Home > Consumer Reviews > Klipsch Reference Series RC-52 - Center channel speaker - 125 Watt - 2.5-way - black ash

Bought this to round out system built into living area of house purchased 25x25 area 10 to 13 foot ceilings. 4 Klipsch in walls so went with a Klipsch center that had a little higher RMS(125) than what was already there. This center rocks. I am powering it with Onkyo 876. Most sound from movies comes from center - it works extremely well. You still need a sub for the really low bone shaking (purchased Infinity PS212 $345 to door). Im not an expert - I am extremely frugal (ie cheap). Did a lot of research/testing (thats an understatement) at Fry's, Best Buy and Circuit City. Of course only buy from Amazon no tax and free shipping $329 to my door. In my opinion RC-52 is best bang for buck in Klipsch center you can get. I can only imagine what the RC-64 is like, but that would be overpowering other speakers and its $999. If you have 90 to 120 watts per channel this will definitely work. The 140 of the 876 is a little much for this speaker, but its a little much for every speaker I have. Its so loud now it will run you out of the room and vibrate stuff off of shelves.

This is a high end product and well just preforms extramly well. What else can one say.

The center from Klipsch goes well in mids and highs. For lows I would still go for a woofer though the 5.25" isn't bad. The big reason to get a center like this is that 60% of what you hear on a tv (the voices) come from a speaker like this (or your bookshelf speakers). This takes away from the strain on the other speakers. Really putting multiple nice speakers together makes it loud all over. I can also see though that not matching a center with the other fronts could be a problem. Overall this speaker lives up to the brand and actually give a lot of oompf to the front of a system.

With the center channel producing 60% of the audio in a home theater you need a solid center channel speaker. No need to look any further with the Klipsch RC52. Very impressive performance and appearance. The audio reproduction is better then any center channel speaker I have ever owned. You can put your ear right up to this speaker during a movie and it sounds like someone is talking to you. This speaker is very efficient and requires little volume to get full sound. The speaker has no problem retaining a clear output when someone screams; there is no crackling like my previous center channel speaker. This speaker is pretty heavy at 25 lbs. You will either have to use some type of center channel bracket, component shelf, or heavy duty shelf brackets to mount this on the wall. I ended up using two wood shelf brackets that I installed with 4 screws per bracket, all with hollow wall anchors right into the dry wall. The Klipsch Reference series is not like the Klipsch Synergy series. The reference series are mid to high end home entertainment speakers that you have to get through an authorized dealer.

The best center speaker I've ever had. Crystal, clear sound from both musics and movies. It's just like listening lively. I would highly recommend this center speaker. I wonder what would it be like with the higher models, RC62 and RC64.