Klipsch Reference Premiere RP-8000F II Floorstanding Loudspeaker Review

Klipsch RP-8000F II Introduction

We were pleasantly surprised by the Klipsch RP-8000F when we reviewed that tower speaker back in early 2019. It wasn’t perfect, but it was much better than we were expecting. It had a neutral response and tonally balanced sound, and that was surprising coming from Klipsch, who had garnered a reputation for hot treble and bass for an aggressive ‘rock’n’roll’ sound. Their tractrix waveguide also did a good job of giving the tweeter a nicely even dispersion throughout its bandwidth so that the speaker had very good directivity control. In other words, there wasn’t any flaring of acoustic energy at an odd angle that would have degraded the in-room sound. The crossover circuit didn’t do the best job at blending the tweeter and woofers, especially off-axis, but given the speaker’s strengths, that was a very forgivable flaw, especially considering the price. All-in-all, we found the speaker to be an outstanding value for a tower loudspeaker pair.

Recently Klipsch has revamped their Reference Premiere series, now in its seventh generation, and they sent us the successor to the original RP-8000F named the RP-8000F II. While the same basic design remains the same, some important details have been changed, and the price has also been substantially raised. In these times of rising inflation, the price hike is understandable, but what are we given in return? Has the RP-8000F been significantly improved, or is the RP-8000F II just a coat of paint on the original? Let’s dig in to find out…

Appearance

The RP-8000F II is not a small floor-standing speaker, but it isn’t huge either. It can be had in two finishes, ebony or walnut. We received the ebony pair, which has a black woodgrain veneer except for the front baffle which has a satin black finish. The wood grain is really a vinyl imitation, but it is not apparent unless given a very close inspection. The satin black baffle serves as a nice contrast against Klipsch’s trademarked copper metallic cones. The frame of the cones has a copper ring around them, and there is a copper ring within the Tractrix horn; these rings add a nice bit of refinement. There is a slight chamfer around the edges which helps to give the RP-8000F II a slightly softer and sleeker look. There is a copperish Klipsch badge in the lower part of the speaker with or without the grille. The top front of the speaker is almost completely taken up by the waveguide for the tweeter, and the geometry from a squared waveguide to a round one as it moves inward adds an interesting visual element. The grille hides all of this copper, and with the grille on, the RP-8000F II just looks like a tall black box with a slight backward lean. The feet are black aluminum rails that give the speaker its slight backward tilt.  

  

Style-wise, there hasn’t been much change over the last version except that the waveguide is now a bit larger. Unfortunately, the RP-8000F II is not available in a gloss finish unlike the original which was a pretty slick-looking speaker. A gloss finish might have added two or three hundred dollars per speaker, but it would have been a nice option to have. Overall, the RP-8000F II is not a bad-looking speaker at all, and the copper accents help to give it some personality.

Design Analysis

At a glance, the basic overall design of the RP-8000F II looks almost exactly like the original: a vented enclosure of the same size and two 8” Ceramatallic woofers and a horn-loaded tweeter. But while the RP-8000F II has many similarities to the original RP-8000F in design, when we take a closer look, there are some notable differences that are bound to have an effect on the resultant sound performance. However, for a description of the similarities, I will just borrow passages from the review of the original where things have not changed. Such is the case with the horn-loaded tweeter.

In horn-loaded loudspeakers, the geometry of the horn shape plays a big role in determining its sound character. The RP-8000F II uses what Klipsch calls a “Hybrid Cross-Section Expanded Tractrix” horn. A Tractrix is a geometrical term that signifies “the Catenary Involute described by a point initially on the vertex” to use one (very technical) definition. It is a shape that is used in loudspeaker horns under the assumption that the emerging pressure waves expand out from the transducer diaphragm as a spherical wavefront. As the wavefront exits the horn, it will constantly be at a perpendicular angle to the edges of the horn. This supposedly helps to reduce horn-related anomalies such as odd reflections in the horn itself and unwanted diffraction effects.

