Klipsch Taking Things to New Levels at 80 Years Old - Active + Dirac = No Brainers at the Price

Added: 2026-06-05

[00:00:00]in Hope Arkansas. Same year, all the way on the other side of the world, Takeshi Godai founded Klipsch in 1946 in Osaka, Japan.

[00:00:09]Most people believe that Paul W. Klipsch was born building speakers. Actually, the first audio product he ever made was a headphone. And he didn't build this in 1946 when he started Klipsch. It was built in 1919 when he was in high school.

[00:00:24]Um and the uh Along with some of the things you're going to see here today are the inspiration for the 80th anniversary products that we're debuting here today. And we are also a little bit of a nod to exactly what you see from the acoustic design.

[00:00:35]Now, you're probably looking at this and maybe recognize this headphone a little bit or pieces of it. Uh the headphone was originally a telegram headphone that he tweaked to become an audio headphone.

[00:00:44]And if that cord looks like a lampshade uh uh power cord, it is in fact. He literally ripped a power cord off a lampshade, tweaked it. So, you're seeing one of the first uh products that PWK ever built back in high school. And then the toilet paper roll does actually have significance. That's not just randomly placed there. Uh he actually used that toilet paper roll, put it against the headset, and noticed that horn actually made a bit of amplified sound, and that's what inspired him to then build a horn-loaded design speaker. So, from inception to 80 years later, you hear part of our journey.

[00:01:15]Cool. Moving on over here. Um so, you were going to see and again, all this information is in the press kit.

[00:01:21]You guys are going to hear for the first time ever Personally, I haven't even seen or heard this until today. So, you are part of the ground floor on this. The all-new Rebellion. Uh this is modeled after the Model H uh Klipsch product that PWK designed.

[00:01:36]Um this was originally inspired to be a center channel for our Heritage products, Cornwall, La Scala, Khorn, and so on.

[00:01:43]Um we took that design and inspiration and then developed our Rebellion bookshelf speaker. So, you're going to hear it for the first time Most of us here at Klipsch are actually hearing these products for the first time today. So, we're really glad that you're here. of the family.

[00:01:57]And then um we're going to pass this a little bit so we can keep on with the tour. Uh the K-5 horn. So, this was designed in 1940s and 50s.

[00:02:06]Again, another original Paul W. Klipsch design.

[00:02:08]Uh this was in production for about a decade or so and we brought it back as an exposed horn for our limited edition 80th anniversary Klipschorn. Uh this is going to be done as you'll see in a cast aluminum design, fully exposed horn um in a stunning new tiger wood finish to it. So, I believe it's 260 pairs globally.

[00:02:30]I'm looking like Do you agree with me?

[00:02:31]Perfect. 260 pairs globally, somewhere in that ballpark. Um so, super limited edition.

[00:02:35]Um we'll do demos on that in a minute.

[00:02:38]Now, let's go to the other side of the pond and talk about Onkyo.

[00:02:42]Everyone wave hi to Akihisa-san.

[00:02:45]So, Alex our um head product developer over with Onkyo in our Osaka office.

[00:02:50]>> Hello.

[00:02:51]>> what you see here today, this person takes all the credit. I'm just giving the tour. I'm the marketing guy. I don't do all this fancy stuff.

[00:02:57]So, um back in 19 >> [clears throat] >> 87.

[00:03:01]>> Yeah, 1987. Uh the Liverpool edition uh D-2 bookshelf speakers. Um beautiful uh champagne metal with a Bordeaux walnut finish. We wanted to take that and create as we debuted it at CES, [music] the creator series limited edition um bookshelf speakers. So, totally powered Onkyo built inside. Uh HDMI input as well so you can use it as incredible versatility, lot of options.

[00:03:27]Um comes in in that champagne metal and Bordeaux walnut finish.

[00:03:32]And then on this side, we have the Onkyo Integra M-588. Again, same finish. We have the champagne finish with the Bordeaux walnut.

[00:03:41]Uh if you were at CES this year, you got a first look at this thing. So, this is the new Muse series integrated network amplifier. Um again, just bringing that Bordeaux walnut, that champagne finish.

[00:03:52]I like these things cuz it cheers to 80 years if you want.

[00:03:55]>> [music] >> That's the idea. Bordeaux and champagne precisely. And you guys are going to get a demo of this when you do the Rebellion speakers.

[00:04:03]>> [singing] >> Yeah.

[00:04:04]Awesome.

[00:04:05]All right. With that, also big shout out to Amalie.

[00:04:08]This whole event, everything putting on.

[00:04:11]Thank you very much.

[00:04:13]>> [applause] >> And to all you guys who traveled here, I know this is not easy. You guys went to Davos, we're going to Munich before this. So, thank you for taking the time that you got to have to get here to Vienna and see us. So, I think that's where we'll go to demos and we're going to start with Mr. Derek Everson.

[00:04:54]>> All right.

[00:04:59]Thanks everybody for coming. Good to see so many of you guys again.

[00:05:09]Uh great. So, thank you guys again. So, we debuted these at the past CES and now hitting the market now.

