Product Overview

When we first reviewed the Klipsch RP 600M's we were astonished at their rich, big, and impressive sound they produced. They have consistently been one of our go-to recommendations for bookshelf speakers – outperforming most of their competitors in their price category. Their build quality was exceptional and striking with their unique-looking cerametallic woofers and copper trim rings around the tweeters. They performed with an effortless sound with impressive bass which made you feel like there was live music in your room.

We've all heard the saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," and that was exactly our thoughts when we heard about the Reference Premiere II line. The original series seemed to have hit the nail on the head with an outstanding speaker that, rightfully so, has a large number of owners and fans. Luckily, Klipsch has taken what they've learned from their super-popular 600M bookshelf speakers and improved upon them to create the Klipsch 600M RPII's. To learn about all of the specs and features that RP II series speakers share, watch our full overview that details all of the updates to the line.

Design & Build Quality

The RP-600M II is in the mid to large size for a bookshelf speaker. They are the same height as the original at 16” tall, one inch deeper at 13” deep, and the same width at 8” wide. At their size, these might fit on a big bookcase, but they will most likely work best set up on a nice pair of speaker stands.

Like many speakers this size, the RP-600M II is a two-way design with a 6 ½” woofer and 1” tweeter which is the same size as the original. However, with the RPII, you get a new, larger silicone composite hybrid tractic horn waveguide. The original version of the 600M has a horn waveguide that is 5.75 inches versus the new 600M II, which is 6.75 inches and extends almost to the edge of the baffle on the sides and top which will help with diffraction. We’ll discuss more about why this update is so important a little later.

They come in two standard finishes, walnut or ebony, and boast satin-painted baffles with a new scratch-resistant finish so they should be pretty immune from getting dinged up if you move them around. We also like that they come with magnetic grills, which is a nice touch in this price range. It’s clear the aesthetic design team spent some time making sure the RP-600M II looked impressive when you popped off the grill. They accented the Tractrix horn with copper to match the cool-looking copper finish of the special cerametallic woofers. When you look at the two series side by side, the RPII’s seem to have a much cleaner and higher-end look on the back. They’ve upgraded the rear input panel with higher quality jumpers and anodized bolts to lock in the speaker wires. We really enjoy the overall aesthetic of the RPII much better.

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Features & Technology

The 1” Titanium diaphragm tweeter has a special acoustic lens mounted in front of it. The housing and magnet structure use venting technology to reduce any standing waves behind the tweeter which create unwanted harmonics, which in turn, gives you more clarity and enhanced details. The Titanium diaphragm is housed in a way that forces it to have a pistonic motion, which Klipsch first started using in their more expensive speakers. They call this Linear Travel Suspension. Updates to the tweeter include a new phase plug and the big obvious one is the new lens that in the 600M II covers the entire face of the cabinet. The venting technology also allowed them to remove the ferrofluid which was used to cool tweeters, for an even more effortless sound. To our ears, this new design is far sweeter than the previous model. People who have thought inexpensive horn-type speakers were a little edgy will have that opinion totally changed when they hear these.

The 6 ½” Cerametallic™ woofers used in the RP-600M II have been updated for flawless sound reproduction, minimum distortion, and maximum efficiency with larger diameter voice coils and aluminum shorting rings. Their Cerametallic material uses multiple layers of metal on the cone which not only makes it very stiff to avoid breakup, the combination of materials pushes the natural breakup point of the driver far beyond the frequency range it operates in. The only thing that remains the same over the new model is the cone material itself, the entire motor structure of the woofer has been redone. When Klipsch designed The Fives, their incredible powered speaker, they developed some new woofer technology that was used in the new Reference Premiere models. The new design can play louder with less distortion and produces deeper bass than the older model.

To help minimize cabinet resonance, Klipsch uses a technique we see in a lot of more expensive speakers. The front of the cabinet is not wood, but a very dense and inert composite material. The drivers are mounted to this super dead material helping greatly reduce cabinet resonance. When you spin the speaker around to look at the rear, you’ll see the patented Tractrix port Klipsch continues to develop and improve upon. With each speaker model, they design the port to reduce turbulence and to perfectly match the cabinet’s acoustic characteristics. The new Reference Premiere models all got improved internal bracing as well. This now runs both horizontally and vertically for an even more rigid cabinet which results in even less coloration than before.