The RP-8000F II horn is divided into two sections by the copper ring embedded into the horn. The inner section is a conical plastic piece that serves as the throat of the horn, and the outer section, the mouth of the horn, is a softer silicone piece that takes on a more orthogonal shape. The softer silicone material of the mouth is used to avoid bell resonances in the horn. The throat of the horn is a round conical shape in order to reduce early diffractions as the soundwave leaves the tweeter diaphragm. The squarish mouth shape governs its dispersion pattern. A 1” titanium dome tweeter is used to load the horn, and it uses what Klipsch calls the ‘Linear Travel Suspension’ system which is a carefully designed suspension that allows for larger excursions of the moving assembly before the suspension thwarts linear motion thereby incurring distortion. Titanium seems like a natural choice for the diaphragm material since the horn-loading and lower crossover point put excursion demands on the tweeter that might be more than softer dome types such as fabric could withstand without physically deforming. The rear chamber of the tweeter is vented to allow backwave energy to better dissipate instead of being reflected back into the diaphragm, which would also increase distortion. The tweeter motor uses a ferrite magnet instead of neodymium, and this can help reduce the effects of thermal compression since the larger surface area is able to radiate more heat than the smaller surface area of a neodymium motor.

One difference between the RP-8000F II horn and the original is that Klipsch has widened the horn so that the mouth almost reaches the edges of the front baffle. The larger horn should help to lower the frequency where the horn can control the directivity of the sound. It should also reduce any diffraction effects coming from the front baffle of the cabinet.

Two large 8” woofers take the bass duties as well as much of the midrange. Klipsch has named the woofer’s cone composition ‘Cerametallic.’ This seems to be an aluminum layer that has been hard anodized to form a ceramic coating which is stiffer than the aluminum substrate and also dyed a copper color. The ceramic coating makes the cone stiffer than pure aluminum thereby pushing breakup modes to higher frequencies that are easier to filter out by a crossover circuit. The aluminum layer provides a light but strong platform for the ceramic layer and also provides additional damping due to the differing densities of the materials. I can’t be sure of how well it works versus a plain aluminum cone, but I am sure Klipsch would not go through the trouble of anodizing all of their cones if the effects were insignificant.

One improvement Klipsch has done to the woofers over the previous generation Reference Premiere speakers is the addition of shorting rings. As their name implies, shorting rings short out the induced current that is caused by the voice coil’s motion in the magnetic field. In loudspeaker drivers, we just want the motion of the voice coil without the side effect of the induced current. This induced current reduces the bandwidth of the driver by making it less sensitive in upper frequencies, and it also increases even-order harmonic distortion. So the addition of the shorting rings should increase the upper-frequency sensitivity and reduce distortion.  

Klipsch specifies a 1,630Hz crossover frequency between the tweeter and woofers which is a bit lower than the previous generation, and this may be due to the larger horn allowing the tweeter to play a bit lower. That crossover frequency is right around where many 8” cones would normally start to narrow dispersion, so it looks like a smart handoff point to the tweeter. There is a fourth-order electrical high-pass filter on the tweeter and a second-order low-pass filter on the woofers. The RP-8000F II has dual binding posts that can be bi-amped or bi-wired. I don’t think that is justified in this speaker, and it probably shouldn’t be used in a typical setup. With a listed power-handling spec of 150 watts continuous, these speakers wouldn’t really handle much more wattage than a mid-level AVR can put out, providing that the power isn’t spread out over nine other speakers in a surround sound system. Klipsch has also put in a pass-through binding post for an Atmos module to be easily added to the top of the speaker without a wire trail. While that probably didn’t add too much more cost to the speaker, I don’t think it was a worthwhile inclusion since most Atmos module speakers are very poorly designed and are not worth adding to any system, but that is a rant for another article. 

The cabinet still uses ¾” thick MDF paneling and bracing like the previous iteration, but it has had a lot of internal redesign over the previous generation. One big change is that each of the woofers is given its own compartment that is sealed off from the rest of the speaker. Each of these compartments has its own port. Since that subdivides the cabinet into two compartments, the modal frequencies of those chambers are raised and so no longer have as much bandwidth. Panel resonance also becomes more easily addressable by basic bracing and internal damping, and there is a healthy amount of Dacron-type stuffing on the interior. The internal bracing network is fairly complex, and since there are now solid braces throughout the enclosure, this should be a pretty inert cabinet.  

