KLH · Model · Bookshelf

Model Three

$1,599.98 / pairCheck on Amazon ↗
Product description
The Model Five scaled down, and the only speaker in KLH's range without a dedicated midrange: an 8-inch pulp-paper woofer handed over to a 25 mm aluminium dome at 1.5 kHz, in a sealed box 48 cm tall. Sealed is the whole point — KLH was founded on acoustic suspension, where the air trapped in the cabinet acts as the woofer's spring, and none of the current models has a port. That costs efficiency, which is why an 8-inch two-way manages only 88 dB and 46 Hz, but it also means the bass does not bloat when the speaker ends up near a wall. A three-position switch on the back trims everything above 400 Hz by 1.5 or 3 dB for a bright room. The figures here are the cabinet alone; the steel slant riser in the box lifts it another 24 cm, to 71.8 cm in total. Real wood veneer over MDF, with a linen grille that clips on magnetically.

Performance — where it sits in the catalog

BassTrebleSensitivityEasy loadCone area
Bass reachTreble reachSensitivityEasy loadCone area
Model Three46 Hz20 kHz88 dB6 Ω329 cm²
Median45 Hz25 kHz87 dB6 Ω219 cm²
How to read this chart

Each axis spans the range the 452 bookshelves in the catalog actually cover, so equal distance means equal difference — and for cone area and the two frequencies, which are read as ratios, equal distance means equal ratio. The dashed inner ring is where the scale starts, not zero. Ranked within a class because a bookshelf measured against floorstanders is feeble on every axis for the single reason that it is a bookshelf. Cone area is summed from the drive units — no maker publishes it. Bass and treble reach are quoted to different tolerances and only 56% of the catalog says which, so read those two axes as approximate. The grey outline is the median of this speaker's own class, the 380 passive bookshelves — same type, same side of the active/passive line, which matters because the two halves are not the same product: the median active bookshelf carries 155 cm² of cone against the passive median's 219. Median rather than mean, because a handful of very large cabinets would drag a mean above most of the class it claims to describe.

Units
TypeBookshelf
HiFi ladder position#384 of 452 bookshelf
PowerPassive
Height483 mm
Width311 mm
Depth267 mm
Footprint830 cm²
Space taken40.1 L
Weight13.2 kg
EnclosureSealed
Drivers1× 25 mm tweeter (aluminium dome), 1× 203 mm woofer (pulp-paper cone)
Crossover frequency1500 Hz
Frequency response46–20000 Hz
Sensitivity88 dB
Impedance6 Ω
MAP (USD)$1,599.98 / pair
Where to buyCheck on Amazon ↗
Manufacturerklhaudio.com ↗
Product pageOpen product page ↗

Suggested TrueScale comparisons

Tap any speaker to see it beside this one at true, real-world scale.