Klipsch R-50PM Review

What it is, in one paragraph

The R-50PM is a pair of powered bookshelf speakers: the amplification is inside the cabinets, so there is no receiver or integrated amplifier to buy. What separates it from the rest of that class, and the reason it leads our Bluetooth speaker picks, is one line on Klipsch’s own spec sheet: the analog input is listed as “Phono/Line analog (with switch and ground screw terminal)”. A turntable with no preamp of its own plugs into it directly, and the earth wire that comes out of that turntable has a post to land on.

Everything else is a conventional, well-specified powered monitor. Klipsch publishes a 1-inch aluminum LTS tweeter on a 90 x 90 square Tractrix horn, a single 5.25-inch spun-copper woofer, a passive crossover at 1,663 Hz, a bass-reflex cabinet with a rear-firing port, and 14 x 7 x 10.8 inches at 24.8 lb for the pair. We have not heard this pair; everything below is read from the maker’s published specification sheet and the owner’s manual, both cited in Sources.

The phono input is the whole argument

A phono cartridge puts out a few millivolts and the signal carries the RIAA curve, so it needs equalization and a large amount of gain before anything else can use it. That job happens in a phono preamp, and the question for any powered speaker is simply whether one is inside. Most of the class says no, which means a separate box on the shelf and two more cables.

The R-50PM says yes, and then goes one step further than its rivals. Having a phono input is necessary; having somewhere to land the ground wire is what makes it usable. An ungrounded turntable hums, and the hum is loudest exactly where the signal is smallest — our hum and grounding guide works through why. Klipsch lists the ground screw terminal as its own numbered item in the rear-panel legend, and the manual carries a contents entry headed CONNECTIONS - TURNTABLE. That is a maker telling you, in its own documentation, that a record player is a first-class source for this product.

One rule comes with it. If your turntable has a built-in phono stage — most decks under about $400 do — set the speakers to LINE, not PHONO. Two phono stages in series produce a distorted, far-too-loud mess, and it is the single most common wiring mistake in vinyl. Our phono vs line guide covers the switch, and do I need a phono preamp settles which box in your chain should be doing the work.

What the power figures mean

Klipsch publishes 120 W total system power (240 W peak) and 60 W per channel continuous at under 1% THD, with a maximum output of 104 dB. The second figure is the useful one: continuous power at a stated distortion level is a real engineering number, where “peak” is a marketing one. Sixty watts a side into a cabinet this size is more than a normal room asks for, and the 104 dB maximum is the honest ceiling.

The published frequency response is 55 Hz to 20 kHz, with a separate dynamic bass extension figure of 44 Hz. Those are two different claims and we quote both rather than merging them: the first is the response, the second is what the processing reaches for at volume. For records, 55 Hz is below the fundamental of almost everything you will play; the exception is organ and synth-heavy material, which is what the single RCA subwoofer output is there for.

The cabinet layout, which nobody mentions

This is the practical detail that catches people out, and it is in the manual rather than the marketing. The pair is active-and-passive, not a matched pair of active speakers: the diagram labels the right cabinet “RIGHT SPEAKER (ACTIVE)”. All the electronics, every input and the mains lead are on that one box, and a run of speaker wire carries the left channel across to the passive cabinet.

Two consequences. First, the mains socket has to be near the right-hand speaker, not near the turntable. Second, the supplied wire has to reach the left speaker — Klipsch supplies four meters, which is generous for a normal shelf and tight for speakers either side of a wide television. Measure that run before you buy, because it dictates your whole layout. If you are putting them on stands, our speaker stand picks cover height and cable routing, and keeping the speakers off the turntable’s furniture matters more here than usual: a 24.8 lb pair driven hard next to a deck is the classic recipe for acoustic feedback.

What Klipsch does not publish

Two rows are missing from the spec sheet and we record them as missing rather than filling them in: sensitivity and nominal impedance. For a powered speaker that is normal — both figures describe how a passive speaker behaves when an external amplifier drives it, and here the amplifier is already matched to the drivers. The consequence is that you cannot line the R-50PM up against a passive pair on the numbers that usually decide those comparisons. Our bookshelf speaker picks rank the passive field on exactly those two figures, which is the clearest way to see the difference in how the two classes are sold.

The other absences are features rather than figures. Bluetooth here is input only, so the speakers receive from a phone and cannot send anywhere. There is no network streaming — no Wi-Fi, no AirPlay, no HDMI-ARC — which is the main thing The Fives II adds higher up the range. And the digital inputs that are here, USB and optical, are for a computer and a television rather than for a turntable.

Where it sits in the Klipsch range

Read down the first row and the shape of the range is clear: the phono input is not a premium feature here, it is the family trait. What the money buys is cabinet size, continuous power and, at the top, the television and streaming connectivity. The full range is on our Klipsch for vinyl page, which reads every current model for the same question.

Setting it up with a turntable

Four steps, in order. Put the active (right) cabinet where the mains socket is and run the supplied wire to the left one. Run the turntable’s RCA cables to the phono inputs, and its ground wire to the ground screw — tightened onto bare metal, not resting against it. Set the rear switch to PHONO if your deck has no preamp, or to LINE if it does. Then start the volume low: a phono stage into a 60 W amplifier is a lot of gain, and the first record is not the moment to find that out.

If the result hums, work through the hum guide rather than guessing — with a ground screw present, an unconnected earth wire is the first thing to check and the easiest to fix. If the sound is thin and quiet, the switch is on LINE with a deck that has no preamp. If it is distorted and far too loud, there are two phono stages in the chain.

Who should buy it

Buy the R-50PM if you want a complete system in two boxes and your turntable has no phono stage, or if you want the option of using a better deck later without buying more electronics. It is the shortest honest path from a record player to sound in a normal-sized room, and the ground screw is the detail that makes it work with the decks that most need it — the preamp-less Fluance RT82, RT85 and the Pro-Ject Debut range, all of which we cover on our under $500 picks.

Buy something else if your deck already has a switchable preamp and you were always going to add an amplifier — in which case passive speakers plus an integrated amp gives you more speaker per dollar, and our amplifier picks and powered vs passive guide lay out that trade. Buy the R-40PM instead if the room is a desk or a bedroom, and The Fives II if the same speakers have to serve a television over HDMI.