The ports are still a Tractrix shape seen in the last generation of Reference Premiere speakers. This is pretty silly since the reason that the tweeter waveguide uses a Tractrix shape has nothing to do with how a loudspeaker port works. I think Klipsch just likes putting their branded design cues all over their products, but there is no reason why a Tractrix port would work better than a standard flared tube that I could know of. It is essentially just a flared slot port with a silly marketing name. Nonetheless, it probably works just fine for its intended purpose. The addition of the second port may increase the level of port-generated output before turbulence sets in.

The feet are extrusions on an aluminum rail. They are pretty solid and give the speakers a nicely stable placement on the floor. Users should be careful about moving the speakers on hardwood flooring, because these feet could scratch that type of flooring if the speaker is slid on a floor instead of being lifted up and moved. Klipsch might want to consider adding some kind of soft-padding accessory for the bottom of the feet for those with hardwood flooring. The grille uses magnetic adhesion and is simply some acoustically transparent fabric draped over a thin plastic frame. Unlike more substantial grilles, it doesn’t cause much diffraction from the frame, although it wouldn’t offer much protection from heavy objects coming at the front of the speaker with any significant force. 

The big changes over the original RP-8000F look to be the enclosure re-arrangement, the addition of the second port, improved drivers, and the larger waveguide. While the speaker looks very similar to the previous version, these changes look to be more of a redesign than just a quick refresh. But, much like the original, the RP-8000F II still looks to be a formidable speaker with some serious dynamic range. Let’s see how it does in practice…

Listening Sessions

In my 24’ by 13’ (approximately) listening room, I set up the speakers with a few feet of stand-off distances between the back wall and sidewall and equal distance between speakers and listening position. After some experimentation, I angled the speakers with a time-intensity toe-in where the speakers’ aim crosses in front of my listening position. The listening distance from the speakers was about 9 feet. No equalization was used and no subwoofers were used.

Music Listening

The most important duty of a loudspeaker is undoubtedly the faithful rendition of human vocals, and one album that would serve as a good test of that is Avi Kaplan’s recent release “Floating on a Dream.” This studio album cleanly presents Avi’s strong basso profondo range voice, and the recording as a whole is magnificently recorded and mastered. “Floating on a Dream” is Americana music with a strong country music vibe. It is not an overproduced studio entity but rather a personal expression given top-notch sound engineering. I listened to this album on Qobuz in a 96kHz/24-bit resolution.    

The RP-8000F II could image Avi’s voice with pinpoint accuracy, especially after I positioned the speakers for a time-intensity toe-in where their aim crosses in front of my listening position. This is where I had the best results for imaging with the original RP-8000F speakers on account of their narrow dispersion. This type of placement mainly benefits listeners who do not have an equidistant listening position from both speakers, but it can still yield a more precise image for those who are in the ‘sweet spot’ with equal distances between the speakers. (For those who want to know more about time-intensity trading, Audioholics discusses it in this Livestream presentation: Finding the Loudspeaker Sweet Spot). I tried the RP-8000F IIs with no toe-in as well as a toe-in that angled them to face my listening position directly. With no angling, the speakers could still image well but it was broader imaging and less precise. Angling the speakers to face the listener directly tightened up the imaging, but angling the speakers inward even further really sharpened the imaging. As I angled the speakers inward, the soundstage did shrink a bit since there were fewer acoustic reflections from the speaker to its closest sidewall. I decided that the trade-off of a broader soundstage for more precise imaging was worth it for these particular speakers.

Back to the album itself, the RP-8000F IIs gave a rich, full accounting of “Floating on a Dream.” Avi’s deep voice sounded natural and correct. As noted before, imaging was pinpoint precise when it was mixed to sound as such. In some passages, a chorus effect was added, and his voice expanded across the soundstage as a multiplicity of voices, and the RP-8000F IIs contrasted the single voice against the chorus effect beautifully. Tonality was very good; instruments and vocals sounded balanced and even. Bass was present and strong without being overwhelming. While I don’t remember every detail of the sound of the original RP-8000F, I do remember that it was a bit bass-heavy in a way that this generation is avoiding, at least with this album. Every track was enjoyable, and I did not notice anything off. I would say that anyone into folk or Americana has a safe bet with the RP-8000F IIs. 

