KLH Model 15 (1962–1965)
The KLH Model 15 has a few solid facts and a few stubborn contradictions on record. What's clear: it was a compact acoustic-suspension bookshelf design produced from 1962 to 1965, and it appears to have been made in an oiled walnut cabinet. An owner on the AudioKarma forums described it as a "folded horn cabinet, with the tweeter on a wing" - the tweeter angled within the enclosure - and noted the cone tweeter uses a phasing plug that "tends to cave in," a common cosmetic flaw on these units.
The crossover is a simple first-order 6 dB/octave design using a single capacitor and coil. The same owner reports no need to recap unless the parts have actually failed. The same source calls the Model 15 "pleasing" and says it "sounds good but there are other speakers that sound better."
Documentation gets murkier from there. Hifi-wiki lists the Model 15 as a 2-way with a 30 cm woofer, 8 cm tweeter, 800 Hz crossover, and 44-19,000 Hz response. Radiomuseum.org describes a 3-way system with an 8-inch woofer, 3½-inch midrange, 1½-inch tweeter, and crossover points at 1700 and 4500 cps. These are very different speakers. The owner's 2-way folded-horn description lines up with hifi-wiki's classification, so the radiomuseum entry may be an error or a different revision. Without a manufacturer spec sheet, it can't be settled. Both sets of figures are given here.
Known specs (per hifi-wiki.com, where they don't conflict):
- 2-way, closed acoustic suspension "bookshelf" design
- Impedance: 8 Ω
- Woofer: 30 cm, ±2 mm excursion
- Tweeter: 8 cm, with matching transformer
- Dimensions: 49 × 27 × 27 cm (H×W×D)
- Weight: 12.5 kg
Radiomuseum also notes the Model 15 "might be similar to Model 14," though no further relationship is documented. No original price and no current market values have surfaced in the research. A 1966 issue of Audio (August 1966, p.50) described complete modular systems, though it did not specifically review the Model 15.
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