Klipsch RP-502S Review
Klipsch RP 502S Review
GalleryTranscript0:00Hey, what's up youtube this is youth man. In this video, we're going to be doing an unboxing of clips his brand new reference premier RP 502 s surround sound speaker. Now before we get into the video, if you're at ...
Gallery
Transcript
0:00
Hey, what’s up youtube this is youth man. In this video, we’re going to be doing an unboxing of clips his brand new reference premier RP 502 s surround sound speaker. Now before we get into the video, if you’re at a home theater, audio and video, hit that subscribe button. Don’t forget to hit that bell notification so that you’ll be notified when the next video drops are guys. First of all, I want to say a big thanks to clips for sponsoring this series of videos on their new reference premier speaker system. Now I’ve been a huge fan of clips for probably about the past 12 years. I’ve owned a ton of clips gear over the years, mostly from the reference series, some from the Heritage Series and even the older CF series kg series. I’ve just owned a ton and I love the clip sound. And I love what the brand stands for. And so I’m really excited to partner with them to be able to bring you a bunch of videos on their new reference premiere system. So enough talking, let’s get to unboxing.
1:06
Alright, let’s go ahead and unbox these.
1:10
So these are the RP 502 s surrounds the AR, of course stands for reference. P is for Premier so you got reference Premier.
1:23
The 502 helps you to kind of identify what size drivers there’s two five and a quarter inch drivers. And then the S is for surround.
1:33
So at least the model number makes sense. So here we’ve got a couple things, we’ve got our owner’s manual.
1:41
And then inside here
- 7Review earns Amazon affiliate commissions from qualifying purchases.
1:46
are some little rubber feet. We’ll put those on the bottom. Actually in my case we’re gonna be mounted on to the wall, they won’t be like sitting on some stands. So we won’t actually even need the someone put these off to the side
2:04
take the styrofoam off the top
2:12
I already filled the metal grille or the magnetic grilles. Try not to
2:20
grab underneath it
2:25
What is the easiest way to report back here? Okay, so one easy way would be if you grabbed the back of it you can feel the
2:37
the cup basic word and your speaker terminals are and you can lift them out there. Oh, one thing I forgot to show. Let me show this first.
2:46
One thing thanks so much to UPS
2:50
or FedEx. I don’t remember who was but they put a big Oh no, it was neither one of those. This was due to freight. So this actually you can see the forklift dug all the way through there. So we’re gonna make sure the speakers aren’t damaged.
3:04
And it looks like from in here, it would be this one over here. We’ll take a look at them. I think they’re okay.
3:11
But just wanted to throw that out there.
3:15
So even freight can be damaged during shipping.
3:22
Alright, let’s take a look at these
3:40
these are actually a lot smaller than I thought.
3:43
I’ll actually pull down one of my Rs 62 version twos. Just a little bit, we’ll compare them
3:51
what I love about the new grilles on the reference Premier, looks like they’re all going to be magnetic, which is really cool.
4:01
I’m really glad that clip started doing that.
4:06
So we’re just gonna lay the grills off to the side for now
4:15
let’s take a look here
4:21
that’s a cool looking design. You guys got to see this man. All the tops are beveled
4:27
check that out
4:33
the woodgrain is even different than I expected. Very cool. All right. So let’s take a closer look. We’ll talk about some specs.
5:47
Up top you can see it has dual one inch titanium vintage tweeters with the Tractrix Horn. Now the Tractrix Horn actually is made of rubber. So that helps with the high frequencies, any resonance inside the actual horn itself. So it eliminates that and the vintage tweeter helps to smooth out the top end. Below that we see the dual five and a quarter inch copper cerametallic woofers that Klipsch is known for and around the tweeter as well as the woofer you can see the gold trim ring. The front logo also has the same Saira metallic copper look to it, so it matches the speakers quite nicely. The speaker is designed to be a wide dispersion speaker, which basically means that sound is going to spread out around the room as opposed to being sent directly to your ears. Now this allows for a more enveloping sound versus a direct radiating speaker. Each speaker is equipped with the magnetic grilles and what’s nice is you do not see the magnets on the inside of the speaker behind the laminate.
6:54
Now if we take a look at the top, one thing that I’m noticing that is really cool is there’s a lot of design on the speaker on the original Rs, five twos and the RS six twos, they were very triangular in shape. Even the new RS six twos and the RS five twos are still triangular in shape, they just change the speaker grille to be more rounded, but the 502 s speakers have a unique style to them because not only is it triangular in shape, but there’s also an extra edge back here on the rear sides. And then also if you look up at the top, you can see how it’s beveled on all the sides as well. Now if we look on the backside of the speaker, you can see we’ve got a flush mounted speaker terminal as well as a keyhole up at the top. Now what the keyhole allows you to do is easily mount the speaker using just a single screw that you can use like a drywall anchor, which I’ll show you when I pull off my Rs 62 version two surrounds. Now down at the very bottom you can see there’s a threaded insert. So if you’ve got the right mount and the right size thread then you can actually screw these speakers in and secure them with the threaded inserts as well. The RP 502 s speakers measure 13.85 inches tall by 11.88 inches wide by 7.49 inches deep.
8:21
Each speaker has a sensitivity rating of 95 decibels. It can handle 100 Watts continuous up to 400 watts peak and they weigh 16 pounds.