 

For a recording of human vocals on a much grander scale, I found another terrific recording on Qobuz in Bach’s “St. John Passion” that was released on Deutsche Grammophon earlier this year. This performance was conducted by the renowned Sir John Eliot Gardiner and performed by the Monteverdi Choir along with the English Baroque Soloists in the historic Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, England. Given such a high caliber of talent involved with this project, the recording quality is, of course, sublime, but what is surprising about that is this performance was recorded during the COVID-19 lockdown, and all of the performers were physically distanced from each other so as to reduce chances of infection. Nonetheless, it still sounds fantastic, and one would never guess that the recording conditions had some unusual compromises. I can see this recording becoming the modern reference point for Bach’s epic oratorio.

Despite my aggressive inward positioning of the RP-8000F IIs, they still managed to project an expansive choir that stretched across the front of my room. Solo vocalists were given well-defined positioning within the soundstage, and the vocalists’ placements in duets and trios were always crystal clear. The recording as a whole sounded tonally balanced, and individual instrumentalists and vocalists sounded even. While Klipsch is known for a spectral tilt of elevated bass and hot treble, I didn’t get a sense of that with the RP-8000F IIs. However, the original RP-8000Fs had a fairly balanced sound as well, except perhaps for a somewhat elevated bass response (that was also a consequence of my own room acoustics; in a larger room, the bass would have been better tamed).

The RP-8000F IIs shined in the crescendos, which is what I would have expected. The dynamic range of this recording was very wide, ranging from quiet, intimate passages to the force of the orchestra and choir going full bore, and the RP-8000F IIs handled everything with aplomb. The RP-8000F speakers acquitted themselves very well with this recording of St. John Passion,” and classical music lovers are bound to enjoy what these speakers can do for their music collection.   

Taking a one hundred eighty-degree turn from the liturgical music of Bach, I found an obscure but interesting album of experimental electronic music titled “Life Strategies” from an artist named Event Cloak. This music layers arpeggiated synths and spoken word samples into rapidly flowing compositions that somehow evoke a sense of calm despite its heightened tempo. Event Cloak’s playful use of stereo imaging and inventive exploration of sound is what drew me to this album, and I wanted to hear what this otherworldly music would sound like on a set of powerful, full-range speakers like the RP-8000F IIs.

The soundstage of “Life Strategies” as presented by the RP-8000F IIs was enveloping yet precise. Warm synth pads stretched across the width of my room, while syncopated samples and sequenced lead synths meticulously danced across the stage with rapid panning effects. The many stereo effects employed by Event Cloak were reproduced with exactitude by the Klipsch speakers. The sounds themselves, largely generated by synthesizers, were given such a full body and rich detail by the RP-8000F IIs that they vividly realized the musical world being constructed by the artist. The many layers of sound were all easy to discern on these speakers no matter how bizarre or radical the music would get (such as in the final track, “Situation Comedy”). I am guessing this album is likely heard mostly on headphones where the stereo effects would be quite extreme, but I would recommend trying it on speakers that can prevent a soundstage as competently as the RP-8000F II speakers for a more tangible presentation. 

     

To see what the RP-8000F II speakers could do when pushed hard, I threw in Two Fingers’ “Fight! Fight! Fight!” This 2020 release of electronic bass music is meant to be played loud, but the problem with that is many sound systems are simply not capable of playing these tracks loud without going to an early grave. The bass is massive, and unless your system can move some serious air, it will not be able to recreate the full glory of these tracks. However, this is not just party music; the rhythms and basslines that Two Fingers conjure are artful and innovative which elevates this music beyond typical dance music. With the proper sound system, it’s loads of fun to listen to, and it also allows your woofers to really stretch their legs - maybe to the breaking point.

With two 8” woofers, I didn’t doubt that the RP-8000F IIs could do bass but listening to “Fight! Fight! Fight!” at a loud level proved they could do it without shirking the dynamic range. While they didn’t dig quite as deep as a subwoofer, they did have the mid-bass punch one would have expected from a sub. The treble and upper midrange had a snap that could make me wince at a loud enough level. A track that serves as a lesson in wide dynamics is “ZX Rhythm” with its bouts of percussion and bass separated by a gentle reverb. The following track, an absolute bruiser on bass titled “Zero Face,” made the woofers visibly move for its duration, but I never heard anything resembling distortion or compression from the speakers. The RP-8000F II could easily get louder than I could tolerate, so I wasn’t blasting them at maximum levels, but I was playing them at a level that most people seldom would, and they didn’t break a sweat. If you are looking for speakers that could sound good as an intimate two-channel system as well as handle a house party, these are a great option. The RP-8000F II is a high-fidelity headbanger’s choice.

