Klipsch The Fives
No networking here, but profoundly solid sound from TV, computer, Bluetooth and vinyl.
The Fives arrived for review after most of the others, and directly following the Q Acoustics Q Active 200s. The contrast between those unusual modernist designs and the Klipsch Fives couldn’t be greater. The Fives are lighter, squarer, more wooden — hand-crafted MDF with a walnut veneer or matte black painted finish, and presenting a more traditional fascia, though with that big patented Klipsch Tractrix horn and compression driver dominating the top half where a dome tweeter might more normally sit, and a 114mm (4.5inch) high-excursion fibre-composite mid/ bass cone beneath. One speaker has knobs on the top, and you have to link the other speaker with a four-metre signal cable, since only one speaker is active, the other passive. Pleasingly you can select which is left and which right with a switch on the back.
All of which is highly traditional, and reminds us rather of budget active speakers from the likes of Edifier, which operate very similarly. The Klipsch active speakers are far more expensive than those, far less expensive than the Q Acoustics models. Here’s the thing, though — we’d rate the sound of The Fives above either of them.
Ancient & modern
Klipsch is, of course, clever in highlighting the very traditionalism here, as it does with its Heritage lines. “Remember great sound”, they ask, noting their history back to Paul W. Klipsch’s original Klipschorn in 1946. “We never forgot,” they smile. Look to the proper metal roll dials on top of the master speaker for more evidence of this vibe, perhaps the Tractrix horn too. Or if this is too large to be staring you in the face all the time, there are magnetic grilles attached, and when we tried them on for size they looked very classic indeed with their textured woven grilles and little Klipsch badges.
However, it’s underplaying the Fives to accuse them of being entirely a traditional design. They can play high-res audio up to 24-bit/192kHz. The high-frequency driver behind the Tractrix horn has a titanium dome, something of which Paul W. couldn’t dream. There’s an HDMI ARC connection on the back of the active speaker, along with optical digital, a USB-B computer connection (which has proven surprisingly rare in the active speakers in this group), and two analogue inputs — one on a minijack socket, the other on proper RCAs and switchable between line-level or phono level suitable for a turntable with a moving-magnet cartridge. There’s a subwoofer output, should you wish to supplement their bass abilities. And there’s Bluetooth, its codecs unlisted in the specs but confirmed in a Klipsch blog as offering both AAC to benefit iOS users and aptX HD for Android devices which support this (or aptX).
You get a remote control, and the printed manual (which curiously offers its first 20 pages twice before moving on to page 21) helpfully lists all the remote hex codes so that those with snazzy programmable systems can get The Fives linked in for control.
The speaker bases are raised on a rectangle of cork, which feels both classic and modern, and seems entirely unlikely to scratch the surface below. Given we’ve seen “Audiophile Bookshelf Speaker Cork Isolation Pads” for sale online, it’s a bonus to get a whole slice of the stuff here! The Fives are “designed with pride” in Indianapolis, built in China.
There is an app — Klipsch Connect — but this is limited to confirming set-up, showing instructional videos, and performing firmware updates online, which we did shortly after set-up. So what isn’t here is any network
connection; the speakers don’t do any direct streaming from the internet; instead your choices for streaming are to do so via Bluetooth, or on a computer plugged into the USB-B connection, or from some other connected component (such as one of the standalone streamers we reviewed last issue).
Listening
We began with The Fives on stereo TV duties for a week, to warm them up and become accustomed to their sound. For this we connected them to the designated HDMI ARC socket on a 2020 model Samsung TV, and once we’d selected the ‘TV’ input via the remote control, they had no problem playing flawlessly from the same PCM stream which has caused some other DACs playback issues, and delivering a great TV and movie sound too, with clear voices from those horn-laden tweeters and a big weighty sound to support action when required. It’s a performance that smaller soundbars couldn’t hope to match, and we’d pick it over most large bars too.
We would recommend running The Fives sans grilles for all uses, but for TV/movis duties especially, as they gain a definite air and edge that benefits dialogue clarity.
From movie watching we had already deduced their penchant for some fine soundstaging and remarkably deep bass, and this was doubly confirmed with music. We enjoyed their vinyl playback, and we connected a MacBook Pro via the USB-B connection and made use of both Roon and Qobuz on the Mac to enjoy a variety of CD-quality and high-res streaming music through The Fives. Playing the 24/96 of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road we cranked them up to light all but one of the white LEDs, and The Fives delivered a full room-filling experience that was, dare we say it, vinyl-like. The cut-through of the higher frequencies can make music from The Fives wildly exciting. The 1965 Newport recording of Bob Dylan doing Maggie’s Farm had Bob’s voice and Butterworth’s knife-edge guitar cutting through a difficult mix. More recent Dylan suited the Klipschs just fine too — his recent Australian tour opener Things Have Changed had its mix spread wide and rich, Bob croaky and sardonic while the band just fill in the master’s groove.
Things stay tight and bright on axis, but we loved them also off-axis, with a bit of room warming when we’d wander off to do daily deeds. Not that they need warming to deliver bass at levels that can sound positively astounding. We were staggered by the depth and level of bass delivered on the choruses of Amy Shark’s All The Lies About Me (and much of the rest of the new album). When we later returned to USB we noted almost as much low end emerging from the Giles Martin remix of ‘Sgt. Pepper’. It was not excessive; it’s not a bloat and doesn’t muddy the sound: it just plays bass with a depth you don’t expect from speakers 30cm high. Nor do they need the ‘Dynamic Bass EQ’ option of a bass lift at lower volumes. This is on when they ship, we gather, but they’re flatter without it; the EQ pushes some frequencies up (e.g. 60-70Hz) and leaves a hole at 100-110Hz.
Conclusion
We loved The Fives. They do lack direct network or internet streaming, and we wonder how the combo of TV/ HDMI and computer USB will work in most people’s homes. But if the connections and the looks do fit your needs, we’re darned sure you’re going to love their sound.