Youth movement

Paul Klipsch was a genius,” Roy Delgado told me recently, with the sound of genuine amazement in his voice. “Me, I’m just a tinkerer.”

- BY ALEX HALBERSTADT

I’ve spoken to Delgado, Klipsch’s chief audio engineer, a handful of times over the past few years and find him affable, plainspoken, and almost absurdly humble. His LinkedIn page describes him simply as “engineer at Klipsch.” His bio on the Klipsch Museum website lists his interests as “a closer relationship with God [and] the pursuit of the ever-elusive largemouth bass.” To be sure, Delgado holds several patents, has an intimidating grasp of loudspeaker design, and is anything but a tinkerer. But it was still weird to see him—dressed in the T-shirt, light jeans, and work boots of an Arkansas fishing enthusiast—at the Nine Orchard Hotel during last year’s New York Fashion Week.

We were there for the launch of a loud-speaker, a collaboration between the Little Rock–based Klipsch Group and Ojas, the nom de solder of artist and designer Devon Turnbull. The Nine Orchard, housed in a pristine Neo-Renaissance bank building on the Lower East Side, is more upscale and stylish than the kind of venues that usually host audio events. The robin’s-egg-blue room on the second floor was packed way beyond capacity, and in the hallway outside, a group of latecomers hoping to catch a glimpse of the action was growing into a small crowd. Sitting beside Delgado, Turnbull was dressed in an Ojas hat and a pair of Crocs by Salehe Bembury, a young American who designs footwear for Ver- sace. A Comme des Garçons tag—or was it a belt?—poked out from under an oversized T-shirt. The costume made Turnbull look like a skateboarder who’s got a side hustle writing code at Google.