Movie Watching

One movie I had not yet seen was the 2018 war movie “12 Strong.” This movie is purportedly based on a true story of a special forces team that attempts to form a partnership with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Naturally, they find their mission fraught with danger. With lots of shooting and explosions, this big-budget Hollywood actioner promised to capitalize on the wide dynamics that Klipsch is known for, but would the RP-8000F II live up to Klipsch’s reputation?

The first scene that expresses the RP-8000F II’s dynamic range is the Chinook chopper ride deep into enemy territory. The rapid ‘whoomping’ of the helicopter blades thundered in my home theater room with subwoofer-like force on the RP-8000F IIs. The speakers also provided an authoritative boom for the many air strike bombardments on enemy positions. The crackling of the many Kalashnikov and M4 rifles were sharply rendered by the Klipsch speakers. The plinking ricochets of bullets and shrapnel were also relayed with a potent snap. Artillery strikes and grenades gave a palpable thump. The Klipsch speakers gave the mass battle scenes a proper big screen sound. Lorne Balfe’s dutiful but unmemorable orchestral score was also reproduced with the epic scale and bombast that was called for by the sound mix. Dialogue intelligibility was never a problem, at least for the English-speaking characters that I could follow since my Pashto is a bit rusty. In the end, I enjoyed “12 Strong” and felt that the RP-8000F II speakers were definitely a good choice to watch it with.

One interesting new release I watched with the RP-8000F IIs was the latest Edgar Wright film, “Last Night in Soho.” I have been a big fan of Wright ever since “Shaun of the Dead” and consider his Simon Pegg/Nick Frost trilogy to be modern masterpieces of cinema. “Last Night in Soho” did not look to be comedic unlike Wright’s previous films, but it did promise to have an intensive sound mix filled with music much like Wright’s other films. This movie is about an aspiring fashion designer who moves to London and shortly thereafter starts to have vivid dreams about a ravishing singer in a nightclub in the 1960s. Her dreams start to take a darker turn after her waking life begins to unravel.

“Last Night in Soho” turned out to have a very busy sound mix, indeed, but the RP-8000F IIs were able to keep the many layers of sound clear and apprehensible. At times there could be 60s pop music mixed with non-diegetic ambient music with dialogue and effects sounds all occurring at the same time, and it never became incomprehensible despite the complexity. Many of the scenes taking place in the entertainment district of 1960s London could be quite spectacular in the detail and scale of the sound mix. Notable scenes include our protagonist's first venture into the past and her 1960s alter ego's musical numbers. As a horror film involving a dream life, the movie would take psychedelic turns, and when it did, the RP-8000F IIs gave the twisted sound mix enough energy to become truly nightmarish. Dialogue intelligibility was never a problem, and Edgar Wright’s witty banter was always easy to follow. The sound mix was so impressive that after seeing the movie I checked to see what awards the movie received and was not surprised that it was nominated for and won a slew of sound design and music use awards. It’s a movie that ought to be watched on a capable sound system, and thankfully that was the case when I watched it with the RP-8000F II speakers.

Klipsch RP-8000F II Floorstanding Loudspeaker Measurements & Conclusion

 

The Klipsch Reference Premiere RP-8000F II speakers were measured in free-air at a height of 4 feet at a 2-meter distance from the microphone, with the microphone raised to an 8’ elevation that was level with and aimed at the tweeter center. The measurements were gated at 8 milliseconds. In this time window, some resolution is lost below 400 Hz and accuracy is completely lost below 200 Hz. Measurements have been smoothed at a 1/24 octave resolution.

