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Klipsch Palladium P-39F Floor-standing Speakers A Secrets Speaker Review |
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| Written by John E. Johnson, Jr. | |
| Monday, 25 August 2008 | |
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Introduction to the P-39F Like McIntosh, the Klipsch name goes back as far as I can remember. In those early days, it was the Klipschorn, which was a speaker that looked like a bookcase as much as it did a speaker. It was the most massive speaker I had ever seen. I experienced many a demo on those speakers, and the sound filled the room, but I didn't really understand why. Specifications
It turns out that it was all in the name. Paul Klipsch had designed these speakers around a "horn" concept, sort of like a megaphone. The driver was at the back of the horn, and because the horn magnified the sound - focused it in a sense - very little power was needed to drive it. In fact, only a few watts would do the trick. While today's speakers have a sensitivity of 87 dB/W/M, the Klipschorns were (are) more on the order of 105 dB/W/M. So, to put that in perspective, if you were using a 200 watt amplifier to drive a pair of 87 dB sensitivity speakers, it would only take 3 watts to drive the Klipschorns to the same volume. The P-39Fs have a sensitivity of 99 dB at 2.83V/Meter and are rated at nominal 4 Ohms impedance.
That was half a century ago, and although the Klipschorns are still manufactured, Klipsch has moved on to many other products, including the new Palladium P-39F floor-standers that are the subject of this review.
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