8:32
The RP 502 s come in three different finishes. You can get them either an ebony vinyl, walnut, vinyl or piano gloss. If you get the ebony or the walnut models, they actually have a satin painted top cap with a scratch resistance finish. Alright so as you can see over here I’ve got one of my side surrounds these are the clips Rs 62 version twos. So these are the previous models
9:02
surround sound. These are discontinued so you can see these have a little bit different grille so it’s magnetic but it’s one big rounded grille
9:12
and then they have the inverted woofer and tweeter on one side. These are plastic so wow you can see on dusty there
9:22
but these are plastic Tractrix horns versus the rubber horns in the new ones. So behind the speaker I’ve just got it mounted with a heavy duty drywall anchor and then a screw in so all you do to remove this is lift up
9:39
and pull out
9:41
and then we’ve just got our speaker wire back here
9:44
to unscrew those
9:53
just like that. Let’s carry this over there. And let’s kind of compare the size between the RS 60 twos to the new
10:00
RP 502 S.
10:04
Alright, so let’s put the RS six TOS right next to the RS 502 S.
10:13
For comparison, let’s take a closer look here.
10:18
So you can see some of the design differences, you got the gold trim rings on the new ones
10:30
not definitely like the new wood finish that has a really classy look to it versus the plastic kind of bevel here. This right here is just a plain laminate. So there’s no design or style to it. And of course it gets covered up by the grills.
10:52
Those grills just snap on like that.
10:55
So you can kind of see the differences. But when we look at the overall
11:00
size comparison now again, this is a five and a quarter compared to a six and a half inch drivers. That’s a pretty significant size difference. So if you’ve got not a whole lot of space on your walls,
11:16
these might be a lot better fit.
11:18
Now let’s go ahead and mount and secure the 502 s to the wall. Now it’s pretty simple mounting these, like I said if you’ve already got
11:29
like in my case, you’ve already got a
11:33
screw that’s into a drywall anchor.
11:38
You see here I just fed the speaker wire down my drywall that’s a royal pain, but I wanted a really clean look.
11:48
Now, with the surrounds like this, you’re not going to be able to use like banana plugs on the back because they’re going to hit your wall. Now the other thing I want to do, I want to go ahead and install those rubber feet so that when we put it up against the wall, we don’t have it bouncing up against that or vibrating. Alright, so before we mount the speaker, remember are little rubber feet.
12:10
So we’re gonna take those and they just peel off
12:16
like this. We’re just gonna put one on each corner.
12:21
That’s gonna keep the speaker from vibrating.
12:25
During bass frequencies, it’s gonna prevent the speaker from getting scratched up against your wall and prevent the speaker from scratching your wall.
12:36
Put those like that
12:39
you get one more
12:43
just like that. Just give it a nice press.
12:48
Now one thing you’re not going to be able to do is because
12:53
this is meant to be flat up against your wall, it’s really difficult to use banana plugs on this so you’re going to just need to use bare wire. I love banana plugs but this is just not one of those
13:05
situations where banana plugs is a good fit.
13:09
We’re just gonna feed the bare wire up through the bottom or the top
13:14
just like that.
13:17
And we’re gonna tighten it down
13:46
just tying it down really nice and tight.
13:51
We’re gonna take this I’m gonna feed my wire back up to the wall
13:57
like that.
14:00
Then you’re just gonna lie the keyhole up
14:10
just like that
14:21
we’ll make sure that was secure. And there we go. Now the only thing left to do is add our speaker grilles
14:29
just like that
14:34
there we go.
14:35
Alright guys, whether you have a look at clips is brand new reference premiere, RP. 502 s surround sound wide dispersion Speaker Now my initial impressions of just the looks and cosmetics. I definitely like the small form factor. I think that’s going to fit in a lot more people’s living room and then their situation then say the RS 62 version two. Those are massive.
15:00
But I have a dedicated theater room so I can kind of do whatever I want in this room, but not everybody has that ability. And so I think these are going to be nice and compact, and provide just a really stylish look for even an average everyday living room setup. Now I have owned several surround sound speakers from clips, I started out with the RS 30 fives, then I upgraded to the RS 50 twos, then I upgraded to the RS 60 twos. And then I found a pair of Rs 62 version twos, which actually I have two pair of them now that I’m using in my theater room. Now one thing I do want to say is comparing the RS 50 twos to the RS 60 twos wasn’t a huge difference. They sounded bigger, the RS 60 twos they sounded a little bit bigger, had a little bit more detail, but it definitely wasn’t night and day difference. I use the RS 50 twos which have the same size the five and a quarter inch dual woofers. I use that with my RF 80 threes with the RC 64 center channel. Now these towers are basically the equivalent of the RF seven series and the RS 50 two’s had no problem keeping up with the RF 80 threes and the RC 64. So even if you have a large front soundstage, I believe five and a quarter should do an adequate job for the surround sound channels. Now of course, I won’t know exactly how the sound until we get those hooked up. But I’ll be saving that for future videos. So make sure that you’re subscribed to the channel. We’ve got a lot more to unbox in the reference premier series. And so I hope you stay tuned for that the RP 502 s retail for 799 A pair and I’ll link those down in the description if you’re interested in purchasing a set. Well guys that’s gonna wrap up this video hope you enjoyed it if you did smash that like button, and as always you guys be blessed. And we’ll catch you in the next video.
Founded in July 2014, 7Review is a free audio resource for beginners, and we're dedicated to helping you create the ultimate movie-watching experience right at home. We pull insights from top audio magazines and trusted industry sources to bring you well-researched, reliable reviews and tips. Whether you're a home cinema pro or just starting out, we aim to give you the info you need to make the best choices for your setup.