 

 

The above graphs depict the RP-8000F II’s direct-axis and horizontal dispersion out to a 90-degree angle in five-degree increments. Information on how to interpret these graphs can be read in our loudspeaker measurement article. The first thing that leaps out about this response is just how linear the tweeter’s frequency band is. It is extremely flat on-axis and has a very smooth off-axis curvature. It does seem slightly elevated compared to the woofers’ bandwidth, so at the on-axis response, the RP-8000F II might sound a bit forward. We do see a slight dip at the crossover point in the far off-axis response, but it is much improved over the original RP-8000F which had a very significant off-axis crossover null that almost extended into the on-axis response. That problem has mostly been addressed here, and it’s nice to see Klipsch has acknowledged that as a problem and has fixed it. One other change we see from the original RP-8000F is that there is a lot less off-axis jaggedness in the upper treble. I speculated that the original problem was due to throat diffraction in the previous tractrix horn, but that looks like it has been cleaned up as well. There is an off-axis null at around 17kHz, but that is not going to realistically manifest itself into anything audible since it is so high in frequency. Mostly what we see is good news here. The somewhat hot tweeter could be a problem for those looking for a warmer sound but angling the speaker does help to tame the treble as we see in the below graph where we take a closer look.

 

The above graph zooms in on some of the individual responses measured on the horizontal axis. We are taking a closer look at these to see the tweeter’s angle-specific behavior off-axis. The tweeter’s elevated response is mostly relegated from the on-axis response out to ten degrees. At the 20-degree angle, it does become more level with the woofer output. That could mean that Klipsch thought these speakers would likely have an outward, parallel-facing direction which would put the listener off-axis from about 20 to 30 degrees. On the other hand, the user manual instructs the user to position the speakers to face the listener directly in which case the user would be met with a fairly forward sound. Regardless of Klipsch’s intended voicing for the RP-8000F II speakers, this dispersion pattern enables the user to adjust the tonality to their taste. If the user likes hotter treble for a more aggressive sound, they should aim the speakers to face the listening position directly. If the user wants a neutral to warmer sound, they should angle the speakers so that the listening position is at a 20-30 degree angle of the speaker’s direct aim.     

 

The above polar map shows the same information in the preceding graphs but depicts it in a way that can offer new insight regarding these speakers’ behavior. Instead of using individual raised lines to illustrate amplitude, polar maps use color to portray amplitude, and this allows the use of a purely angle/frequency axis perspective. The advantage of these graphs is they can let us see broader trends of the speaker’s dispersion behavior more easily. More information about interpreting this graph can be read in this article.

The original RP-8000F had a nicely controlled directivity, and this improves on it by lessening the off-axis null at the crossover frequency. Klipsch’s hybrid tractrix waveguide does a very good job of controlling the dispersion all the way up to 16kHz. As with the original RP-8000F, that makes these speakers a good candidate for a time-intensity trading placement as I found out in my own listening. It also means that these speakers can be equalized with predictable results since any acoustic reflection will generally follow the spectral changes made to the first arrival of sound at the listening position. This kind of dispersion pattern plays well with auto-EQ systems like Dirac or Audyssey. The controlled directivity exhibited here also lessens the need for acoustic treatments since this narrower dispersion leads to fewer acoustic reflections. This graph also tells us that any listeners will need to be seated within a 40-degree angle or else the treble will be greatly diminished.

 

The above graph is a sampling of some of the vertical angle responses at and around the on-axis angle. Negative degrees indicate angles below the tweeter, positive angles indicate angles above the tweeter, and zero degrees is level with the tweeter. These measurements tell us that the RP-8000F II is best listened at within a 5-degree angle and listening at a height level with the tweeter is clearly the best choice. Moving up by just 10 degrees from the tweeter height creates a large gap in the crossover region. The RP-8000F II seems to be a bit more sensitive to height differences than a typical speaker. The good news is that at a 37” height, the tweeter is set at an altitude that most users will have their ears near in a normal seating position.

