Capital Sound (Klipsch, Teac, Ultralink)

My friend ran up to me in the Mezzanine hallway. "You have to check out the Klipsch Jubilees", he said, breathlessly. "They're so big!" He leans his head back like he's looking up a skyscraper.

Of course I was going to check them out. As soon as I saw them in Capital Sound's spacious room, I thought. "They're so big!"

The Jubilee ($56,000) is top dog in Klipsch's Heritage line, but I didn't expect it to be this big. The Jubilees are both tall and wide—almost square, in fact. They looked imposing, but in their Walnut finish, spiffily imposing.

Something else I wasn't expecting: how smooth they sounded. The Jubilees produced a soundfield that could fill a stadium, but if I was expecting to hear some shouty PA effect, I didn't. They played loud, but they didn't sound loud, if you catch my drift.

Each Jubilee uses a 7" titanium diaphragm compression driver with a 5" voice coil and 2 12" fibre-composite cone woofers. With its combination of 110dB sensitivity (units not further specified) and bass going down to 18Hz (–3dB), the music I heard via streamed FLAC files sounded big, bold, enveloping, effortless, with an underlying warmth that gave music a chunky wholesomeness.

<Teac Electronics>

Abetting this level of performance was a gamut of TEAC gear: a pair of AP-701 stereo/mono amplifiers ($4760 each), a UD-701N network preamplifier ($5300)—said to use a flexible structure for vibration control—a CG-10M master clock generator ($2250), and a PD-301 CD transport / FM tuner ($730). Cables were from Ultralink's Noir Platinum series.

Had I listened to this system blind, without knowing what gear was in it, I'm not sure I would've guessed I was listening to horns. I mean that in a good way; that's how glare-free it sounded.

COMMENTS
renstimp's picture

As someone saving up for these, you nearly gave me a heart attack. :) I believe these are $36,000 and not $56,000 as originally published (God I hope that's still true!).

rschryer's picture

...a little longer.

Canadian price: https://www.klipsch.ca/products/jubilee-floorstanding-speaker

US price: https://upscaleaudio.com/products/klipsch-jubilee-floorstanding-loudspeaker-each

DougM's picture

I find it quite refreshing that the rest of the system is modestly priced (by audiophile standards, that is), proving that you don't need five or six figure preamps, power amps, and source components to achieve near SOTA sound.

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