KLH 5 capacities

[Guest farchila]

I have a pair of these babies - bought them new back in '74. Also bought a SONY 7055 at the time and have recently upgraded the receiver. I dont have the spec any more to the KLH 5 speakers and would like to know the power handling capacity of them. I've read that they require a minimum of 25 watts (IHF) but nothing on the handling capacity. I have a new 7.1 receiver that spouts 85 watts / channel and dont want to damage the speakers. Any info would be appreciated.

[Andy]

I've always heard that the Model five can handle quite a lot of power. Clean power is important, distortion is what can really kill a speaker.

In the KLH ad recently posted on this forum, it's title is 'the ultimate KLH ad' it reads "the Model five and Twelve use two midrange speakers, not necesrily for faithful sound quality. Rather, they are for increased power handling and more precise contouring of musical ballance".

For years I ran a pair of KLH Model Seventeen speakers with a Dynaco 40 WPC amplifier...often at loud volumes for hours (the 1970's you know)and the speakers never let me down. The Seventeen is a much smaller speaker then the robust model Five, I think you'll be ok with your set-up.

[tysontom]

>I have a pair of these babies - bought them new back in '74.

>Also bought a SONY 7055 at the time and have recently upgraded

>the receiver. I dont have the spec any more to the KLH 5

>speakers and would like to know the power handling capacity of

>them. I've read that they require a minimum of 25 watts (IHF)

>but nothing on the handling capacity. I have a new 7.1

>receiver that spouts 85 watts / channel and dont want to

>damage the speakers. Any info would be appreciated.

The Model Five is fairly robust, and it can easily handle 85-watts/ch on music and speech. The speaker can actually handle well over 100-watt peaks without distress. Too-little, rather than too-much power is the usual sin with low-efficiency speakers such as KLH and AR.

The woofer (and midranges and tweeter) are basically the same as those used in the larger KLH Model Twelve. I once witnessed a demonstration where a local KLH dealer attempted to perform a local "live-vs-recorded" drum solo demonstration using the Twelves, and they were being fed high-output power from a McIntosh Mc2250. This went on successfully for quite some time, but the woofers did finally fail. I don't believe the other drivers failed, and there were peaks of at least 500-watts occasionally. This attests to the durability of that system, so the Model Five should handle plenty of power without distress.

--Tom Tyson