 

The above graph shows the RP-8000F II’s low-frequency response captured using groundplane measurements (where the speaker and microphone are on the ground at a 2-meter distance in a wide-open area). The RP-8000F II’s port tuning frequency is at 40Hz much like the original RP-8000F. It holds a flat bass response from 40Hz all the way to almost 300Hz above which it does rise a bit. The original RP-8000F had a bass-heavy sound in my room while this version does not despite having a very similar low-frequency response, and I believe that the reason is the range above what is shown here, especially in the tweeter band, is high in level, and so while I was getting the same room gain as the original RP-8000F, it only gave the bass response parity with the midrange and treble. 40Hz isn’t a very low tuning frequency for a tower speaker, but it is one of the ways that Klipsch achieves a higher sensitivity and wide dynamic range. With room gain, most people should get a bass response to around 30Hz or slightly above that point, and that should be enough to catch the bass of virtually all acoustic music except for some pipe organ recordings, and most other types of music too. It is enough to get much of the bass in movies, although it will miss the deeper bass. The RP-8000F II doesn’t bother with the lowest octave, but it is still a full-sounding speaker. Users who want serious output below 40hz will need to add a subwoofer, but that is probably what most people are going to be doing anyway.

 

The above graph shows the electrical behavior of the Klipsch Reference Premiere RP-8000F II. Klipsch specifies it to be 8 ohms, but that is not what our measurement shows. The entirety of the mid and upper bass stays well below 8 ohms, and this is a very heavily used range. I think Klipsch spec’d it at 8 ohms because some AVRs are listed to only drive 8-ohm speakers, and owners who abide by those guidelines might avoid these speakers on account of their actual impedance. The truth is many AVRs list that guideline as a spec for overcautious liability reasons, and all but the jankiest amplifiers can handle lower impedance loads, although perhaps not at a very high amplitude for an extended period of time. The impedance and phase seen here are nothing to worry about for any midrange AVR or amplifier. There are some wrinkles in the response from 200Hz to 400Hz, and my guess is that those are due to port resonances since the enclosure itself is well-braced. The port system that Klipsch has implemented is an odd one with both woofers being given their own compartments with their own tractrix port. Something else we can see is that the dip in the low-frequency saddle bottoms out at 40Hz which corresponds to the knee of the acoustic bass response thereby confirming 40Hz as the port tuning frequency.

I measured the sensitivity of the RP-8000F II to be 92.2dB for 2.83v at 1 meter. This actually matches Klipsch’s own spec of 98dB half-space for 2.83dB at 1 meter. In order to get a half-space sensitivity, simply add 6dB onto an anechoic sensitivity measurement. When we do that, my measurement is only 0.2dB away from Klipsch’s. While I would prefer that Klipsch simply list their sensitivity anechoically, at least they are now giving context to their spec which is not what they had been doing previously, so that is an improvement. 92dB is above average sensitivity, even for tower speakers. A monster amp is not needed to drive these to very loud levels. Indeed, with a maximum 150-watt RMS power-handling specification, they wouldn’t be able to handle a monster amp anyway. A normal AVR could make these get louder than most people would tolerate.

Conclusion

Before bringing this review to a close, I will briefly go over the strengths and weaknesses of the product under review, and, as usual, I will start with the weaknesses. The chief weakness of the RP-8000F II is also a strength; in order to get the best sound from it, you have to position it correctly. However, the ‘best sound’ will vary from person to person, so this variability to change the sound character also has benefits. But a problem with that is not many buyers will realize this quality of the speaker, and Klipsch’s user manual is no help. In fact, the user manual probably leads to a placement that will cause an unfavorable sound for many people. The source of the problem is that the tweeter’s on-axis level is elevated compared to that of the woofers. Going from 1.6kHz to 200Hz, there is somewhere between a 3dB to 4dB drop in amplitude. That means that these speakers could sound somewhat thin for those who actually use Klipsch’s own placement suggestions, especially if they are using these speakers in a room and placement that doesn’t get much low-end acoustic room gain. Of course, for those who don’t want a treble-heavy sound, the solution is, as we have discussed, to angle the speaker where the tweeter’s output is reduced to a more even level with the woofers, and this occurs around a 20-30 degree angle. The good news about that is a lot of people will probably default to that kind of listening position angle anyway by placing the speakers to face straight ahead from a wall.

