The most recent revision of the Klipsch Reference line, the Reference Premeire series, was a huge step in the right direction for klipsch. It brought their speakers closer to "neutral" sounding, by eliminating the harsh high end resonances that plagued their previous generations of reference speakers, while retaining the benefits of Klipsch's commitment to horns/waveguides, higher than average efficiency, low distortion at high volumes, controlled directivity, and life-like dynamic range. While I do not have permission to share the graphs on here,
@Dennis Murphy measured the RP-160m, and remarked that drivers within their passband, were some of the smoothest and flattest measuring he has ever come across, with very low linear and non-linear distortion.
@KEW and I both spent a good amount of time comparing the Premeire series to speakers costing anywhere from 2-10x as much and were surprised to see that even when put up against speakers costing $1500-$3000 a pair, they performed close or comparably to the higher end speakers.
I'm addition, unlike previous versions of the reference series, where the tweeter was a few microseconds ahead of the woofer, the step response of the RP series shows that the woofer and tweeter are almost perfectly time aligned. Whether time alignment is beneficial or not, is a matter of debate (@Tlsguy seems to be of the opinion that it is).
There are still a few issues that need ironed out with the Premeire series, a rising response peaking at 16khz beginning at 10khz, not due to breakup or resonance, but likely as a function/failure of the phase plug or waveguide, gave them a slight bit of extra "air" in the presence region. While not objectionable sounding, it falls short of Klipsch's fourth principle of design: a flat frequency response with no unnatural highs or lows. The Rp-160m also has a bit of extra brightness due to the tweeter being about 2dB louder than the woofer (I have no idea why they were designed this way, as the 250c and 150m are flat at the xover point). If the latest design manages to smooth this out, these may just be the last speakers I'd ever need to own.
As for what's obviously been improved in the series, the tweeters are now vented. This should lower the tweeters fs and increase power handling, which is good because klipsch tend to cross their tweeters low.
They've also added a dual 6.5" center channel and 4.5" center, towers, and bookshelves. In addition, the new Atmos enabled module is now paired with a 5.25" woofer and larger horn, vs the smaller 4" rp-140sa. Not only will this increase efficiency and dynamic range, but the larger woofer and larger horn will better control directivity down at lower frequencies, I haven't had a chance to measure the Atmos modules off axis behavior, but I do know that at 90 degrees off axis the spl above 1khz of the rp-150m is down by about 12dB compared to the on axis spl. Since our brain determines directionality of a sound source at high frequencies mainly by level difference vs phase difference, this should theoretically improve the illusion that the sound is originating from the ceiling bounce rather than the speaker, especially in rooms with shorter ceilings (8'), where the early reflection will likely be only -6dB below the direct on axis sound, hopefully resulting in the reflected sound from the ceiling being louder than the off axis direct sound.
Cosmetic differences include a copper trim ring in the horn, and cast aluminum on the base, doing away with the plinth, which I found to be ugly and annoying. The front baffles are now also a satin black vs brushed aluminum texture. It also appears that cherry is no longer an option, only black and walnut. Personally I like the walnut and felt the cherry was too bright looking.
I know
@KEW was planning on trying out the new premiere series when they're released, so hopefully he will update us on whether they're an improvement or not.
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