Skip to main content

Klipsch reference speakers make home theaters look as good as they sound

Somewhere between the convenience and simplicity of soundbars, and the all-encompassing sound of a full-fledged Dolby Atmos system, there is a perfect middle ground — Klipsch thinks it has found it. The company’s solution: Package up its famous Klipsch reference speakers sound quality in a 5.1 package, and make the subwoofer wireless so that it can be placed (and replaced) almost anywhere. It’s called the Klipsch Reference Theater Pack and you can pre-order it online for $999.

The brushed-black finish of the speakers is guaranteed to make them disappear into any home theater environment, that is unless you choose to remove the fabric grilles. Doing so exposes their spun copper 3.5-inch woofers — creating an eye-catching hit of metallic color — and their horn-loaded tweeters, a feature which Klipsch claims is unique in the pre-packaged home theater category.

Recommended Videos

“This is the easiest way to get award-winning, powerful Klipsch reference home theater sound,” Kerry Geist, product manager at Klipsch Group, said in a statement. “It’s the complete system in one compact package ­– just add an AV receiver.”

Klipsch put some effort into giving consumers placement options with the Reference Theater Pack: The satellite speakers can sit on a surface, be mounted to wall or stand, using either the rear keyholes or the threaded insert. That placement versatility gets even better with the subwoofer, which gets it signal wirelessly via the included 2.4 GHz transmitter. Of course, it still needs its own power outlet; rated at 150 watts with an 8-inch down-firing driver and port, it ought to fill a living room with sofa-rumbling low end easily. Interestingly, Klipsch either assumes you have a free USB port on your home theater receiver, or that you have a place to plug in a USB power adapter, as it’s powered by a micro USB cable. On the other hand, if you know exactly where the sub will go, and running a standard coax cable isn’t a deal-breaker, the sub still has the usual line-in ports on its backside, along with manual gain and low pass dials.

There are still going to be folks who can’t resist the mind-bending sonic performance of 480 pounds of Klipsch gear, but it’s nice to know you can get the same level of quality, for $4,500 less, should you choose to put your money elsewhere.

Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen is a contributing editor to Digital Trends' Audio/Video section, where he obsesses over the latest wireless…
Klipsch brings retro hi-fi vibes to its new desktop speakers
Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 speaker system seen next to a desktop computer.

Klipsch is drawing on its long history of building speakers for the look of its new 2.1 desktop speaker system, the
Buy at Walmart.com
. Combining two stereo satellites with a wired subwoofer, the system is available in two finishes: Black ash and Walnut, each of which comes clad in fabric speaker grilles that match the company's other Heritage products, which are meant to evoke the look of Klipsch's Heresy speakers from the 1970s. The system is available for $349 via Klipsch.com, though Costco members get an especially attractive discount that brings the price down to $240.

The ProMedia Heritage 2.1 is designed to work with almost any analog or digital input, but its size and shape lends itself especially well to desktop computer use. It has a pair of analog stereo RCA inputs and a USB-A jack for digital audio. There's also a Bluetooth connection for streaming music and audio wirelessly from any device that supports Bluetooth.

Read more
DTS Play-Fi wants to eliminate the speaker wires in your 5.1 home theater setup
DTS Play-Fi Home Theater.

Despite having been around for more than a decade, DTS Play-Fi simply doesn't enjoy the same kind of brand recognition as Apple's AirPlay or Google's Chromecast, even though Play-Fi performs a very similar function: It lets you stream very high-quality audio over Wi-Fi to any Play-Fi-compatible speakers. But that might be about to change. Today, the company that is probably best known for its DTS and DTS:X movie theater surround sound formats, is announcing a new generation of its Play-Fi technology that expands the system into multichannel home theaters.

The new platform is called, somewhat obviously, Play-Fi Home Theater. It achieves the same goal as a wireless soundbar package or a WiSA speaker system in that it can eliminate all of your speaker cables, making the setup and positioning of your home theater speakers way easier. But Play-Fi Home Theater is considerably more sophisticated and expandable than either of those other options.
 A major asset
Play-Fi Home Theater's biggest asset is that it works over your existing Wi-Fi network. So there's no need for a specialized dongle or transmitter (which you'd need with a WiSA-based system), and you won't even need an HDMI cable to connect your TV to a soundbar or another control module as is the case with virtually all of today's batch of multispeaker soundbar systems.

Read more
How to connect Alexa to your home speakers
Amazon Echo Studio in a home theater.

With the right speaker, you can easily make Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant a part of your home theater setup, a great choice for streaming high-quality music playback! Here’s everything you need to get started, and how to link up Alexa the right way.
Step 1: Find an Alexa-compatible speaker

Your first step is to find a speaker that you connect to using Alexa. If you already have a Bluetooth speaker setup that you like, just double-check that it’s compatible with Alexa. Fortunately, this is an increasingly common feature to add to the latest TV soundbars and similar home theater speakers, so it shouldn’t be hard to find the right device for your entertainment system. When in doubt, you can visit Amazon’s list of speakers compatible with Echo devices to get started.

Read more