KLH fills the gap in its own lineup with the Model Four, a compact three-way acoustic suspension floorstander that sits between the bookshelf Model Three and the larger Model Five, and borrows pieces from both to get there. It uses the same 8" woofer platform introduced in the Model Three, paired with the midrange, tweeter, and crossover architecture from the Model Five, all in the shallowest cabinet KLH has built.

This article covers the Model Four's design and build quality, the acoustic suspension technology inside, how to set it up, what we heard testing it against the Model Seven, and how it stacks up against the rest of the Model Collection.

Founded in 1957, KLH helped popularize the acoustic suspension principle, a breakthrough that let compact sealed enclosures deliver deep, accurate bass with low distortion. That idea still sits at the center of everything the company builds, and the Model Four is the newest expression of it.

History

KLH brought early units of the Model Four to Audio Advice Live this year, ahead of its official September launch. The room stayed busy the entire weekend. A lot of visitors who'd spent time with the Model Seven when it debuted last year came back specifically to hear the new, smaller speaker next to it, and KLH set up a demo that let people listen to the Sevens and Fours back to back. They could have used the Model Five for that comparison, since it's closer in size, but choosing the flagship instead says something about how confident KLH is in what the Model Four can do.

The Model Four continues a run that started with the Model Five relaunch in 2021 and the Model Three in 2022, both of which honored Henry Kloss's original acoustic suspension designs while rebuilding them with modern materials and transducer technology. The Model Four is the piece that connects them.

Design & Build Quality

Like the rest of the Model Collection, the Four isn't trying to be a flashy, modern-looking speaker. It has a retro, mid-century vibe, a plain rectangular shape with a wide front baffle, the same classic profile that ran through speaker design in the 1970s and still defines the KLH catalog today.

The wide baffle isn't only cosmetic. It directs more sound energy forward and reduces the early reflections that narrower cabinets tend to bounce off nearby walls. It comes with a real tradeoff, though. Sound spreads across the whole baffle as it leaves the drivers, and when it reaches that hard 90-degree edge, some of it bends around the corner and radiates back out as a second, slightly delayed wave. That delayed wave arrives a little out of step with the direct sound, which is part of why wide, sharp-edged baffles like this one give up some pinpoint imaging compared to speakers with rounded or tapered edges. KLH keeps the boxy shape on purpose for the vintage look, so that's a tradeoff by design, not an oversight.

The Model Four pairs that wide front with a shallow depth of 8.25 inches. That's a real advantage if you're tight on space or can't pull speakers far into the room, since it can sit within a few inches of a wall without the bass turning boxy. The same shallow profile makes it easier to angle a pair toward a couch without the cabinets sticking far into the room.

The riser stand is included at no extra cost, which is true across the whole KLH Model Collection. Without the riser, the Model Four stands 26 inches tall, 13 inches wide, and 8.25 inches deep. With the riser attached, height grows to 32.2 inches, the base tilts back 6 degrees to angle the midrange and tweeter toward your ears, and total depth comes to 11 inches, the shallowest cabinet in the entire Model Collection.

The cabinet is structurally reinforced MDF, built in both 3/4-inch and 1-inch thickness, available in English Walnut, Black Ash, or White Oak. Each finish ships with a matching magnetic grille: stonewash knit for the walnut, grey knit for the black ash, black knit for the white oak. Pull the grille off and the driver layout runs top to bottom, tweeter, midrange, woofer, stacked dead center down the baffle. That's the same centered layout the Model Five uses. It's different from the Model Seven, which mounts its tweeter and midrange off center and sells as a mirrored pair, so the left and right cabinets are built as opposites of each other rather than identical twins.

