PUTTING TOGETHER a home
theater system on a limited
budget can be a daunting task.
That’s why so many people
instead take the easy route
and buy a soundbar to handle
audio. Sure, a one- or two-box
(with subwoofer) solution is
simple to shop for and a snap
to hook up, but what about the
sound quality? With sound-
bars, the amplifiers, speakers,
and signal processing are all
designed to work together in
an integrated unit, so it’s oen
possible to squeeze surpris-
ingly big and powerful sound
out of the bar’s tiny drivers. But
even though soundbars have
improved significantly over
the years, you can’t escape the
fact that most are aempting to
deliver an enveloping experi-
ence from a single point in the
room. Processing and various
acoustic tricks are oen used
to steer the sound, and it’s that
trickery that imposes limitations
on basic sound quality. So,
while soundbars win hands-
down when it comes to conve-
nience, it’s been my experience
that a more conventional multi-
speaker system based around
an A/V receiver will always
provide superior performance.
To prove this claim, I decided
to seek out one the most afford-able full 5.1 surround speaker
packages I could find —this one
from Klipsch. Klipsch’s more
than 70 years of dedication to
horn-loaded driver technology
makes its speakers a perfect
choice for the type of system
I had in mind. The R-41M
bookshelf speakers ($199/pair)
that I selected for the front le/
right and surround channels
are prey tiny, but the Tractrix
horn tweeter they use makes
them relatively efficient and an
easy load for an amplifier—an
important consideration given
the modest surround receivers
that the speakers are likely to
be paired with in an entry-level
system.
Small speakers can be
voiced to deliver decent bass,
although doing so requires
tuning the crossover in a way
that makes them less sensi-
tive and thus harder to drive.
Designing a mini-monitor that’s
both efficient and offers good
bass seems to break the rules,
but Klipsch has pulled it off with
the R-41M. A ported design
with a rated 90-dB sensitivity
and 8-ohm impedance, the
R-41M can play plenty loud
without requiring much power,
and its specified 68-Hz bass
extension means you can just
about get away without using
a subwoofer. The key to the
R-41M’s sensitivity appears
to be its horn-loaded tweeter.
Klipsch’s R-52C center speaker
($249) also uses the same
tweeter, but it was designed to
a slightly different design brief,
with maximum efficiency as the
goal. The result is that, despite
having two larger woofers and
a much bigger sealed box, the
R-52C has notably more limited
bass extension and a full 5-dB
higher sensitivity than the
R-41M. At 95 dB, its sensitivity
is super-high for any speaker—
especially one so small—
meaning that the R-52C is able
to play seriously loud with just a
minimal amount of power.
When you think about it,
Klipsch’s design choices all
make good sense. A mini-Small Boxes,
Big Sound
By Michael Treitest report
KLIPSCH R-41M SPEAKER SYSTEM
(^56) [ April May 2019 [soundandvision.com