Klipsch Black Reference Theater Pack 5.1 Surround Sound System

Product Information

Grantchester (DVD, Dolby Digital), with James Norton as the village vicar who solves murder mysteries, can be filed under unintentional demo material (my favorite kind). And at 120 Hz, the hole between 120 and 200 Hz isolated the sub and omitted a big slice of upper bass. Also had to adjust the sound synchronization to match the person's lips; but once that was done, it applied to all inputs and could be left alone. Speaker terminals are inset and spring-loaded, most likely meaning some fiddling about with bare-wire cable, but this does mean the cabinets can fit flush to a wall (keyhole fixings are provided for wall-mounting). The horn-loaded tweeters made them almost too colorful; when perspective shifted within a scene, the transition was dramatic.

The Reference Theater Pack delivers superior acoustic performance by leveraging Injection Molded Graphite (IMG) woofers. This redesign of Klipsch’s bestselling sat/sub system makes some compromises from its predecessors—but still produces excellent sound.

As the instrumentation undulates and Slash's fingers roam the fretboard, the soundstage begins to sound cluttered – yet when Kravitz's spoken word outro kicks in, or a saxophone unexpectedly pops in with a jazzy motif, these moments stand out with clarity and surprising projection. Dialing out a slight localization of male voices pushed the sub level and crossover point down, though I would later rethink the crossover.

I became grateful for both the Klipsch’s well-behaved top end and the apparent decision to mix the film with a limited dynamic range.The recording seemed to soften the venue’s hard string sound, which actually suited the Pack Sats well, enabling them to bring out the natural warmth of the chorus and soloists. With the Beatles, the difference was night and day—but it made far less difference to the rhythm section on this album, beautifully self-produced and self-engineered for the age of high fidelity, with crisp mids and a beefy bottom end that flattered ace players Dave Mattacks (drums) and Dave Pegg (bass). What's more, the speakers' sound is fairly directional, so we recommend aiming each of the five speakers toward the main listening position for best sound quality. So yes, the Pack is a step down from the Quintet—and if you’re lucky enough to find anything left of the latter in the retail pipeline, go for it.

So im very untrusting that anything small enough can roll under and poke the sub or worse rip it but only time will tell. We next played Kraftwerk's "3-D" Blu-ray, and the Klipsch delivered the band's trademark synth-pop with surprising gusto.For the best sound comparison, we recommend selecting your brand and model of headphones in the right-hand column, or if your headphones aren't listed, you can rent one of our Listening Kits.

One thing the venue and the satellites had in common was excellent low-level resolution, which meant that soft-voiced passages didn’t vanish into the ether. Ty was nominated for Best New Journalist at the Australian IT Journalism awards, but he has only ever won one thing. The idea behind Klipsch's Reference Theatre Pack is simple: bringing the US speaker brand's house sound, beloved by owners of its floorstanding models, to those with small rooms/budgets. Dialogue and other elements in the soundfield were well imaged, with strong outlines, but not without a modicum of shading. Klipsch considers the speakers in its Reference Theatre Pack as mini versions of its Reference series full-size cabinets.The built-in all-digital subwoofer amplifier delivers ample power with high efficiency and true-to-source accuracy. Featuring four satellite speakers outfitted with Dolby Atmos technology, the Klipsch Reference Cinema System delivers height effects from the front AND the back for a best-in-class Dolby Atmos experience. In equal power mode, you'll hear these differences in loudness as they naturally occur between speakers. Still, if you have a large room or crave chest thumping bass, you need to step up to a larger system.