Features & Technology

Acoustic Suspension

The Model Four runs on the same acoustic suspension platform as every speaker in the Model Collection. KLH helped popularize this approach in the late 1950s, when deep bass still meant a large ported cabinet, and a sealed cabinet let a smaller speaker reach bass that used to take a much bigger one. The cabinet is fully sealed, so the air trapped inside acts like a spring that controls how the woofer moves, letting it move further while staying accurate than the mechanical suspensions in most ported designs allow. The tradeoff is a gentler bass rolloff and typically less raw output than an equivalent ported cabinet. What you get back is tighter, more controlled bass that holds together near a wall or in a smaller room, and a speaker that sounds close to the same whether it's pushed against a wall, tucked in a corner, or pulled into the middle of the room. That consistency matters most in an apartment or condo, where you don't always get to choose ideal placement.

Drivers & Crossover

The woofer is an 8" pulp-paper cone with a reverse roll rubber suspension and a 1.5" flat-wire voice coil, the same driver platform introduced in the Model Three. The midrange driver, tweeter, and crossover architecture are shared with the Model Five: a 4" pulp-paper midrange handling the range your ear is most sensitive to, and a 1" aluminum dome tweeter with a soft rubber suspension. The crossover is a second-order electro-acoustic design, splitting to the midrange at 380Hz and to the tweeter at 2,500Hz. That's close to but not identical to the Model Five's crossover, which splits at 380Hz and 2,850Hz. Same architecture, slightly different tuning.

Acoustic Balance Control

On the back is the same three-position Acoustic Balance Control KLH first introduced in the 1960s. It works on frequencies above 400Hz, the range most shaped by how reflective a room is. HI leaves that range flat and suits a room that already absorbs a lot of sound: heavy carpet, plush furniture, thick drapery. MID is the factory default and pulls that range down 1.5dB, a good starting point for a typical room with a mix of hard and soft surfaces. LO pulls it down 3.0dB, best for a room with hard floors, bare walls, and big windows that bounce sound back. Below the switch are five-way gold-plated binding posts that take banana plugs, spades, or bare wire.

Setup & Placement

The Model Four is slim and flexible on placement, but KLH publishes a few numbers worth starting from. Keep the speakers 6 to 24 inches off the back wall and at least 24 inches from any corner. Space the pair 6 to 8 feet apart, with your listening position 8 to 10 feet back. Start them facing straight ahead, or angled just slightly toward your seat, and adjust from there: move a speaker closer to the wall for more bass, farther away for less. For a deeper dive, see our full 2-channel speaker setup guide.

They sound good right out of the box, but KLH recommends running them at moderate volume for at least 8 hours before critical listening, to let the drivers fully break in. From there, work on toe-in. The Model Four holds its tonal balance out to 140 degrees at the -6dB dispersion point, which is why KLH says the sound stays consistent up to 20 degrees off axis. Angle the speakers in more and the center image gets sharper and deeper; back off the angle and the soundstage opens up wider. Somewhere in between is the sweet spot, where vocals and instruments float between the speakers instead of sticking to the cabinets. That's paired with the riser's 6-degree tilt, which keeps the midrange and tweeter aimed at your ears once you're seated rather than firing over your head.

Amplifier Pairing

Recommended amplification runs 30 to 150 watts into the Model Four's 6-ohm load (3.5-ohm minimum at 120Hz), an easy pairing for nearly any receiver or integrated amp. Our pick for a dedicated integrated amp is the Leak Stereo 130 or 230.

Performance: What We Heard

At Audio Advice Live, switching between the Model Four and Model Seven made the family resemblance obvious fast. The Four carries the same open, natural midrange as the rest of the collection, nothing shouty or forward about it. We took a pair of each back to our test lab afterward and ran the same two reference tracks we used for our Model Seven review, "Naima" by John Coltrane and "Holocene" by Bon Iver, for a direct read on the difference.

On "Naima," the opening piano chords sounded nearly identical in tone through both speakers, and that held up through the whole track. Even though the Four's midrange and tweeter architecture come from the Model Five rather than the Seven, KLH clearly voices the whole collection toward the same target. Coltrane's saxophone carried the same warmth we heard through the Sevens, no thinness or edge to it, and the brushwork on the drums came through with the same texture. For a speaker with an 8" woofer instead of a 13", that's an impressive match.

