Klipsch has managed to hold the praises widely, from bookshelf speakers to tower speakers. They have brought many series regarding these products, and Reference and Reference-Premiere are the two most popular.
So, in this content, we will be highlighting the best center channel speaker from these two series: Klipsch R-34C VS RP-450C VS R-52C VS RP-500C.
These four center channel speakers are perfect for home theater or home entertainment by not compromising the sound quality.
Of course, there are many features to explore yet, and to help you choose the right one, we will be comparing them level by level.
So, stay tuned by the end of this article because you have to understand the fundamental differences to select the perfect one.
Some related articles:
Klipsch R-34C vs R-52C vs R-25C
Best Center Channel Speaker Under $500
Klipsch R-34C VS RP-450C VS R-52C VS RP-500C: Comparison At A Glance
Klipsch R-34C Review
Product Differentiator
Dual front-firing drivers, versatile sound quality, and beautiful design make it better than any speaker. Acoustic, cinematic sound experience makes home theater like a movie theater.
Product Description
Klipsch R-34C is one of the versatile speakers providing incredible performance.
If you have some high-end speakers set up, you still need a good center channel speaker. These kinds of speakers ensure a detailed, clearer dialogue, in a word enhancing the dialogue for a realistic experience.
To full fill this need, Klipsch brought this amazing R-34C. By sitting in front of your home theater with this speaker, you would feel you are in the movie theater by yourself.
Every dialogue and lyric you can explore like new and detailed. You will be able to explore every single word coming from the source and enjoy the thrill.
Mainly, when watching some dramatic film or louder sound, the center channel speaker helps a lot. You will be able to feel the punch hitting directly to your ears.
The dedicated sound quality with rich features is way too good.
Design and Build-Quality
Like most Klipsch speakers, this R-34C has almost the same structure. As this is a center channel speaker, it comes with the same typical shape.
There are spun-copper four woofers in the front that look shiny and beautiful. In the middle, there is the horn too.
There is a detachable grill for covering the front panel. This works like a shield if your pet or kids in your home. Otherwise, you can uncover the front side for showing off in front of your guest with a Klipsch speaker.
Another point is the scratch-resistant body. Saving your speaker beauty from pets is beneficial.
In the back, there are no messy ports placed. Instead, that place is clean and organized.
For the body, Klipsch used the MDF Bass reflex enclosure. This kind of material helps a good airflow and prevents distortion as much as possible.
Features
Tractrix horn
- Klipsch uses Tractrix Horn Technology in most of their speakers to get the precise details in the sound. This feature helps get a versatile sound quality that is different from any other brand.
Enjoy a lifelike, realistic sound experience. Also, this Tractrix horn is the backbone to prevent the artificial reverb and send the sound directly to the user’s ear.
Though all four speakers here come with this feature.
Tweeter
- Then there comes the 1″ LTS tweeter. Tweeters are responsible for handling high frequencies. If your speaker has a good tweeter, you can expect a defined sound quality.
Producing the perfect high-frequency 1″ tweeter is enough. Moreover, linear travel suspension helps to minimize the distortion a lot and is suitable for creating more depth in the sound.
Woofer
- The term tweeter; woofer is closely related. Because tweeters produce high-frequency and woofers produce low-frequency. Low-frequency means bass, which is very important for a great sounding.
With four copper spun IMG 3.5″ woofers, rich, punchy bass is praiseworthy. For the bass lovers, this would be a good choice.
Others
- This speaker features up to 100-watt RMS power and 400-watt peak power to handle the whole system. You may think this is not enough. But honestly, your speaker doesn’t need more than this.
- Last of all, 8-ohm impedance, 96dB impedance, makes a perfect balance for the overall sound quality. Though 4-ohm impedance is considered better, 8 ohms is also a reasonable rate.
- Then 96dB impedance for the loudest form of sound, over 90dB impedance is suitable for a loud sound, and when the rate goes above, you can expect a wall-shaking performance.
