I admit, I chide magazines like Stereophile & The Absolute Sound. There’s no doubt the writers are smart guys that love the hobby. But their perspective on price/performance doesn’t correlate with ours- the readers.

The magazines don’t buy products to audition. Products are loaned. All you have to do is read a review or two to see how out of touch these guys are with US. For them, auditioning speakers or amps at $25-50k is ho-hum, an every day fact of life..

We all roll our eyes when these guys write that the $50k or $25k model of something is a steal of a deal because it’s cheaper than the $100k model and sounds almost as good.

Heresy III

Lately, Stereophile has surprised me! Congrats boys, for daring to come down from the ivory tower to join us, the unwashed.

A couple months back, Stereophile gave a glowing review to the Klipsch Heresy 3. Heresy 3 runs $2600 per pair. It isn’t dirt cheap, but it’s affordable to a good segment of our shoppers. Not only does Heresy 3 deliver stunningly impressive bass and dynamics, they’re so efficient that you CAN run them nicely with a garden variety receiver or amp. This makes them significantly MORE affordable than numerous $2k speakers that require a big time kick in the pants to wake ‘em up. Whatever amp you have RIGHT NOW will deliver excellent results with the Klipsches.

And shock of all shocks, in the 4-19 issue, Stereophile raved the brand spanking new Klipsch RP-600, $550 per pair. That’s a price almost anyone pursuing our hobby can afford. Stereophile not only didn’t sneer at them, they ENDORSED RP-600. With the rational comment, “A speaker this inexpensive isn’t supposed to be this good.” I give the reviewers credit for getting their heads outta their … haughty atmosphere.

Klipsch RP-600M

If you look at the Stereophile Recommended Components in the same issue, you see their traditional stratospheric gear.

Class A Full Range speakers for $85k, 40k, 42k, 25k, 42k, 125k 71k, 39k 130k, 215k, 62k, 93k 58k. BUTTT, there’s also the GoldenEar Triton Refs for $9k per pair. That’s getting downright down to earth to be in their TOP CLASS!

Hence, to consider tremendously fast & dynamic speakers like Heresy 3 and RP-600, at affordable pricing- that don’t need ferocious amps to drive them… good job for being open minded and stretching your envelope guys!