BIC Owners Speak Up! (1 Viewer)

[MattD]

Link for the Lazy:

Review

 

[Ken.L]

Wayne and Matt,
I ordered the Tiny Mighty from partsexpress this morning, should arrive late Friday. I should have enought time to switch out the Jensen before the wife gets home. The Jensen 12 inch I'm currently using sounds fine for movies, it shakes the sofa, the floor and walls pretty good but if you get off the sofa a walk a few feet away the bass seems to disappear. Also, for music, it sounded a bit muddy. I hope the Tiny Mighty will be noticeably better.
You guys are bringing quite a bit of business to partsexpress!
Thanks Wayne and Matt for the recommendation.

 

[MattD]

Glad to help, just let us know what you think when you get it.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

I had a chance to look at these speakers today. I didn't have time to listen to them, though. However, the poor things were connected by some 24 gauge wire that looked pretty pathetic. I wonder who at Costco pulled out that cheapie wire to connect the speakers to? I wouldn't even use that stuff to wire my doorbell with.

However, I did examine the speakers quite well. They are made very well. The center channel speaker has a bit of weight to it. Granted, you have to be one to accept the grey/black grills and the black finish on the cabinets. But, they do look quite nice. On each speaker, is a very heavy duty set of binding posts - kind of like what you'd see on a nice set of B&W speakers. The sub was kind of tucked towards the back, so I didn't get a chance to look at the driver and cabinet for that item too well.

Finally, for those of you who live near the Costco warehouse just off West Ox road in the Price Club Plaza complex in Northern Virginia, the representative from this company will be on site to display the speakers. When I was checking them out, the assistant manager of the store walked over and mentioned that the rep. indicated that the speakers would typically sell for $2,500. Given the competition from Internet-only speaker builders, I'd put this set more in the league of a set that would typically sell for $1,500 or so on the Internet. Again, this is just my opinion from looking at the construction and details of what is being offered. Now, if they sound as good as they appear to be made, $699 is a steal for this set of speakers - which also includes the sub.

 

[Aaron Smithski]

I have (3) of the DV62CLR-S speakers with the Frias modified crossovers. They had plenty of output stock, but the tweets could make your ears bleed and the overall sound lacked fullness.

The crossover mod was a great improvement for $20! They were much better balanced -- more "complete" sounding!

I've since moved on, but still have them in storage.

Aaron

 

[MattD]

Aaron,

What center speaker are you using now and how does it compare?

Matt

 

[EricSal]

The "official" pricing I saw had the 6 speaker set (including subwoofer) listing for $1,200.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Eric,

Seems about right. Actually, I did hit Costco to hear the demo on Saturday.

Some impressions:

- Very, very nice sound. Again, this is quite hard to gauge because there there probably 1,000 shoppers in the store at the time and the warehouse is probably 90,000 square feet. But, I did like what I heard.

- The speakers were being driven by a Sony "DE" series receiver. Granted, the receiver wasn't too powerful as I suspect they just pulled it out of one of their "HTIB" systems - but, it did fine driving these speakers.

- The rep. did indicate CompUselessA was selling the speakers for $1,200 - but, I can not find a record of them at CompUselessA.

Would you consider doing a "mini review" of the speaker setup for the readers of this forum? Thanks.

 

[Leigh_M]

Eric,
I also would love to see a "mini review". I know several people hunting good deals on entry systems.

 

[Wayne Ernst]

Leigh, The Acoustech speakers would make one heck of an "entry level" speaker system. Most people who buy entry level systems tend to upgrade within a year or two. However, I have the feeling if you or a friend of yours were to purchase the Acoustech system, you'd be content for more than a few years to come.

 

[EricSal]

Sure. First off, if you haven't read the review of these in Audiophile Audition, then go read that first - they also have some nice pictures of the speakers. Matt D posted the link to the article a few posts back.

Previously I'd been using a pair of JBL ARC30 bookshelves as mains and HLS410 compact bookshelves as surrounds. I really like the ARC30s for music, but there is no matching center for them (the ARC "center" had a paper cone tweeter compared to the titanium dome in the ARC30s - not real close).

First off the Acoustechs are nice looking, and you can have them in any color as long it is black (apologies to Henry Ford ). The sides are a black ash vinyl veneer, and the tops and bottoms are a glossy hand larquered finish - very nice looking. The first thing I noticed was the weight of the center channel - at about 20 lbs I was hesitent to put it on top of the RPTV. But I've seen centers that weighed more so I help my breath put it up. Nice solid gold plated binding posts on all of the speakers.