Klipsch RP-450C Review
Product Differentiator
Klipsch RP-450C center channel speaker combines the rich features and power for delivering a wider soundstage. This makes it a perfect solution for home theaters and can compete with other expensive speakers.
RP-450C contains more power and a higher sensitivity rate than the other three speakers. Also, the frequency response is balanced enough for a detailed sound experience.
Product Description
This speaker can be an essential part of your existing home theater. Also, it can be your favorite for its promising performance.
It provides some cinema-like sound stage in your home and never lets you feel the lack of a movie theater. Every time you play any music or movie, you will be able to handle the original content that you may have ever felt.
For mesmerizing, explicit lyrics and dialogues, very few speakers can work dedicatedly, and RP-450C is one of them.
What is going to amaze you about this speaker is the Dolby Atmos compatibility. Yes, you just heard that right.
This speaker will have a blast in your home. Dolby Atmos compatibility means the best sounding. You will be forced to be engulfed in the movies or music for sure.
Any kind of music genre you can enjoy with full of fun and thrills. The crystal-clear clarity is making that happen.
This far, if you have heard the lyrics wrong, then now it’s time to make it right. You can catch every word and verse and never miss a single shot.
The same goes for movies too. Enjoy a whole movie night or with a bunch of people. Everyone can enjoy the same thrill.
Flawless and simultaneous audio is everything that one movie or music freak wants.
Now let’s go some deeper into the features of this extraordinary speaker.
Elegant Desing and Good Built-Quality
Klipsch used the Modern MDF Bass reflex enclosure to get the modern touch and fit into any type of home decor. This gives the premium touch enough to impress the guest at first glance.
By being stylish, the cabinets are durable at the same time. With your existing home theater or in your living room wherever you want, this speaker is going to shine for sure.
That ebony finish makes it look beautiful and elegant—nothing to say much about the flawless design.
There is four copper spun woofer in the front that shines and matches the whole design. I personally like the Klipsch traditional copper spun color woofers, and so do the Klipsch lovers.
This actually holds Klipsch’s signature look. But if you do not like it, don’t worry because there are detachable grills. These grills also prevent the delicate internal parts from being harmed.
Another point is that, with the grill, you can still listen to the best sound quality.
Features
Woofer
- To balance the overall sound quality, RP-450C comes with a bigger woofer. You might have heard that saying that a bigger woofer means bigger sound. Though there is no valid proof of this saying, we can still trust it because of this speaker.
There are four woofers aligned with the tweeter, and all are 5.25″. They are very lightweight yet rigid and durable. They are made with aluminum suitable for producing mid-range and powerful bass.
For any kind of audio content, the bass is a crucial part. This is why the low-frequency response should check the woofers while buying a speaker.
Tweeter
- LTS tweeters are one of the critical features of Klipsch, which has been able to hold its praises for years.
1″ LTS tweeters are fully capable of producing high dynamic range, decent midrange, with minimum distortion. Linear Travel Suspension here is the boss for minimizing the distortion.
When your speaker can prevent distortion as much as possible, you can be assured of getting the best of the speaker.
Nevertheless, this tweeter and 5.25″ woofer make a great pair of producing high and low-frequency responses.
Tractrix horn
- How can we forget to mention the 90 x 90° hybrid horn technology? Among other signature features of Klipsch, this is the most important one.
This horn contains a circular throat that opens to a square mouth. This kind of structure ensures more detail and clarity in the high dynamic range and beautiful midrange.
You can get your sweet spot with this horn shape driver.
Others
- With 8-ohm impedance and 97dB sensitivity, it proves its worth as an incredible speaker. You won’t find another good combination of impedance and sensitivity rate than this.
Those who are a freak for louder music, you should choose this speaker. Compared to the other three speakers, only this has the highest rate.
You can dream of a wall-shaking performance. Also, your neighbors can get irritated because of the loudness. But it can impress your friends for sure.
Klipsch R-52C Review
Product differentiator
Budget-friendly, great sounding system.