[00:05:15]So, I'll give you guys a brief explanation of the product and then we'll do some demonstration.

[00:05:20]So, these are the new fives, sevens, and nines by Klipsch. One of the key advantages of product is we leveraged our Onkyo ownership and Klipsch ownership and have Onkyo provide all the electronics and processing inside the Klipsch speakers. So, that collaboration has allowed us to have really good feature set that we're very proud to discuss. Some of those features include Dolby Atmos processing throughout the entire line. It's not very common on a powerful bookshelf application.

[00:05:48]The top two models here feature direct room calibration. I'll get into those details in a moment. And then the top model here also features DTS processing.

[00:05:58]From an AVR perspective, that's basic stuff, but it's not very common in a power speaker application.

[00:06:05]Some of the acoustic changes we made here over the year really have to do with the front baffle of the speakers themselves. So this is a second generation series, and the first generation we had a two-piece baffle kind of split right between the mid-bass and the tweeter, and that, you know, anything that moves on the front baffle creates a resonance that colors the sound. So what Andrew and team have done is had a single-piece BMC baffle with an integrated Tractrix horn to really reduce that resonance on the front panel to really help give you better clarity and detail. And to that end, we also added a curved radius on the front horn to reduce diffraction, right? So less smearing on the edges, cleaner, open sound.

[00:06:51]So as far as an application, I mentioned these are all powered. From a fives perspective, all the electronics are in one speaker, and it uses a speaker wire to go left to right. As we step up in the line, both the sevens and nines have all integrated connections as far as amplification goes, and they each plug into power. You can go wireless left to right, or you can use an Ethernet connection to go left to right as well.

[00:07:19]You do increase performance using Ethernet over wireless. You go from a 48 kHz to a 96 kHz connection left to right.

[00:07:28]So we're going to start out with the first demonstration on the fives.

[00:07:32]So the intent of this demonstration is to showcase the output and the just the size of the sound stage you can get from a modest size bookshelf speaker.

[00:07:52]>> [music] [music] [singing and music] [singing and music] [music and singing] [music and singing] [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] [singing] [music] [singing and music] [singing] >> Pretty impressive, right? To get a large output from a small speaker, it's important to remember you know, powered monitors have a lot of advantages over a traditional passive and amplifier setup.

[00:09:16]And one of the big things is there's no crossover. Right, the amplifier is directly coupled to the driver. And not only that, you have the same engineering team, us being on our Onkyo side and then Klipsch side for the passive components, that they know exactly all the variables. So, they know the processing stack, they know the output, the amplification, the cubic volume of the cabinet, so can really push those drivers to the brink of distortion and if it distorts then we can modify that DSP curve to pull it back when necessary.

[00:09:46]So, you can really extend your performance and get it out of a much smaller form factor.

[00:09:54]So, the next demonstration I'm going to do is I'm going to move up to the sevens.

[00:09:59]So, the sevens obviously increase the size of the driver themselves and the size of the cabinet, so you get a larger output and more detail. The first song I'm going to focus on is on detail. So, it's an acoustic cut and a male vocal.

[00:10:13]So, this really shows off the front baffle and pulling out all the detail out of the track.

[00:10:22]My house road.

[00:10:27]>> [snorts] [music] >> Early [singing] in the morning when the sun [music] does rise.

[00:10:47]Laying in [singing] the bed with [music] bloodshot eyes.

[00:10:53]Late in [singing] the evening when the sun sinks low. [music] That's about the time my [singing and music] rooster crows.

[00:11:04]I got [singing] women up and down [music] this creek.

[00:11:10]And keep me [singing and music] going and my engine clean.

[00:11:16]Run me ragged but I don't [singing and music] fret.

[00:11:21]Cuz there ain't [singing] been one slow me down none yet.

[00:11:27]Get me [singing] drinking that moonshine. Get me higher than the grocery bill.

[00:11:33]>> [singing and music] >> Take my troubles to the highway. Throw me in the river and get [singing] your fill. We've been [music] sniffing that cocaine. Ain't nothing better when the wind [singing] cuts cold. Lord, it's a [music] mighty hard living, but a damn good [singing] feeling to run these roads. [music] >> Here you go.

[00:11:57]>> Now, another thing to hit on is its connectivity. So, it has, you know, a simple Bluetooth connection. It has Wi-Fi streaming services, all the ones you'd expect. So, Tidal Connect, Roon Connect, Chromecast, AirPlay, Spotify Connect. So, you can very easily put your favorite source to the speaker itself. The next track I'm going to play is going to stay on the sevens. It's going to have a little bit more output to it, so you can get an idea of how much power the speakers can produce.

[00:12:25]>> The day has come. The time is gone. What do you feel for me?

[00:12:32]>> [music] >> I want [singing] to know what will we do.

[00:12:39]What is it going to be?

[00:12:41]>> [music] >> I'm tired of chasing >> [singing] >> make-believe.

[00:12:48]This is no [music] fantasy.

[00:12:53]You [music] can't pretend this is the end of a fantasy. [singing] >> [music] >> It is love The something between us And you can't >> [singing and music] >> I know that you feel And you can't deny Take all of me.