The mild wild one

100% dynamic and 0 coloration: The Palladium is the boldest project that Klipsch has had since 60 years.

Music needs dynamics and every once in a while has to be aggressive. The changes between laud and quite notes, the soft passages,  but also the overwhelming tones that shuts off all other senses awakens music to life. Without dynamic music would be as interesting as a handy ring tone.  We agree thus far. On the other hand there are different views to the question, how far can you make compromises to the other important Hi-Fi criteria in order to maximize dynamic.

6 loud decades

Klipsch has always taken a radical position in this discussion, wherein "always" means 60 years. This is how long the legendary Klipschorn (with a "H") the galleons figure in their model program and the epitome of their principles:  The company that Paul Klipsch in 1946 founded fittingly on an former artillery test area in Hope, Arkansas, should deliver dynamic, dynamic and more dynamic.

The Klipschorn is still being built and is still setting rock fans in ecstasy and shocking the sensible classic music lover. However from this day on the "órn" is getting support from an equivalently expensive 16000 euro highly modernized grandchild which is supposed to combine elementary force with an all rounder. His name: Palladium P-39F. A fleet of smaller models will follow but of course the honor goes to the flagship to prove in these tests that the US based company cannot only build dynamic speakers, they can at the same time meet all HiFi criteria and at world class level.

High technology horn

As in the 40´s and 50´s  developed Klipsch classics, the Palladium is being supported in the high and middle tones through horns. Horns you say, don't they colorize? Not if you construct them correctly. In the last years amazing things have happened. Unlike Paul Klipsch who had to develop and fine tune his first horn with intuition the developers of today can model in extremely efficient Finite element simulations. With these you can see how the magnetic fields react in the drivers, the heat dissipation over the "Basket" or how the smallest change of the geometry affects the frequency response of the throat without having to build a model chassis.

This work has lead to a completely new driver set:  three 22" bass, from which the topmost one adds to the mids. These drivers are made of an aluminum membrane backed with rohacell ridged foam which reduces vibration as well as reinforces. A total of 3 strategically placed Neodym magnets per chassis guarantee that the long moving coil follows a fully homogenous path even by maximum movement (a whopping 18 mm.) Comparatively the horns have to handle microscopic movements which exert a lot of power. The 4 inch cone of the Palladium middle tone is covered to 80% with an aluminum phase plug whose back builds a pressure chamber in connection with the front of the membrane. On this and the horn (named "Tractrix" after the geometrical form of its wall curvature) the developers researched and filed to get rid of the last of the feared "throat" resonance.  The high horn (with 25mm titan driver) takes over the tones from 3,5 kilohertz range with the same attention to detail. As you can see in the waterfall diagrams provided by the TESTfactory the Paladium is as clean "as a house after spring cleaning" in the high and middle tone area - this is a sensation for a horn construction.

After generations of Klipsch speakers with more or less a timbre which one has to get used to the Palladium in the listening room by Audio provided amazing astonishment. "Huh, which speaker is running now?" The Klipsch played so perfectly that even the colleague Malte Ruhnke who is known for is allergy against coloration had to search long in his CD collection to find a certain Baritone with a very minute flaw.

Power without regret

Even the old school Klipsch fans who say "Blaa how booring." will love these speakers. It is not their coloration which make them exciting, rather their unrestrained fantastic dynamic and the fact that they are so efficient they can be pushed by every amp this side of single ended triodes. When you can hear crescendo, modulation and fine passages where there were none before this means the speaker who plays them is better than the one where you did not hear them.

The first worthy challenger was found with the KEF Reference 207/2 which brought about heavy discussions but no clear winner. The British with their hyper real tonal space and clear transparence on one side and the Americans with clearly direct sibilance and deeper bass as well as compacter and not so authentical illustration on the other.

Indifferent to which you like more listen to both and be amazed!

Result

The dynamic of the Klipschorn (almost) and the music detail, without the "horn"  problems and they look much better. The Palladium is an electro acoustic tour-de-force, whose perfection I was not counting on.

 Many thanks to Randy in Germany for providing this translation of the original review, which appeared in Audio magazine. http://www.audio.de