Product description
This two-way center channel speaker is for you if someone wishes to have something more budget-friendly from Klipsch. This is also amazon’s number one selling product because of its remarkable work and low-price range.
This is a perfect speaker for a traditional home theater to work with. If you want the most accuracy in your movie or music content, this one is there to hold your back.
With lots of instruments or background noise in the content, this speaker maintains accuracy and detail every time. You can get enhanced dialogue and explicit lyrics without any distortion.
This is really surprising how Klipsch manages to bring this super budget-friendly speaker to the marketplace. This has undoubtedly fulfilled many people’s dream of having a Klipsch center channel speaker in their home.
I personally recommend this speaker for its unique mechanism and beautiful sound quality.
Now let’s check out the highlighted feature of this speaker for a detailed overview.
Contain A Simple Look
The beautiful central part about this center channel speaker is its simple look. This speaker comes in a boxy shape with two copper spun color woofers. This doesn’t look like a bulky speaker; instead, this won’t take up a lot of space in your house.
if you want, you can simply place it under your TV, table, or even on the table. But make sure your guest can see the speaker at first glance because that will bring a lot of praise for you.
Apart from the size, R-52C comes in a black finish and two cupper color woofers. They are visible on the front side and look really lovely as this woofer holds the tradition of the Klipsch brand.
There is a square shape horn placed between the woofer.
Coming to the build quality, Klipsch always notices every detail of their product. From the build quality to the sound quality.
To minimize the vibration and distortion MDF enclosure is used for the body. This improves the accuracy a lot by lessening the audible coloration.
Again, the scratch-resistant body helps to keep your speaker new. Please protect it from pets or children every time.
Like all other Klipsch high-end speakers, this one also has excellent construction.
Features
1″ LTS Tweeter
- A dedicated, good-sounding tweeter holds great importance as it produces a high-frequency response. Also, it is possible to minimize distortion with advanced technology, which is another crucial point for a quality sound.
Regarding this fact, Klipsch uses a 1″ LTS tweeter in this R-52C center channel speaker. This maintains an excellent balance for the overall sound quality.
Produce high-frequency responses precisely and never miss a note.
LTS or Linear Travel Suspension technology reduces unwanted distortion. This is why we can hear the sweet sound coming from the speaker.
Tractrix Horn Technology
- Now to directly hit the listener’s ear with high frequencies, Tractrix Horn technology works. This prevents the sound from bouncing to the wall and reduces artificial reverb.
90×90 horn opens to a square mouth with a circular throat. The structure is as same as the RP-450C.
Woofer
- With two big woofers, this R-52C provides a blast of bass. A richer, powerful bass that directly hits the ears. To maintain a balanced with the high-frequency response, these woofers are perfect.
The construction method is thoughtful. Because though these woofers are rigid but also lightweight.
When combined with the LTS tweeter, they work at their best for an efficient, decent low-frequency response.
Others
- In other features, there is a frequency response of 89-21k Hz, an impedance of 8-ohm, and a sensitivity rate of 95 dB. These features are in a balanced position except for the frequency response. With a lower rate, the sound might be better.
Other than that, there are complaints about the feature and other stuff.
If you are not familiar with these terms, you will have a guideline at the end of the article. So, you can better understand.
Klipsch RP-500C Review
Product Differentiator
Decent quality center channel speaker.
Product Description
They are now talking about Klipsch RP-500C, which is almost identical to R-52C but comes with some updated features. This center channel speaker will be a good choice for those planning to set up a premium quality home theater.
This speaker can cover the whole room and fill the atmosphere with realistic and accurate sound for any size, large or medium.
This one is one of the incredible speakers you can have from the Reference Premium series in your home.
This speaker has nailed every aspect, from the dedicated sound quality to the premium quality outlook. A complete home theater solution can work well with TVs if you want detailed and accurate dialogue.
With your home theater, every lyric, every word from the content, you will be able to hear precisely. You would never miss a single thing so that you will be enjoying your life’s most exciting theater experience.
