Klipsch 5.1 Surround Sound System

This is a great system especially for the price. I wanted something compact yet powerful to have an older Yamaha receiver 100 watt/channel/300 watt rms that drives excellent sound. These Klipsch speakers deliver! The wireless subwoofer works incredibly well and vibrates the floor. It has great bass sub performance and installation was smooth. When I get a moment in a few weeks or so I will add a video or pictures (rearranging my entertainment built in a wee bit first). If your looking for something for around $500 you can’t go wrong with these in my opinion.

I’ve got probably the weirdest use-case scenario for these. For about 7 years now I’ve been using the Logitech Z906 5.1 speaker system for my PC and love the surround sound cues in FPS games, but it’s always bugged me that there are no tweeters, just 3″ drivers. I recently upgraded the downstairs and upstairs audio setups in the house with SVS Ultra speakers, and when going between those systems and my PC it became painfully obvious that something was missing. I also recently installed a WiiM Amp in my bedroom but couldn’t find a set of speakers that had good bass without also totally dominating the top of the bureau where they sat. I decided I needed a wireless subwoofer but didn’t really want to pay the $900 for an SVS Micro 3000. A year or two ago I stumbled across this Klipsch 5.1 speaker system on Amazon and bookmarked it. At first the price tag bugged me but it finally dawned on me that it would solve several problems all at once, for much cheaper than other solutions. So now I’ve replaced the 3 front PC speakers (Left, Center, Right) with units from this package, and connected the remaining two speakers and the sub to the WiiM Amp. It made a noticeable and immediate improvement to the sound on my PC: voices on YouTube clips sound much more realistic and present – not just because of improved high end due to the tweeters, but they also seem to handle lower notes more convincingly as well (I’ve got these crossed at 80Hz like before but you can actually hear more bass directionally now, which means it’s coming from the speaker, not the sub). In-game sound is also massively improved. And music sounds so much better and has a more holographic soundstage. The original Logitech speakers are doing just fine as the rear surrounds, since they don’t get a whole lot of use. Upstairs, the WiiM amp setup now sounds exactly like what I was looking for, and the speakers are a much better fit for the available space. I think the WiiM Amp is much happier driving smaller speakers, too. It’s probably overkill for a bedroom stereo but I’m thrilled with it.

I’ve seen a few reviews here saying the sub was defective, one guy even went so far as to call it a fake because something big was rattling around inside (I suspect the amp or part of it got dislodged by being dropped in shipping or something). Mine worked immediately and the wireless connection is perfect for my needs. I don’t see this system on the Klipsch site so I am assuming it must be discontinued. Regardless, it’s a great value and I’m sooooooo glad I finally pulled the trigger on these.

Edited to add: I was finally able to find these on the Klipsch site (by googling “Klipsch Black Reference Theater Pack 5.1” and following the link, I couldn’t locate them through the site itself) . It does look like maybe they’ve been discontinued but it’s hard to tell. More interestingly, it says that the original price was around $1300, which really explains a whole whole lot about why these sound so good. Discontinued or not, I’m really glad to get ahold of them for $399 instead. Love ’em to bits!

Klipsch review

TL;DR this is a very very decent system, but you may have to fix the sub or go with a separate sub if you’re really wanting a “wireless sub”.

I was in the market for a 3.1 system for my desktop rig. So I could listen to music or watch movies and have a decent sound experience without a headset causing what I call “squeeze fatigue.”

I wasn’t looking to spend a whole lot, but didn’t want complete garbage either. So in my search on Amazon I found these. They were 5.1, but less than $300. If anything I would get 2 extra speakers than I needed, and Klipsch has a reputation for being quality.

Of course I was skeptical of these being only $289 shipped to my front door, while they are listed on Klipsch’s site for $1264.00. What this told me is they are clearing out inventory or they are defective. Reading the negative reviews, the problem was mostly the Subwoofer, but everyone else said it was decent. So I rolled the dice, assuming everyone was using the optional wireless setup, I thought worst case I would just never use the wireless link and be okay.

I got them, unpacked them, and was happy to see those copper spun cones Klipsch loves to boast about.

I hooked them up using bare 16 AWG copper wire for the main speakers, since the terminals are spring loaded gold plated terminals, and are too small for banana plugs, I just rolled with it. The other ends are banana plugged into an old Sony surround I got almost a decade ago, but still works well for a smaller setup.