All of the speakers have 6.5" graphite injected cone woofers (2 each in the mains and center, one plus a 5x7 passive radiator in the surrounds) plus a 6.5" mid/high horn with a Neodynium magnet. The mains are front ported. All of the speakers are crossed over at 2100Hz and rated at 96dB sensitivity. The towers are 40" tall, 9" wide and 8" deep. The surrounds are somewhat uniquely shaped - the passive radiator projects out one end, then 90" from that is the woofer. Then the horn is angled about 35 degrees off the woofer's axis. The surrounds have brackets on the back for wall mounting.

These are basically designed as a knock off of the Klipsch Reference series right down to the copper colored woofers, and people who dislike that Klipsch line as being overly _____ (fill in your cliche; "bright", "harsh", "intense") will probably feel the same way about these speakers. I for one have always liked the "Klipsch sound".

Compared to my JBLs the Acoustechs don't have the "crisp" high end, both lovers and haters of titanium domes no doubt know what I mean by that, and do have more of a midrange presence. Really a nice overall balanced sound in my opinion. Dynamic range: WOW. Seriously, they can go from being so quiet in a soft passage to VERY LOUD. It really caught me off guard a couple of times. The speakers are very well timbre matched so the soundstage is very consistent all the way around.

I'm still playing around with placement and settings on the sub to find that perfect balance between musicality and in-your-chest bass, but the sub seems quite capable.

All in all for the $700 Costco has these for I think they're a steal compared to the usual sats plus a sub available for the price. I really haven't listened to other speaker sets in the $1200 range that these will go for so I can't say how they stack up there, but I suspect they will hold their own. Somebody looking to get a system together for $1000 bucks or so could do a lot worse than a $300 receiver and a set of these.

 

[EricSal]

Obviously I meant 90 degrees :b

 

[Aaron Smithski]

Matt,

I'm using Tannoy dual concentric drivers right now in my home theater setup. I have Studio 800's for my left/right, and the center speaker is a single Studio 1000 speaker...a 10" woofer with the dome tweeter mounted concentrically.

They are a different sound -- I like the Tannoys for how well they do the midrange. The BIC does not give up anything in output! I was (and still am) impressed at how low they go and their sound quality when pushed loudly. They are a great speaker for the money...but I would highly recommend modding the crossovers.

Aaron

 

[MattD]

Thanks Aaron

 

[Nathan W.]

The only BICs I have are the DV52si (one pair) for surround duty. However, I just landed a pair of the no longer made DV604 bipolar tower speakers (with the black finish) off of Ebay and am waiting for their arrival. As I was already using Def Tech BP10s up front, I didn't need them. I just wanted them. You know how it is. I would like to do a side by side comparison of the two bipolar sets, but I don't know if I have the space to squeeze both sets in at the same time. 'Gonna try though.

I wonder if the highs on the DV604s will be exaggerated like some of BICs newer models? 'Have to wait and see I guess. They looked to be in good shape. Oh yeah, I paid $175.49 for the pair and this is including shipping.

 

[Rex.G]

My dad owned bics when I was a kid. I didnt even know they were still around untill about 6 months ago. Man am I glad I did some research. I picked up my bic speakers (with mods to mains and center) for about $280. I have a friend who bought a new set of infinity (towers, cntr, surr) just a month or 2 before me. at 3 times the cost his mains have better bottom end. IMO calrity and detail go to my bics hands down. I was very skeptical about buying speakers without hearing them but for the price i figured i couldn't afford not to take the chance.
Sorry for the rant. I love my bics, and If something should ever happen to them it'l most likley be bics again!!

Current set up:
Toshiba 40h80 Monitor
Toshiba SD3750 DVD
Pioneer VSX-D409 Receiver 5.1 DD & DTS
Bic Venturi DV52si Mains and surrounds
Bic Venturi DV53CLR Center
Sony SA-WM500 Sub

 

[Brad_See]

I just ordered my DV62CLRs center channel on Tuesday. If I really dig it then there will probably be 2 pairs of the DV62 bookshelf speakers to follow which I'll use to replace my current 5.1 setup fronts and rears. If these speakers hold up to all the incredibly positive things I've heard about them then this is going to be an unbelievable deal.

brad cook

 

[EricSal]

There's an interesting page at www slottweak.com/bic/bic.htm by a guy who had the center modified by Ed Frias, but in the end decided the "out of the box" sound was more to his liking. He's using three of the centers across the front, two of them stand mounted on their ends for the mains. Might be another option instead of the bookshelves for up front.

 

[Rex.G]

SO-
Does anyone have any photos of their bic setups?

 

[MattD]

Update: I purchased the dv62clr from Ed Frias. It is a huge improvement from my previous center and matches flawlessly with my 736 towers. I highly reccomend it.