The Klipsch Museum of Audio History in Hope is a find not just for audiophiles, but for those wanting to learn more about one of the most interesting audio innovators of our era.
Klipsch is currently one of the leading loudspeaker companies in the nation. Paul Klipsch, (1904-2002), a Hope resident, audio pioneer and founder of the company, had a passion for amateur radios. Both are tied to the history of the town. While doing military service at the Southwest Proving Grounds in Hope, a vital World War II military facility, he refined a speaker design he had been working on. The Klipschorn, which today is still manufactured and sold worldwide, proved it was possible to reproduce the sound of a live orchestra inside a home.
Many were impressed with the design and encouraged Klipsch to start a business, which he did when he acquired his first factory building, the former telephone exchange building for the Southwest Proving Grounds. The first Klipschorn was built here in the late 1940s and for a few years the basement was the scene of all the production of the speakers. Today, the building houses the museum near town and Klipsch speakers are still regarded as among the top in the field. The Klipschorn stands out as the only loudspeaker built continuously since 1946. During the 1950s there were dozens of different speaker companies that had some sort of a corner horn in their lineup. The Klipschorn is the only survivor.
“The Klipschorn was actually designed to be a compact loudspeaker,” said Jim Hunter, an engineer who has been at Klipsch since the 1970s and currently serves as the museum’s curator. “And for what it does, it is compact. One Klipschorn has the acoustic output of a 100-piece symphony orchestra. You could put one in Boston Symphony Hall and it could be as loud as the symphony.”
Hunter said most people who visit the museum are fans of Klipsch; they have the speakers and respect the sound quality and want to know more about them. The history of the company is intricate and you can learn fascinating stories involving not just loudspeakers, but Paul Klipsch himself, whose many accolades include an induction into the Engineering and Science Hall of Fame, whose fellow members include Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers.
“He was a genius and had a very good sense of humor,” said Hunter about Klipsch. “He did not suffer fools. He was extremely broad based in his talents. He did it all. He used to make phonograph cartridges for his friends. We have a patent model over here for the variable reluctance type cartridge and he got to the patent office two months after General Electric had been there with the same idea. He was a pilot, he made model trains, he made a steam engine, he made every single piece, the cylinders, the pistons, the rods. He would make electric locomotives. He was a 33rd degree mason. He always was into radio. Radio got him into audio. In the 1930s when he was in his oil prospecting career in Houston, Bell Telephone was doing a tour with their gigantic loudspeaker system called the Auditory Perspective-System. And it is the granddaddy of high fidelity. It has probably never been equaled since. Paul and his wife went to hear it during a tour stop in Houston and as they were driving home, his wife Belle said ‘yeah you can have the back bedroom as a workshop.’”
The museum, which is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, preserves not just the heritage of the company but also the audio industry at large. Inside you can see samples of loudspeakers that span the audio era and memorabilia from Klipsch’s personal collections including the first loudspeaker he made as a teenager from a pair of earphones and a mailing tube. The museum is free and every visitor gets a personal tour of the museum from Hunter. The museum is located at 136 Hempstead 278 in Hope across the street from the Klipsch factory. For more information, visit klipschmuseum.org.
.jpg){kind=tracking}