Instant Atmos

KLIPSCH’S NEW Cinema series soundbars are the latest effort of an iconic, 75-year-old speaker maker to push new performance barriers while delivering a product that is quintessential, well, Klipsch.

- Rob Sabin

There are four systems, each with the real wood cabinetry and the signature Tractrix horn-loaded tweeters that have come to define the brand. These run from the entry-level Cinema 400 ($299), a 40-inch-wide 2.1-channel bar with an 8-inch wireless subwoofer, to the Cinema 1200 ($1,699) reviewed here—a 5.1.4 system with a 54-inch-wide Atmos-enabled bar, a wireless 12-inch sub, and a pair of wireless Atmos-enabled surrounds.

Klipsch’s bar made a nice impression right out of its giant L-shaped crate owing to the solid build quality and good fit-and-finish. The bar is a basic but well-detailed rectangular box, most of it wrapped in black grille cloth. In a world filled with plastic soundbars, I found the knuckle-thunk of its wood cabinet both satisfying and nostalgic.

The faceplate features an exposed pair of 1-inch textile dome tweeters at the far ends aided by 90x90-degree Tractrix horns. The rest of the driver complement, all hidden behind the grille cloth, includes a pair of 3-inch fiber-composite oval mid-woofers mated with each end driver, and a dedicated center-channel array. This is a two-way with a matching horn-loaded tweeter flanked by a pair of racetrack mid-range drivers. A pair of 3-inch Cerametallic cone Atmos height drivers located on top are canted forward for a ceiling bounce. Inside, the Cinema 1200 packs 500 watts of power distributed among all the drivers.