Klipsch Heresy

The Klipsch Heresy is a compact loudspeaker, a plain upright box about 63 centimetres high, veneered in wood and faced edge to edge with grille cloth. Behind the cloth are three drivers: a 12-inch fibre-composite cone woofer at the bottom, and above it two small horns, one for the midrange and one for the treble, each driven by a compression driver. The cabinet sits on a low black riser that tips it slightly back, aiming the horns at a seated listener.

Paul W. Klipsch had built his reputation on the Klipschorn, a corner horn that used the walls of the room as part of the speaker. Stereo of his kind meant two Klipschorns in the corners and a third speaker between them, and in 1957, the company says, he introduced this small box to fill that centre place. An associate remarked that a Klipsch speaker made for a flat wall would be heresy; Klipsch kept the word as the name. A year later a Heresy stood between two Klipschorns in the American pavilion at the Brussels World's Fair.

Klipsch sold it in the 1960s as the Model H, as an advertisement of 1967 shows, with a crossover network set either for centre use or for use as a main speaker. It became the latter, and found an unexpected market in churches: by 1973 the firm was running advertisements headed "Heresy in the Church". Its claim was efficiency, much sound from a small amplifier, which a box of a cubic foot and a half with horn-loaded upper drivers could provide.

The speaker has been revised in numbered versions. The Heresy III of 2006 brought a stronger woofer and titanium-diaphragm compression drivers; the current Heresy IV adds, for the first time, a rear port to extend the bass, and new drivers and crossover. The arrangement has not changed: one 12-inch woofer, two horns, one compact box. It is still assembled at Hope, Arkansas, where Klipsch has built speakers since 1946.