I began to read the Jubilee threads on this
forum in October 2007. Like Bill W., I lacked
access to Jubilees for audition. However
my past and present understanding of acoustics convinced me of the clear advantages
of the Jubilees over my then Khorn clones. Trusting the Klipsch forum wasn’t
really difficult since the Jub entries literally went hundreds of pages. When I think about it, I cannot recall any
other product about which can make that claim. From order to delivery took
less than two weeks—fairly spectacular performance out of Klipsch, especially considering it was the week before Christmas.
Setup: When the Jubes arrived, I
had a couple of days getting them set up and equalized/ balanced with the two XTi’s
I also bought to drive them using active crossover capabilities in the Crown
amps just like the commercial theater installations do. Once I did get them setup and got a chance to
crank them up a bit, these units “came alive”.
Turning them up doesn’t result in facial grimaces or other teeth-clenching
exercises like it did for the Khorns – these units just keep sounding better
and better until you notice that it’s actually louder than real life, in which
case you back the gain down until they sound real when you close your eyes. At
this point, conversation is good if you know ASL (American Sign Language).
Note that I am listening with anechoic XTi settings from Roy’s
work in their chamber. I believe this results in a measure of realism that may
not be uniformly heard in all Jubilee installations—caveat emptor to DIY
electronics folks when using Jubes. My present room is tailor-made for corner
horns – about 16 feet wide, 9 feet high, 40 feet long, and with two good symmetric
corners.
Performance: I’ll dispense with
any discussions about lf and hf drivers, horn expansion profiles, driver integration
discussion, or crossover theory since I don’t think those things are important
to the casual listener in any case. Jubilee
performance is something that is very difficult for me to characterize since
they’ve been a very different experience than any other speakers I’ve heard.
First, I’ve given up comparing these units to other speakers–I think of the
Jubes as the closest thing to reality that I’ve ever heard. Pianos, female voices, string orchestras,
horns, percussion, etc. sound like you remember they should. I don’t set any other speakers on that standard
including Khorns or any other high-end speakers. Every day that I get to listen to these
speakers is a good one—in fact, it’s usually the highlight of my day.
Second, I’ve since become an avid collector of high quality CDs, and many of
those have been recommended on this forum. I’m delighted with each small journey
that the USPS brings to my doorstep pretty much daily via Amazon Marketplace. I, too, have been busy rediscovering hundreds
of hours worth of music: I’ve got a few hundred more to go with all the older
vinyl I collected up to around 1984, but never got rid of. Some of that old vinyl doesn’t sound bad now,
but no vinyl sounds like the best CDs that I now own. I guess that I should try
out a much better TT, but right now that exercise just doesn’t appeal to me.
Third, the bottom end is solid, regardless of what anyone might think or say. I’d be hard pressed to want a subwoofer for
any music that is playing. I have a
DEQ2496 equalizer that I use, exclusively to equalize the low-end cutoff
another 4-5-or more Hz. My organ records
shake the room like I remember the real thing—maybe because the room they're in is large
enough to support lf down to the low-20 Hz range in one dimension. Anyone that says that they need a subwoofer with these probably
has some tendency toward bass addiction— a common malady in this market—or they are watching war and action movies with lots of percussive audio effects. My observation: you better get out your wallet to get subwoofers that can successfully and usefully extend the extreme lf performance of these babies-because they do very well as-is, assuming good corner loading.
Fourth, these units fill the entire room with a balanced sound image, from
front to back and side-to-side. Some areas of the room reinforce
lf performance better, such that you can sit at my breakfast table at the back of the room and really rock
along with Brian Bromberg’s “Wood” bass with a feeling of realism. Even in adjoining rooms, the sound still
feels like a live performance is playing in the next room. This is something which is much different
than even the Khorns.
Listener Comments: Comments from
folks that have come by include the usual: dead silence—no expression
at all, “…wow…those don’t sound…like mine”, “my wife will never let those things
into the house”, “…how much?”, “you should have seen that fish I caught last month”,
“have you ever thought about tubes”, etc.
Admittedly, the number of people that have auditioned them has been a
couple of dozen vs. probably many hundreds in Bill W.’s restaurant, but the reaction is
fairly uniform in my experience – mainly dead silence. Most of the most critical listeners seem to be women, not guys. They seem to open
up a bit more with “those are the best speakers that I’ve ever heard… where did
those come from?”, “I didn’t know that speakers could sound like that…but they
aren’t very good looking are they?”. Younger folks (in their 20s) usually don’t
appear to notice anything until their video games start up—then they have a tendency to
stick around for a long time playing on the large flat screen TV between the
Jubes. I think they just “zone out”, sort of like
a Bradbury story.
At the risk of alienating some auditioners that bring their own music for
audition, a great deal of what I hear really doesn’t do these units justice. The one time that I was obliged to put some of
my demo CDs on, the performance change was nothing short of dramatic- especially for low
bass recordings. I now
subscribe to the theory that you should listen to new music when you audition
new speakers, even if it is mixed in with music that you are already familiar
with.
I hope some of this might be useful to those that might be thinking about Jubes.
Respectfully,
Chris A.
(This is a second thread on this general topic--see http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/99200.aspx?PageIndex=1
for the first thread in this series).