A dramatic detail in the sound you can immediately catch when you will take this speaker to your home and play with the audio contents.
The price range may seem slightly high for some people, but honestly speaking, this is not as high priced as many think. Because of the premium quality and Klipsch signature sound quality you are getting in your home for under $500.
In a word, a superb center channel speaker this RP-500C is.
Contains Klipsch Traditional look
Like R-52C, RP-500C also comes with a minimalistic design.
You can choose between three colors that are ebony vinyl, piano gloss, and walnut vinyl. These three colors are so beautiful that you might get confused about which to choose.
But whichever you choose, your room’s beauty is going to increase with the shine of the speaker.
If you want a scratch-resistant finish, go for ebony or walnut finish speakers because piano gloss does not support this. Those with kids or pets in their house should choose a scratch-resistant speaker.
The piano gloss cabinet is also secure from hand touch as they are hand-sanded. This makes sure a mirror-like and clear finish cabinet every time. If you want something different, have this piano gloss finish cabinet speaker.
Apart from this, there is, as usual, a cupper spun color woofer with a square-shaped horn. Like all other Klipsch speakers, there is a separate grill for covering the front side. If you want to use then attach it; else, leave the speaker like it is.
Features
Woofer
- Featuring a cerametalic 5.25″ woofer for good, powerful bass means low-frequency response. Like all other Klipsch speakers, this woofer is lightweight and rigid.
Tweeter
- To keep the perfect balance with the low-frequency response, RP-500C featured with 1″ 1″ LTS titanium diaphragm tweeter with a Tractrix® horn. LTS minimizes the distortion and gives a real punch to a high-frequency response.
Frequency response
- It comes with a 60-25,000 Hz frequency response, which is disappointing. But that does not mean it won’t sound good. Still, Klipsch could do better regarding frequency response.
Others
- Klipsch RP-500C comes with a 96 dB sensitivity rate, 8-ohm impedance, 400-watt peak, and 100-watt RMS power.
You can expect a louder sound coming from this speaker for the sensitivity rate, and the impedance rate is in a decent position.
The power handling capacity for this speaker is enough as it can work at 400-watt power.
Klipsch R-34C VS RP-450C VS R-52C VS RP-500C: Which Is Best?
Among some of the best speakers, it won’t be a wise step to find out the best. Also, this is not possible to do. Only we can find out which is better to be easier for the user to choose.
Several criteria, features, and sound quality decide which is better or best. Such as the low-frequency response, high-frequency response, impedance, sensitivity, build-quality, etc.
Let’s just have a short recap about these features of Klipsch R-34C VS RP-450C VS R-52C VS RP-500C.
Klipsch R-34C comes with an MDF bass-reflex enclosure, 8-ohm impedance, 1″ LTS tweeter, and a 3.5″ woofer. The frequency response is 82-21k Hz and power up to 100-watt.
In contrast, Klipsch RP-450C has a bigger woofer, 5.25″, 1″ LTS tweeter, 97 dB sensitivity, and a 58-25K Hz frequency response. All the features are balanced for a great sounding system and are really comparatively better than any other speaker.
Klipsch R-52C, another hand, contains two woofers of 5.25″, 1″ tweeter, 95dB impedance, up to 100-watt power, and 89-21K Hz frequency. Here overall, all the features are decent and can perfectly work with each other for a great sound.
But the frequency response is high for an accurate and defined sound quality, which was better for RP-450C.
Other than that, this is a remarkable speaker.
Last of all-out favorite RP-500C center channel speaker. This becomes an excellent choice for home theater with 96dB impedance, up to 100-watt power, two big woofers, and a 60-25k Hz frequency response.
But this creates the same problem as R-52C with a higher frequency response. This can be the only reason this speaker is one step behind RP-450C.
It is crystal clear who the winner is; that is the Klipsch RP-450C. This is the kind of speaker that really make you feel like the winner. This has done every remarkable work from the price range to another field, thus becoming the winner.
