It’s an old engineering problem: to reproduce sound without distortion, you need a horn. But a true bass horn is massive, far too large for the average home. In 1946, Paul W. Klipsch folded the horn back against itself inside a triangular cabinet that tucked snugly into a corner. The surrounding walls would reverberate, serving as the final length of the instrument. The room became part of the speaker.

At over 4 feet tall and 330 lbs, Klipschorns are said to sound “as powerful as a crashing ocean and as clean as the whisper of receding tide.”[1] The audiophile’s speaker, still made by hand in Hope, Arkansas on the former Army base where Klipsch first set up shop.

He was a collegiate rifle champion, a locomotive mechanic in Chile, a geophysicist, and a ballistics engineer. He once stripped to his skivvies and cranked the heat to test a calculator that couldn't handle extreme temperatures. He wore a “bullshit” button under his lapel and flashed it at anyone making outlandish claims—including, reportedly, a minister mid-sermon. (Klipsch still sells a replica for $9.)

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After the success of the Klipschorn, he was developing a smaller speaker when someone dismissed it as acoustic heresy. “That's exactly what I'm going to call it!” A year later the Klipsch Heresy was introduced, becoming a bestseller among churches. Today, the Heresy is a classic, and every completed Klipschorn still gets a “pride card,” signed by each worker who touched it, sealed inside the cabinet.

Special thanks to Perrin Shelton for suggesting the Klipsch speaker.

Links:

• Klipsch official bull button

  
  

• Paul W. Klipsch biography (via The Internet Archive)

  
  

• “From the Tin Shed to The Loft: How Klipsch became an iconic speaker brand” - Kelly Doherty, The Vinyl Factory, September 2, 2016

  
  

• Klipsch Milestones

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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[1] Quoted from "A Legend in Sound," by Jim Shahin, American Way (the former magazine of American Airlines), 1989.