Another reason that the decision to have a lowered bass level relative to the tweeters was a strange one is that the RP-8000F IIs are somewhat large speakers, so buyers may pick them over the smaller models for a larger room. The problem with that is that the lowered bass level would depend on room gain to attain an even level with the tweeter output, at least at or around the on-axis angle, but larger rooms don’t tend to generate as much low-end gain as medium-sized to smaller rooms. Again, the solution is simply to angle the speakers so that the tweeter is aimed away from the listening position at a 20-degree angle or further, but this all would have been simpler if Klipsch had simply opted for a flat response from top to bottom. My guess is that Klipsch’s reasoning for this is that they found most owners place the speakers close to the back wall where they would get a significant amount of boundary gain in bass frequencies, so this is not an unreasonable strategy. However many audio enthusiasts will give their speakers a significant stand-off distance from walls as well as toe them in so that the speakers face the listener, and such a placement is bound to produce a thin, lackluster sound. Most tower speaker manufacturers attenuate the low end of their speakers to some degree to compensate for room gain, but many over-damped low-frequency responses that we have seen in the past do allow for more placement flexibility without risking too much or too little boost in the bass range.

So my only real complaint about the RP-8000F IIs is how the amplitude response makes the speaker a bit fussy about placement and positioning to get a very good sound. Now let’s move on to the positive attributes of the RP-8000F IIs, and one of those is that you can get a very good sound although it might take a little bit more effort and experimentation. Despite my gripes about the lowered bass response, I did feel that the bass sounded more natural than that of the original RP-8000F which did almost nothing to compensate for low-end room gain. My room does get a fair amount of low-end room gain, so the lowered bass response of the RP-8000F IIs ended up giving me a more balanced sound. If you want more bass from these or any other speakers, all you need to do is place them closer to a wall or nearby surface. The good news about their specific design in this respect is that they will play nicer with the acoustics of being placed nearer to walls and nearby surfaces since their narrow dispersion will lead to less acoustic reflections from sidewalls. In other words, there are fewer acoustic penalties for placing these speakers in corners or next to sidewalls if that placement is required.

Once set up right, you can get a nicely balanced sound with bass that is powerful but not overbearing and treble that is crisp but not harsh. The RP-8000F IIs have dynamic range to spare and do NOT require a monster amplifier to drive to loud levels. Most people will be more than satisfied with what a typical AVR could do with them. The low-frequency extension is OK for a tower speaker, but those who are after the deepest bass in modern movie sound mixes will want to add a subwoofer, preferably with extension to 20Hz to fully obtain that last octave. The imaging from the RP-8000F IIs can be superb, and, as discussed before, they are good candidates for a time-intensity trading placement which can have a wider sweet spot for imaging than typical loudspeakers. If you can not accommodate a center speaker, this is a way to get good imaging outside of the small sweet spot that most speakers project.

Outside of the sound, the aesthetics and build quality are good. They don’t look bad, and I think the copper accents are a nice touch and keep them interesting and distinctive. The cabinet is a bit large but has a very good series of internal braces, so it has a sense of sturdiness. I can also appreciate how Klipsch has arranged the feet; they give speakers a good footing without becoming a big plinth or some large outriggers with spiked feet.

In the introduction to this review, we asked if the RP-8000F II was a substantial improvement over the original RP-8000F, and do those improvements justify the price increase. I would say that the RP-8000F II is largely an improvement. The original did have a flatter on-axis response across its entire frequency band, but other than that, this sequel speaker is superior on every front: better build, better crossover, better waveguide. Does all that justify the price increase over the original? When we factor in inflation, I would say YES. It is a significant improvement but not a huge improvement. However, the original would have had to incur a price hike to keep up with inflation anyway, much as so many other commodities. The original RP-8000F was a good speaker, but this one is better.    

The Score Card

The scoring below is based on each piece of equipment doing the duty it is designed for. The numbers are weighed heavily with respect to the individual cost of each unit, thus giving a rating roughly equal to:

Performance × Price Factor/Value = Rating

Audioholics.com note: The ratings indicated below are based on subjective listening and objective testing of the product in question. The rating scale is based on performance/value ratio. If you notice better performing products in future reviews that have lower numbers in certain areas, be aware that the value factor is most likely the culprit. Other Audioholics reviewers may rate products solely based on performance, and each reviewer has his/her own system for ratings.

Audioholics Rating Scale

• — Excellent
• — Very Good
• — Good
• — Fair
• — Poor

Metric	Rating
Build Quality
Appearance
Treble Extension
Treble Smoothness
Midrange Accuracy
Bass Extension
Bass Accuracy
Imaging
Dynamic Range
Fit and Finish
Performance
Value