Despite their rather large size they only handle 50 Watts, but that was all you needed in the '60’s.
However if big ass speakers is what you want - and I do - the Beolab 5’s that can churn out 2500Watts EACH would maybe fit the bill, if not the pocket.
They self calibrate to the room with a small microphone that emerges near the base and retracts when done.
Nitpick, but the Heresy is a three-way system using a direct radiating 12” woofer, and standard horn loaded midrange and tweeter, no folded horns at all.
They were the smallest of the Klipsch line for years, and “only” weigh 40 pounds or so each.
The folded horns are used in the larger Klipsch models, the Klipschorns, which must sit in the corners of the room, as the walls of the room become part of the last leg of the folded horn loading the 15” base driver, and the La Scala, which used pretty much the same drivers as the Klipschorns, but shortened the base horn slightly so it fits in the box so that it can be used in any room placement and not just in corners. This came at the expense of a slight drop in bass response and efficiency.
I have a pair of Heresys I bought about thirty years ago, and they still hold up fairly well. I also have a brother and two good friends who have (or had) Klipschorns. Unfortunately, I never the space and the money for them at the same time. You have never lived unless at least once you’ve heard something like the 1812 Overture played on good equipment through a set of Klipschorns. Almost 40 years of being involved in amateur stereo equipment and I’ve never heard anything like them.
I’m still running the Kenwood’s I bought in college. Although most of my listening is in the truck or through the computer, there are times when I have to feel the music.
I prefer big speakers. Small earphones/earbuds cause me physical pain, and I have to wear the big cushiony kind when I have my iPod on. I feel like a dork in public like that, when everyone is prancing around with their little invisible earbuds.
The golden days were about 15 years ago, when I had a set of Bose 901s on channel A and a pair of Cerwin Vega! D7E studio monitors on channel B. Those CVs could decalcify your spinal column and curdle milk. It took two people to move one. Nowadays, my downstairs stereo is powered by a Denon amp, the front speakers are NHT V-1.2 towers (this is sorta what they look like), the rear speakers are an old pair of wood cabinet Klipsch, the center is another NHT and the subwoofer is made by Pioneer. Upstairs, the speakers for the TV are all B&W bookshelve sized. Sadly, we play most of our music with an iPod through a docking station that has built-in tiny speakers.
My couch is falling apart, my bedspread is threadbare, and my carpet needs replacing pronto, but if you think I’m selling my B&W’s to pay for those trivialities you’re mistaken.
I have two waist-high Yamaha towers. I don’t crank them very often but I do on occasion. I’m not an audio buff or anything, if I were I’d proably know the model # off the top of my head, and instead I’m way too lazy to look it up.
Woohooo!! Another proud Tannoy owner, here. Mine are circa 1998 Mercury M3’s, about 3.5 foot high. Coupled to a Rotel integrated amp and CD player, they sound fabulous to this day.
I’ve looked at surround systems, and they’re all nice for your space wars on DVD and what have you, but when it comes down to playing a Pink Floyd CD, all these 5.1-whatever systems end up lacking. Yeah, I did like the Tannoy Arena setup, but it’s something like EUR 3,000 or thereabouts. No thanks.
So, my 42" plasma screen is hooked up to the ol’ Rotel amp and Tannoy speakers, and if we want a bit of oomph for the movies, we fire the lot up and enjoy. And when it comes to playing plain ol’ CD’s, the Rotel/Tannoy combo I bought a decade ago for roughly EUR 1,250 ($1,700 or so) still beats the crap out of any of the surround sets you get today. Surround just isn’t for music, and I don’t want dual systems in my living, so nu surround for me right now.
Sure, you can get better than my combo, the sky’s the limit. But for the money I spent, and the enjoyment it’s given me, I can certainly recommend both Rotel and Tannoy for lovers of pure, untampered sound (not warm, not filtered, a crappily produced CD will sound crap, etc.).