I decided “I don’t need no stinkin wireless” and opted to use a shielded RCA cable for the Sub.

Then I hooked the system up to the TV Using HDMI, which has the best support for DTS in my opinion, and fired up a movie.

The center channel and satellite speakers sounded clear. But the Sub just wasn’t doing it for me.

I changed settings on the surround receiver, went through all the options on the TV for sending audio. Didn’t help. I tried the wireless setup to see if it was my RCA cable. Didn’t help. I even switched to optical and tried all of those settings. Didn’t help, then randomly it started working… Okayish. My lizard brain was telling me to think it must’ve just needed to be warmed up as a coping mechanism. I was in full cope mode.

So I tried the system out for a week, with mixed results. The sound came out great from the speakers. But the sub would be “meh” at best, and have random pops and/or distortion at worst. The sub was the main pain point, just as most of the negative reviews indicated.

Most people would’ve tried to return them at this point. But not me. Manufacturers dream of customers like me. Instead of crying about it like others would, I started investigating the problem. I listened to music that had distortion come through the sub, but it wasn’t consistent, it was hit and miss.

When I’d play with the knobs and switches on the back, I’d get mixed results, thinking I’d fixed the issue when it would just come back moments later.

Refusing to be defeated, I kept tinkering. I wasn’t about to go through the hassle of returning a $1200 system because one component didn’t work. I would buy an amp off the shelf and hook it up to the driver if all else failed.

Then as I was tinkering with the cables I pulled the RCA and distortion was still coming through the sub!!!! I had a pocket of time for which the problem was presenting itself without even being hooked up to the surround system. Which told me the amp was receiving low frequency signals from one of the internal components.

WARNING: Do not try the following this at home!!!! I took the risk of causing damage to the electronic components and voiding my warranty (not that I trust any company to stand by their products these days… most companies would rather offload poorly designed products at cheap prices and let the chips fall where they may. After all, if you’re buying a surround system at $300 you’re probably not the demographic Klipsch thinks is their market anyway).

So anyway… As you can see in the pics, I took the sub apart. (And one of the cables were tight, hardly any slack. It turned out to be the front led cable.)

I unhooked it and looked at the board. Since this is an amp that was powered recently, I carefully discharged the caps and started unplugging wires from the wireless board (I marked the wires with blue tape after testing with a multimeter so I knew what they were doing), and then plugged it back in using just the RCA and was floored by the smooth bass that was coming out of the driver!

No distortion. No pops. Full sound! Not subdued and crappy like it was before!

So I took out the wireless board… Completely. It was glued on, so it was a little tough to remove without risking breaking it. Not that I cared, it didn’t work anyway. I removed the front LED wire, just in case they were also carrying unintended signals into the board.

I filled all the holes on the plate with hot glue, and put it all back together, tightening the plate screws from center out to ensure a good even seal.

I hooked it back up and enjoy the hell out it now. Music sounds great. Movies sound great. No random pops and distortion from some wandering low frequency signal being blasted from “who knows where”, just some smooth hardwired bass as the electronic gods intended.

All in all, I would only recommend this system if you’re willing to ditch the sub as is.

I’m more adventurous than most, and willing to do a little tinkering to fix the flaws of the sub. I was willing to chance it because the system was developed with $1200 price point in mind, it just fell short because wireless technology is often quirky and can be unpredictable, and electrical engineering isn’t a perfect science, it is literally the art of refining rocks to try to create predictable resonance fields. In audio electronics, the goal is to reproduce the original air resonance waves of the source event. Which is mind boggling that we can do that. So I give Klipsch a pass on this. It was a swing and a miss, but I thank them for the flaw that was easy for me to fix and save me a nice bundle that I can spend on some other toys.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

Pretty good value for the money. The receiver does a lot and the speakers really sound great. Once you get used to how it works and interacts with the Playstation 5 and TV it isn’t bad. IDK how I can turn on the PS5 and it will go to the right output, turn on my TV and be ready to go.

Surround and vocals for movies are much better than any soundbar we have had. As it is a wired system, not everyone will like running wires to all the speakers.

It’s klipsch need I say more, the subwoofer is extremely effective had to really dial it down as the window frames and door frames started rattling, setup is trouble free and the push connectors make it so easy to wire everything, the small foot print of the satellite speakers make it convenient to use a stand, paired with a good amp, this system really gives u a bang for your buck, to bad it’s discontinued