The binding posts are updated as well with better connectors and instead of metal jumpers move up to high-quality speaker cable jumpers like we see in much more expensive speakers.

Live music has huge swings in volume level between the loudest peaks and the softest passages. When a symphony orchestra or your favorite band swells to a full crescendo, the feeling of power you sense is what makes live music so much fun. It takes a highly efficient speaker to be able to reproduce those wide swings in volume and be able to portray that big crescendo like you are really there. The RP-600M II’s are rated at 94.5db efficiency which is super high but a touch lower than the 96db that is reported on the original 600M’s. This means you can drive them easily with a low-power integrated amp or receiver and still fill a room with a big sound.

Overall, the RP-600M II is a pretty amazing speaker. It has an incredible bass output for its size and its effortless sound makes you feel like there is live music in your room. Sure, there are better speakers for more money that play bigger and reveal more details, but most of those cost far more.

Performance

We wanted to see just how good these new Klipsch RP-600M II speakers could sound with the right front end so we started out testing them on a McIntosh stack. We put them on some heavy-duty Sound Anchor stands and wired everything up with Transparent cables. The room was about 14 by 19 with 10 ft ceilings and we had them about 10 feet apart on the long wall and about 2 feet off the rear wall. This is the same setup we used when reviewing the first 600M. When you set these up, you will want to make sure they are equal distance from the back wall and from your listening position.

We played a Dave Matthews “Grave Digger”, which has a decent amount of deep bass and the first thing we did was make sure the sub that was sitting in the room was not connected. They were producing a staggering amount of deep bass for a speaker their size just like the originals.

We switched over to something simple with Adele’s “Hello”. When the track first started, the piano filled the soundstage from left to right with great harmonic definition. When Adele comes in, you can tell how the efficiency of the speaker lets you hear all of the little subtle emotions in her voice as you can easily hear all the tiny changes in volume level that other less efficient speakers might mask a bit. Interestingly, her voice floated almost a foot above the top of the speakers making for a very nice presentation. The soundstage felt just a bit wider than with the original 600M most likely due to the wider wavehorn guide which we really enjoyed.

To really give the imaging a test, we put on the acapella version of “Leave It from Yes”. If you’ve heard this cut it is full of overdubbed voices that jump out all across the soundstage from left to right. This track sounded big, rich, and full, once again very impressive. The RPII seemed to perform with just a touch more liveliness and a larger soundstage to us.

After this, we felt we should probably test them out on something more modest like they might be typically used on, so we moved them to an entry-level Cambridge Audio stack with some basic speaker stands and cables. On this setup, once again they had us scratching our heads at how well they did on the same cuts, however, we’ve learned something over the years in playing around with gear. A really good speaker will show you the improvements as you make the front end better. This was certainly the case with the Klipsch RP-600M II as you could easily hear that they sounded better on the higher performance McIntosh stack just like the original 600M did as well. The great news from this analysis is the RP-600M II will sound very impressive on a moderately priced setup, but as you move up in performance level, they have the capability to let all of the improvements shine through.

Overall Recommendation

do not suggest you move up to the new model unless you can get a decent amount back when you sell them. But, just like the original, the new 600M II is just incredible for the money in how well it pulls you into the music and makes you forget about your system and enjoy your favorite musicians.   While they will sound pretty good if you just plop them down, it's worth it to spend a little time setting them up to get the most out of them. To our ears, we found the new 600M II to be much sweeter sounding, have a bit deeper bass, and have an even purer midrange than the older model. There are other speakers in this price range that can keep up or maybe surpass it in terms of transparency, but we have not heard anything at the same size and price that can reproduce deep bass like they do and give you that emotional impact of a live performance. Plus, as we said earlier, we expect this new Reference Premiere tweeter is going to convert a lot of people to the advantages of horn-type drivers with its very smooth and effortless top end.

Check out our free home theater design tool to help you build your home theater or media room. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to give us a call at 888.899.8776 or chat with us about the new RP 600M II’s or anything audio or video related, we’d be happy to help. Be sure to check out Home Theater Central where you’ll find design guides, installation videos, inspiration galleries, and everything home theater.