Klipsch Palladium P-39F?

Very interesting speaker, not sure thant nobody is interested, however the issue is that klipsch is way out of their element with these, fit, finish, etc.. This is new ground of price bracket and hi end status to crack in their case. A 15 k pair of speakers unfortunatley needs to come with more than just great specs and overall sound.. I can tell you these are probably pretty amazing up to about 10,000 class, but 15 is pushing it..

Now if they had way better finish on the cabinets, and a Far more realistic components used in the crossovers vs. the bennic OEM type pieces they seem to be using they would have something that would maybe make more of the big horn guys jump on them..

But in this price range you are talking competition from Avantgarde with mundorf crossovers, and several other nose bleed horns that are 99 to 110 db efficient. At 8,000 a pair I could see these being a real deal, but that would put them in direct price line competition with their former flagship for 50 years the K-Horns...

I will say I bet these models would fair much better for a larger variety of music tastes, and be far easier to get dialed in for most rooms over K-horns however due to the more conventional design, and bass output from these I am sure will walk all over anything klipsch has produced for the most part.

I would however if seriously considering these, minus the good design on the "boat shaped" low standing wave and resonance enclousure on these pretty much say I could take a pair of the RF 83's put some killer outboard crossovers and for about 2500 to 3000 street price have 95% of the performance of the palladiums. I am not sure how much of the performance accounted for of the palladium is in fact the cabinet however.

One thing I would be cautious about although they seem to claim 8 ohm nominal impedance on like every speaker they ever produced, these have 3 woofers which seems that would definately make this a little tougher load on some amps dipping pretty low, like 3 ohm or even 2 ohm at some frequencys, unless by some miracle they produced a 12 ohm or 16 ohm driver(very doubtful).

These are not meant to compete with other horns, they have a model in each bracket to compete with B&W's 800 series.

I agree that they are not geared toward the horn crowd and more in line with what B&W and some of the other heavy hitters have out. I think Klipsch is a good mid/low end brand and you get a lot for your money (compared to other stuff at Best Buy, Crutchield, etc). But I think they are in over their heads. In their price range they have to compete with Wilson Audio Sophia, B&W 802, Thiel 3.7, Focal Alto, and the list goes on and on.

But who knows maybe they will be very good. I like the looks and I like American companies to do well in general. I am looking forward to a full review.

From what I have read when they designed the cabinets/drivers they used computer modeling (rather than building lots and lots of test speakers) which I think is a good place to start (I should note I am an engineer by trade.... so I am bias). I think the cabinets look well designed but again there are many good designs on the market.

I have no idea why somebody thinks klipsch is not gunning to be "Horns".. Okay I will play along, bottom line is that most speakers in that price range of "Horns" or conventional speakers make no difference accept yes, klipsch has entered a world of criticism and new level of speakers- being foreign, custom, fancy, or just BIG names in super hi cost audio, the klipsch do seem slightly out of place regardless what their marketing approach is.

By the way mostly these Palladiums will probably sell 10 pairs in the U.S. and like 90 pairs overseas, I am sure the Asian and maybe european market is much stronger and thats why they did it, and those are teh markets and speakers they are actually competing with... Not Joe blow walking down the street thru the 100 Audio video stores that carry B&W speakers.

"I have no idea why somebody thinks klipsch is not gunning to be "Horns".. Okay I will play along,"

Go to the Klipsch forum and read about the blind test they did against the B&W 802D. This is the market that they are going for.

"But I think they are in over their heads. In their price range they have to compete with Wilson Audio Sophia, B&W 802, Thiel 3.7, Focal Alto, and the list goes on and on."

Why does everybody doubt that Klipsch can compete in this price range but a company like Eggleston or some other startup is accepted? I'll take a Lexus over a Mercedes any day and prople use to look down on Toyotas. Remember that Wilson owners dismiss B&W's as mass produced "midgrade" speakers.

For the record, my user name was from my previous ownership of Khorns in tigerwood and I now own B&W Signature 800's, so I am not just a loyal Klipsch follower.

Klipsch is doing this to sell a few pairs of the Palladiums and get a "halo effect" on the rest of their products. They are also only selling them in higher end shops (not Best Buy).

I wish them well and they certainly have the financing and R&D to build a speaker in this range. If they can build a speaker that equals the B&W 802's and requires a 100 to 200 wpc amp instead of 500wpc I'd say that they pulled off a major success.