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Klein + Hummel have been making speakers in Germany for about 60 years. They have a solid reputation for making high quality products and the subject of this review supports and continues to bolster that reputation.
I've had some opportunities over the past few years to work in rooms that had excellent monitors (Genelec 1032AM, Tannoy Eclipse, Dynaudio AIR 15, and so on) but this is my first experience with the Klein + Hummel product line. When I've worked with really great monitors, it's always been on the clock so I've never had the time to fool around using a signal generator or pulling out a huge variety of program material to test them with. The reality is that speakers in this price range have always been a bit beyond my budget, so the chance to get to own them for even a super short time makes me feel pretty lucky.
The O 300 D is a relatively compact 3-way studio monitor - only 10" x 15" x 11.5" and weighing 32 pounds. The 8" polypropylene woofer takes up most of the real estate on the face with a 3" fabric dome midrange speaker and a 1" fabric dome titanium tweeter nestled into the remaining space. The red K + H logo badge lights up when the main power is switched on and acts as an overload light and flashes with any clipping.
Splitting the frequency range across three drivers makes less work for each one thereby freeing each one to only do what it is best at. The low-end driver has no reason to generate mids, for example, so there will be less resonances,...