Klipsch P-39F and Jamo R 907 speakers cry "What economic slowdown?"
Klipsch, makers of expensive, but quality, hi-fi equipment, has announced a new set of speakers – the Palladium P-39Fs. They’re floorstanding, sound fantastic, and they’re the “pinnacle of horn-loaded technology”. “Actually girls, I think you’ll find that I’m the pinnacle of horn-loaded technology…”, etc etc.
Euphemisms aside, these really are lovely speakers – the drivers aren’t just off-the-shelf ones, like in many other high-end speakers, they’re carefully designed and engineered by Klipsch. The tweeter assembly is made of acoustically damped materials, there’s an inverted dome midrange, and there are three high-output woofers.
Thanks to the tweeter assembly, the P-39Fs can deliver you an extended high-frequency response that’s pretty much flat between 3kHz and 30kHz. The low-frequency drivers are 9-inch hybrid cones made out of aluminium, Rohacell and Kevlar. The cabinet walls are 3cm thick, and made of MDF with multiple laminations.
The speakers come as a matching left and right pair. The driver components within the pair are acoustically matched, but the cabinets are also matched – the triple ports are on opposite sides and share the same woodgrain finish.
The P-39Fs cost £14,000 for a pair, and come in either a merlot or espresso zebra-grain wood veneer. They’re available now from specialist retailers.
This, on the other hand, is the Jamo R 907 speaker. It’s the little brother of the massive R 909, which won Stereophile Magazine’s “Golden Ear” award in 2007. By “little brother”, I just mean that it shares very similar design and acoustic characteristics, except in a much smaller form factor.
The R 907 has no cabinet, meaning that although it loses a little in the very deep bass category, it doesn’t suffer the resonance of that enclosure. It can deliver dynamics and precision free of the muddiness inherent with a cabinet design.
The speaker features two 305mm woofers, a 140mm midrange driver and a 25mm tweeter. The woofers have high quality open magnesium baskets and lightweight paper cones with a polyurethane suspension. The midrange driver is build around the same type of Hard Conical Cone with virtually flat frequency response well beyond the cross-over-frequency.
Lastly, at the top, the tweeter is an enhanced version of Jamo’s DTT (Decoupled Tweeter Technology) tweeter. DTT prevents unwanted cabinet resonances reaching the tweeter by placing it in its very own suspension system – you can poke it, and it’ll move under your finger. Don’t poke too hard though. A double-damped chamber behind the magnet system is equipped with an anti-resonator plug to all but eliminate turbulence.
The R 907 speakers cost £5,500 a pair, and are available now in black or red. A centre speaker will follow in March. Once again, get them from your local specialist retailer.
Klipsch and Jamo
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