Speaker Asylum: REVIEW: Klipsch RF3 Speakers by Rob Binetti

First, I would like to state that I was able to purchase these speakers for only $550.00/pr, so please don't expect me to compair these speakers to B&W Nauts 801s.

I been looking around for over 2 months for speakers to use in a HT setup. I specifically was looking for speakers that were agressive and true to the sound on the DVD. Since the front mains need to be musically sound (most of the soundtrack for movies come through the front mains) I wanted these speakers to have an ability to achieve a high degree of seperation and have a wide and enveloping soundstage. Needless to say the Klipsch RF3s provide all this and more. Yep, more. I have to say, the engineers from Hope provided a sound and wonderful product.

OK first the stats of the speaker. This speaker is a 2-way speaker with a rediculius sensitivity of 98@ 1W/meter. So yes, these speakers get really loud with very little power, but the loudness doesn't come with the normal "hot" 5k Frequency responce spike that horns usually display, this realm in freq is very flat with the rest of the bandwith of the speaker. This usually is what causes the fateguing aspect of high sensitivity speakers. The stated bandwith of the speakers is 37Hz-20KHz +/- 3dB, which is generated by 1 titanium dome, magnetically shielded compression driver with a 90°x 60° Tractrix Horn and 2 8 inch aluminum cone, magnetically shielded woofers. I found the base responce to be tight and agressive enough to keep up with the horn loaded tweet. I dont know how they did it but they did. The tail off of base responce started to occur at around 50Hz. The crossover freq was set at 1975Hz and the speakers can handle 225W of continious power (600W/peak), not that you would feed such power to highly sensitive speakers like these unless you were planing on entertaining you friends across town, or make it sound like your neighborhood is under attack when you play the Omaha Beach track from Saving Private Ryan.

I found these speakers to be more then I can ask for for under $600.00 for the pair. I like them so much and find the sound to be of high quality I actually went out and bought a CD player to incorporate into the HT room, just in case I wished to listen to some agressive revealing music. The soundstage was wide and emersive with each kick drum ringing out quickly and each cymbol hit clear and crisp. Softer sounding french horns were not lost in the agressive sound stage and spoke its mournfull tunes with percision and clarity. In HT the only thing I can say is Wow. I felt as if I was in the heart of a theater with the Soundfield percice and moving. This is a very quick speaker and will leave you wanting to watch all your favorite DVD in one sitting.

Ther is Hope from Hope! If you are looking for a superior product and dont want to spend a boat load of money on a home theater system, Klipsch reference series is a fine choice.

REVIEW: Klipsch RF3 Speakers Review by Rob Binetti at Audio Asylum