"Holocene" gave the Four more to do, with layered synths and low-end swells that build through the track, and it held up better than we expected. The bass stayed tight and controlled rather than turning muddy, exactly what you want from an acoustic suspension design at this size. Turned up louder, the Four filled a small to medium room with ease, though the Seven clearly had more headroom in reserve for a much larger space, no surprise given it's rated for roughly two-thirds more peak power.

The Model Seven is still the flagship, built to fill bigger rooms as a true full-range speaker on its own. What impressed us about the Model Four is how much of that character carries into a room that can't fit a 36-inch tower, at less than half the price.

How the Model Four Compares

The Model Four's closest relative on paper is actually the Model Three. Both use the same 8" woofer platform, the same 46Hz–20kHz frequency response, the same 88dB sensitivity, and the same 150W/600W power handling, and both carry the same $1,999.98 pair MSRP. The difference is architecture: the Three is a 2-way design crossing over to its tweeter at 1,500Hz, while the Four is a full 3-way with a dedicated midrange and the Model Five's crossover design. You're getting a more sophisticated driver layout at no premium over the Three.

Step up to the Model Five and the tradeoff becomes size and price for scale. Its 10" woofer reaches down to 32Hz, about a third more power handling than the Four (200W/800W vs. 150W/600W), and a $3,299.98 pair MSRP, a real step up for a room that can take the extra size.

Overall Thoughts

The Model Four isn't a scaled-down Model Seven and it isn't just a Model Three with an extra driver bolted on. It's KLH's answer to the room most people actually have: not quite big enough for a 36-inch flagship tower, but still worth a real 3-way acoustic suspension speaker instead of a compromise. It borrows the woofer platform from the Three, the midrange and tweeter architecture from the Five, and the wide, shallow cabinet language the Seven established, and it does that at a price that matches KLH's own entry-level 2-way speaker. For apartments, condos, and rooms where a full-depth floorstander won't fit, it's the version of that KLH sound built to actually get in the door.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the KLH Model Four?
The KLH Model Four is a compact, 3-way acoustic suspension floorstanding speaker that sits between the KLH Model Three and Model Five in KLH's Model Collection. It pairs an 8" woofer with the midrange, tweeter, and crossover architecture from the Model Five in a shallow, wall-friendly cabinet.

How much does the KLH Model Four cost?
The KLH Model Four is priced at $999.99 each, or $1,999.98 per pair, with the riser stands included.

What's the difference between the KLH Model Four and Model Five?
The Model Five uses a larger 10" woofer that reaches down to 32Hz versus the Four's 35Hz, and has about a third more power handling. The Four uses the Five's midrange and tweeter architecture in a smaller, shallower cabinet at roughly 60% of the Five's price.

What's the difference between the KLH Model Four and Model Seven?
The Model Seven is KLH's flagship, with a 13" woofer, deeper bass extension to 26Hz, and enough power handling and output to work as a true full-range speaker without a subwoofer. The Model Four carries a similar tonal character in the mids and highs but in a far smaller, less expensive cabinet built for rooms that can't fit a 36-inch tower.

Does the KLH Model Four need a subwoofer?
Not for most music listening in a small to medium room. Its acoustic suspension bass extends usefully to about 35Hz. For home theater use or larger rooms where deep, high-output bass matters, pairing it with a subwoofer is still a good idea.

How close to a wall can the KLH Model Four be placed?
KLH recommends starting 6 to 24 inches from the back wall and at least 24 inches from any corner. Because the cabinet is sealed rather than ported, it can sit closer to a wall than most speakers without the bass turning boomy.

What amplifier works well with the KLH Model Four?
KLH recommends amplification between 30 and 150 watts into its 6-ohm load. We paired it with the Leak Stereo 230 integrated amp at Audio Advice Live with strong results.

When does the KLH Model Four ship?
KLH has the Model Four shipping in September, available in English Walnut, Black Ash, and White Oak finishes.

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