But that does not mean, we are pointing those the other three speakers are less good. They are also three superb quality speakers.
We have tried to explore their critical features in front of you so you can select your own. Don’t be influenced by any other opinion of choice; just go for what you want or need and enjoy the next-level sound experience in your home.
A Complete Buying Guide For Center Channel Speaker
Center channel speakers are for enhancing the audio clarity, so dialogue and lyrics can hear detailed. If you are a movie freak but don’t have any center channel speaker, you are missing the real thrill.
Only a center channel speaker can ensure better precise clarity in the sound. But most of the people, like the general people, don’t have any basic knowledge about the center channel or another kind of speaker.
This is a main reason or factor why people end up buying the wrong speaker for their home or home theater and cannot enjoy what they actually deserve.
That’s why we bring this guideline section for you so you can have a basic understanding before buying a speaker. With this guide, you can buy any other kind of speaker too.
Just follow the following rules.
Build-quality
Most people, while buying speakers, don’t pay attention to the build quality or enclosure design. This is a mistake they make because the structure matters a lot for an excellent sounding system.
A suitable material cabinet or enclosure ensures lower distortion, vibration, and airflow. Without these, no matter how your speaker sounds good, you won’t get the proper audio because of the poor structure.
Regarding this bass-reflex enclosure is good. There is also another kind of enclosure or material available in the marketplace.
Just choose wisely.
Tweeter
Tweeters are responsible for producing high-frequency responses. And as you are searching for a speaker, you must have this basic knowledge that high-frequency response needs to be of exceptional quality.
Choose a tweeter of 1″ size or a bit more prominent with good technology such as LTS. LTS helps a lot to minimize the distortion as much as possible.
If you are going with a Klipsch speaker, then you can enjoy the advantage of the Tractrix horn. Very few brands adopt this kind of mechanism, and Klipsch is one of them.
This horn tech aims to deliver the sound directly toward the listener’s ears. Also, the material is a fact to consider.
Woofer
For the bass lover, the woofer is the first they consider. And if you are such a person who love bass, you might be interested in a good quality woofer.
Before buying a speaker, try to have a big woofer. Though other factors like material and structure matter first, the size affects the bass quality lot of time.
A 6.5″ woofer is ideal for a big blast of low-frequency response. Woofers have to be lightweight but rigid so they can produce powerful bass.
Sensitivity
This is the rate that decides how louder the speaker can be. Over 90dB sensitivity provides a more audible sound. So, if you want something louder in your home, check this before buying a speaker.
Impedance
Try to have 4ohm impedance in your speaker, which is the safe zone, but 8-ohm impedance is also suitable for decent sound quality.
Final verdict
The article was about four fantastic center channel speakers, Klipsch R-34C VS RP-450C VS R-52C VS RP-500C. All of them are incredible, rich with many features, and of course, the sound quality is impressive.
We have tried to describe the features and other things separately. Also, compare them accordingly for your better understanding.
All the four speakers have some similarities and differences. So, now it’s on you which one suits your need. However, the price range is also a fact. But luckily, all four speakers are budget-friendly.
There is a buying guide in case you are not familiar with the features of a speaker. If you are new to these facts, then I would recommend going through the guideline section first. This will make your choice easier.
Last of all, go with your desired speaker to enhance your home theater experience.
Frequently asked question
This FAQ is here to solve some of your problems regarding this comparison. let’s find out more!
What size woofer would be suitable for a center channel speaker?
The woofer is not a big concern; instead, the material working principle is the main factor. But actually, sometimes big woofers can produce a more powerful sound than small woofers.
So, in that case, after considering the other factors about a woofer, you can choose a 6.5″ or 8″ woofer according to your personal preference.
What does the tractrix horn do to the Klipsch speaker?
There is a bit of confusion about Klipsch Tractrix horn technology. What does this type of doing to the sound quality?
This horn has a square mouth with a circular throat which ensures that the sound directly hits the listener’s ears without messing around.
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