We don’t like stereo speaker enthusiasts any more than you do. They’re antisocial noise polluters, most of them. You’ve got your mobile variety, driving around otherwise pleasant city neighborhoods disturbing the peace with their favorite tunes (always terrible). You’ve got your audio snob, a smug weenie who seems to have no real interest in music at all, and picks his favorite recordings solely by how well they show off his hi-fi’s dynamic range. You’ve got that guy in the old Memorex ads—really, a leather tie? Sunglasses indoors? Would it kill you to sit up straight? And you’ve got the guy in the apartment next to ours, who keeps bartender’s hours and seems a bigger John Cougar fan than even John Cougar could possibly be at this point.

Cretins, every last one of them!

So it is with some reluctance that we admit… we’ve joined their ranks. We didn’t mean to. All we intended to do was plug in some inventory and make sure it worked. But it was a life-changing experience, brothers and sisters. We never thought we’d be saying this, but thanks to the Klipsch RF-35 Floorstanding Loudspeaker—we’re speaker people.

We never stood a chance, really. We set up a pair in our sample room and test-spun Montrose’s “Rock Candy”—and from the very first beats, we were captivated, like sailors of old bewitched by a siren’s song. Man, you should hear these things! Alone or paired with a matching center channel speaker (available on sellout.woot even as you read this)!

Now, some Desmond Downer out there is probably going to point out that these speakers are big, and take up a lot of space. You know, like that’s a drawback. Well, they are pretty big. But drawback? No, sir. Bigness is what makes them sounds so good—and they sound so good, you might consider moving into a larger apartment to enjoy them. Bigness is how their nice, wide cabinets accommodate larger woofers. Bigness is what facilitates the woofers’ optimal placement in relation to the horn tweeter. Hey, “horn tweeter,” that was our nickname in the Marines.

People, the sound is so full and rich, it’s gonna flood your den like mouth juices when you bite down on a cherry tomato. But not so gross. The bass is so full, you won’t need a subwoofer. And the sound is so real—well, put it like this: After we finished listening to “Rock Candy” in the sample room, three of our staffers discovered they were pregnant. One of them male. Doctors are baffled.

The way we see it, there’s really only one big disadvantage to these speakers. Once you’ve heard ‘em… you’ll be “speaker people” too. Sorry. We accept you, we accept you. One of us, gabba hey and all that.

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