Klipschorn, an audio nirvana

When one listens to music as a consuming hobby then, sooner or later, one comes to search for the audio equipment that brings music to life to the best of his auditive apparatus knowledge. My search started a good decade ago and since I had the chance to run over and to listen to some exquisite music machines. The last great encounter happened last week, when I had the chance to audition the famed design of Paul Klipsch, the Klipschorns and Belle. And what a setup that was as their owner, Kerry, had not two but four Klipschorns serving as fronts and backs and Belle, serving a center channel. A huge surround setup, will you agree, and a even huger satisfaction source for my thirsty musical brain.

For a guy with such great taste in speakers you would expect a great musical program and that's exactly what we got. We listened to Tchaikovsky's Marche Slave with the Kiev Philharmonic, to Dave Brubeck Quartet and its Take Five, to concert performances from Cream and Nirvana. First thing first. The Klipschorns provide an unique musical experience. Their effortless rendition of every instrumental nuance on a huge and precise sonorous soundstage is the first thing that strikes you. No meter how big the Kiev orchestra got the speakers just poured the music into the room. Hearing them was like seeing Pavarotti sing. They conveyed every nuance of the very rhythmic piece with tight and generous dynamics. That was the second thing that struck me and it adds to the sense of ease these big speakers breathe. I heard the air in between the instruments, I heard every instrument alive and natural with every nuance the soloists gave them making everything a very emotionally involving experience.

With Dave Brubeck enormously famous Take five the speakers showed another one of their multiple beautiful virtues. The sax was enveloping. I never heard this instrument like that from a speaker. The reproduction was so complete that you actually could hear all the microscopic inflections put in the instrument. You could feel the soul of the man coming out through his instrument. Again an experience so involving and so wonderfully close to what listening to music should be.

From the rest I will only mention the Cream dvd. We listened to the impressive drums solo of Ginger Baker. It was yet another big discovery and jaw-dropping Klipschorn performance. Every drum was perfectly defined, in timber and amplitude. No matter how many beats per second Baker managed to pull off the Klipschs just enetered the soul of the artist and the bone marrow of the instrument and created everything with amazing detail and dynamics. It was a very impressive display of power and utmost control of low frequencies amidst the other qualities displayed already.

All in all a huge musical and audiophile experience. I still thank Kerry in my mind a week later for the great occasion he offered us. The Klipschorns are everything you read about and a lot more. Is getting to the core of the music and to the soul of the artists what makes listening to music through these speakers an experience apart. I sure hope next time I'm in Houston I will get the chance of another meeting with the outstanding design of Paul Klipsch.