There were two weekends in April, the first in Bilbao (the 5th and 6th) and the second in Barcelona (the 12th and 13th), in which the high-quality sound and image specialist UMusic proposed to clients, friends and lovers of audio with capital letters in general to know first-hand one of the most charismatic ranges of loudspeakers on the world market: the Heritage “family” from the very veteran – it was founded in 1946 – American firm Klipsch. They invited me to participate so that I could point out some technical and historical touches although, as Ernesto Rubio, host of both events, pointed out, what it was about was listening to life-size music, enjoying it. And I assure you that it was, with absolute fullness in all cases. The protagonists: the most recent versions of the Klipschorn (1946), Cornwall (1959) and La Scala (1963) models, leaving the youngest of the series on display, named Heresy (1957) and Forte (1985).
Five speaker systems with a common denominator:
its very high performance, courtesy of the use of speakers in all channels in two of them (Klipschhorn and La Scala) and in the midrange and treble in the rest.
In addition, with a different bass load in each one: closed horn in the Klipschorn, open horn in the Scala, front bass-reflex in the Cornwall, active/passive in the Forte and acoustic suspension in the Heresy.
But the exceptional nature of the UMusic proposal cannot be understood without the other “half orange”, materialized in three pure Class A integrated tube amplifiers from the Italian company Unison Research. Specifically, the Simply Italy models (2×12 W via Mullard EL34 pentodes), S6 (2×30 W also via Mullard EL34 pentodes) and S9 (2×35 W via Svetlana SV572-10 triodes), which attacked, respectively, the Klipsch Cornwall III, La Scala II and Klipschhorn AK6. Founded in 1987, Unison Research is an interesting firm that makes a difference in the achievements of its class thanks to a conception that combines a “kilometer 0” philosophy – all the components it incorporates, except the valves, are manufactured in the surroundings of the headquarters. of the company – with extreme attention to the output transformers, considered by the Italian specialist as the true heart of all tube electronics. For practical purposes, what we had were three speakers with brutal sensitivity (105 dB/W/m in the Klipschorn AK6 and La Scala II models and 102 dB/W/m in the Cornwall III) attacked by electronics that were in principle more “noisy” than hypothetical “solid state” equivalents. And yet, the synergy was absolute, with distortion conspicuous by its absence despite the very high sound pressure levels reached with the majority of musical themes used. A sound that, thanks to the refinement achieved by the Klipsch and the incredibly low level of background noise – worthy of the most sophisticated transistorized electronics – of the Unison Research, worked a miracle: simply and simply, the performers were there… and not at all. in few cases, with a better sound than live.
