, focal altos, wilson sophia among other lesser speakers. Bottom line is that the P-38f blew away all of these speakers, utterly and completely. I can still not believe the realism that came from these speakers-- sax, trumpet, trombone, bass were absolutely real and I've played in real bands and orchestras all my life. The sound stage was huge but what was more impressive was the size of the sweetspot, IMMENSE. At one point, I stepped to the left of the left most speaker's forward plane and I could still see the image albeit smeared, but it was still there. Further, the image is very stable at extremely low volume or really cranked up. There is a ton of impressive engineering in these speakers. If you want realism and great staging, you really do owe it to yourself to listen to these speakers.
I have to say, I've not been a huge fan of Klipsch speakers but the palladium line has really changed my opinion of what this company can do, so much so that I'll be buying these things though probably the smaller p37 or perhaps even the p17. I was extremely impressed by these speakers!

I am not suprised that they sounded better than the Wilsons or the Thiel. I think it is funny that people think a company the size of Klipsch does not have the resources to compete with niche brands like Wilson or Thiel. Wilson purchases their drivers from Focal, do you not think Klipsch could purchase quality drivers? (I know Klipsch makes there own) Could they not hire quality engineers? Stupid. Bose could make speakers that compete with the Watt Puppy if they so desired, it is simply not their business plan. I also think it is funny how many people claim that horns are colored when referring to Klipsch but not Avantgarde or Magico. I would bet that the fact that Klipsch makes so much money on their low end products would afford them the luxury of making a truly high end product with much less profit margin than a Wilson or Thiel.

I am not surprised that they sounded better than the Wilsons or the Thiel. I think it is funny that people think a company the size of Klipsch does not have the resources to compete with niche brands like Wilson or Thiel. Wilson purchases their drivers from Focal, do you not think Klipsch could purchase quality drivers? (I know Klipsch makes there own) Could they not hire quality engineers? Stupid. Bose could make speakers that compete with the Watt Puppy if they so desired, it is simply not their business plan. I also think it is funny how many people claim that horns are colored when referring to Klipsch but not Avantgarde or Magico. I would bet that the fact that Klipsch makes so much money on their low end products would afford them the luxury of making a truly high end product with much less profit margin than a Wilson or Thiel.

Ha, I can take any Klipsch speaker and essentially make it sound better than "Thiel or Wilson"… However Stock form some klipsch are just horribly imbalanced. Focal drivers are OK, but never found them much better than most decent paper drivers for far less money, maybe some of the exotic tweeters and or really huge subwoofers they make. Anyway Klipsch does make some killer drivers far better than many of the "Exotic" companies, most of their reference series woofers are far better, far more efficient, and reasonably priced over many of the big brand names. They are just that much more efficient, and their woofers play some true wide frequencies down low with ease, you would find it incredibly difficult to overdrive a klipsch speaker without some really crappy or really ridiculous power. I have scrapped and bottomed out just about all exotic drivers from Focal, and dynaudio, several others, but mostly based on not the greatest crossovers and points used.

Its simple, for the most part klipsch especially in some of the lines over the years produced subpar cabinets, cheap wire, and really CHEAP crossover components. You can take a pair of klipsch, Raspy horns and all, put a 300 to 1000 dollar worth of real crossover parts on it and easily make some 15,000 to 50,000 dollar pairs of standard dynamic drive speakers sound mediocre in comparison, Trust me I have heard it many times in many different iterations of the idea! Anyway Klipsch has improved a LOT in the Palladium cabinets, that’s most of the difference, as they always made great drivers, however they also went up from 5 dollar computer crossovers to at least 50 dollar Bennic crossovers, Yes they are bennic crossovers and still WAY cheap and semi-crappy OEM parts even in the 20,000 dollar Palladiums.

They should have at least stepped up to the Mundorf and or Clarity cap levels of parts for these speakers, because the palladiums although far better than many still barely broke above the "Skimp" level on crossovers, and crossovers in this case and most speakers are 90% of the design and final sound you get.. Cabinets about 7% and drivers about 3%. That’s my argument, the palladiums are nice no doubt, but for about 8000 to 10,000 per pair MAYBE on the big ones... Not 20,000. The drivers in the pair are worth about 600 to 1000 bucks, the cabinets are probably about 2500.00 and the crossovers if lucky have about 100 bucks in them. Again this is true in many or most speakers, so that’s just the industry as a whole and the greed especially with the highest markups in electronics are on cables and speakers, cables being the worst when they cost 15 bucks to make and sell to you for 600 to 1000 a pair. But again who can blame them when their 20 k speaker that cost them 3000 to make can beat out a 30 k pair that cost a designer 5000 to make, they are simply creating in that market. Good for them if they actually sell any! It might be tuff however as the name in this game is a stigma much like Bose.