Klamath 2way Speaker - 12" Woofer

The return of the ampsandsound horn-loaded speakers recalls us back to our roots. For more than 18 years, Justin of ampspandsound has been designing, refining and building horn-loaded speaker systems. This started with absolutely huge designs and external horns. In time, he came to adopt the belief the best approach was that smallest cabinet possible combined with the biggest horns.

The Klamath is the gateway drug horn speakers digging deep and extending high providing the air and spatial cues we seek. Like JBL monitors and Klipsch speakers of yester year which begin more balanced and with greater extension, the Klamath’s 2way design balances tone and intimacy; aided by its large format 14” Elliptical horn and 12” woofer scale and deep bass notes float with ease. 

The Klamaths’ is a partial horn-loaded 2-way loudspeaker system. Utilizing a direct radiating 12” woofer for low frequencies and modern high-efficiency compression drivers matched to state-of-the-art horn which covers from 550hz to 18khz with ease. The combination of big horn and small form loudspeakers offer the bass response, efficiency, dynamic capabilities, low distortion, and scale of much larger designs in a much smaller enclosure.

The Klamaths’ is a design study in simplicity, but pairing ultra wide bandwidth drivers, big horns and smallish enclosures. Marrying the virtues of direct radiating bass with the largest horns possible yields a small package speaker with the dynamics you would expect with a full scale, large format 3way. The ported cabinet design allowed for significant bass extension. Front porting was chosen to allow the Klamaths’ to be placed against walls without compromising extension or output. The 1.4” HF driver combines the ability to crossover low at 550hz while extending to 18khz without modulating the crossover.

Its compact size makes it easier to install in most rooms and minimizes room interactions. Though bigger than a modern bookshelf, the Klamath is significantly smaller than any horn-loaded design and able to use commercial grade drivers.

The Klamaths’ offer the greatest tonal balance. Ported bass cabinets and big horns offer scale, tonal accuracy, and rich detail in a design that will appeal to audiophiles who desire all of the positive attributes of horn-loaded designs but without the issues of size and room interaction that are inherent to many designs.

The loudspeaker features a sophisticated, hand-wired crossover network which utilizes high-order filters, and large air-core inductors for low signal loss. If the heart of the Klamath is its horns and midrange, the crossover represents its cerebral cortex. ampsandsound spent countless hours on the crossover to create a state-of-the-art design that minimizes frequency overlap, and achieves phase coherence and perfect time alignment. Our crossovers are hand-made and built to the same rigorous standards as our amplifiers and loudspeakers, utilizing Hyper-litz inductors and low Q capacitors.

Through countless iterations, one singular virtue of our crossovers has become clear; their ability to be adjustable makes system match not just possible but an expectation.

The heart of the Klamath is its large Tratrix midrange horn with significant secondary dampening. The Large horn is inert due to the extraordinary steps taken to dappen the horn. The Eilipical Traxtrix horn provides controlled horizontal dispersion and limiting vertical dispersion to reduce room interactions. The midrange horn is mated to a 1.4″ large-format midrange compression driver with a 3″ voice coil. The combination of a large precision horn with a large throat and large midrange compression driver has resulted in a midrange that is tonally accurate, yet rich with detail. The midrange is smooth, fast-sounding, and easy to listen to for hours.

Specs:

Cabinet: 16W" X 18D" 28H"

Weight: 70lbs/per cabinet

Quoted Frequency Response: 32Hz – 18Khz -3db, 94db

Sensitivity: 94db 1W/1m, 150 watts/maximum power handling