Top Picks Floorstanding Speakers

Sound and Visions For top floorstanding speaker(Model Five #6 pick)

KLH Model Five Loudspeaker: $2,000/pair
KLH, one of the classic speaker brands that gave rise to mass-market hi-fi in the 1960s, is back with a re-imagined version of the iconic Model Five. The speaker remains true to the original’s three-way acoustic-suspension design but uses a modern 1-inch aluminum-dome tweeter and a single 4-inch pulp-paper midrange driver instead of the two side-by-side 5-inch drivers in the original. Otherwise, it has a 10-inch pulp-paper woofer and the same rear-panel Low/Mid/Hi switch found on its predecessor. After hours of listening, veteran audio reviewer Tom Norton was impressed by the “huge sonic bubble” the Fives conveyed and noted how the speakers excelled with female vocals, which came across as “warm, smooth, and uncolored.” Somewhere Henry Kloss, the speaker’s original designer, is smiling. (October/November 2021, Read Full Review)