BIC America DV62CLR-S

Great bang for buck!

55" LG 55LH90 TV
Pioneer VSX-919AH receiver
BIC DV62CLRS speakers (all standing vertically on 24" speaker stands R/L, 10" stand center)
Optimus LX5-II surround speakers with dipole tweeter
Cambridge Soundworks PSW1 subwoofer
LG BD-570 Blue-Ray player

I evaluated the speakers with both music and with one movie so far.

Calibration is a MUST. I arranged these speakers as a vertically mounted Left/Center/Right array. They sound very smooth and I had to boost 1KHz - 2.5KHz range heavily in my tuning to get the sound somewhere near normal. (My receiver's auto-tune calibration bears this out.) I think the issue could be that the woofer's xover is at 3.5KHz and that means the tweeter isn't playing much below 3KHz. I bet the off-axis response (from 1.5KHz to 2.8KHz typical of 6.5-inch woofers) on a graph would look pretty bad if the drastic EQ boost at 2.5KHz is any indication here. I bet a small soft dome midrange could have been added to this speaker to handle 1.5KHz to 3.5KHz. This would have likely made a magnificent high-end 3-way system.

The tweeter sounds exceptionally airy and there is an almost etched detail around everything in the mix. With these speakers, if you want to focus on any particular sound in the mix, you should be able to hear it. In fact "audible depth of mix" is one of my major examination inquiries when listening to a speaker. This speaker gives a 10 out of 10 in that category.

I would score the dynamics of the speaker an 8 - 8.5 out of 10, 10 being the score for massive towers with big hits on drums which this system just doesn't have the range for either the speakers or the wattage. But it's dynamics are plenty for my little living room. This speaker should be able to output plenty of strong sound with an 80Hz crossover and true 125-watt amplifier. I used an amplifier with true 35-watts per channel and that was PLENTY to achieve a sound just as loud as anything I've heard at a movie theater.

So, it's not a stretch to label the DV62CLRS as a "bright" speaker. That may explain their rather "airy" sound. However, it's a very "smooth" brightness to the tweeter, which is probably why nobody complains about them being harsh.

When being used as a vertical standing right/left speaker, the imaging is a bit odd. I ran through the standard 2-channel phase test and everything sounded like it should however, the "out of phase" ("lost in the room" part of the 2-channel test on Joe Kane's HDTV calibration blu ray) gave a kind of strange sound for it's "out of phase" test. The "out of phase" character wasn't "full" but rather "empty". The "phantom center" produced in 2-channel mode was very good. It produced a solid monaural sound right in the middle of the speakers. I give the imaging of these speakers a 6 out of 10 when used as "stereo" left/right, BUT they score a solid 8.5 out of 10 when used as a front left/center/right in a surround setup because their "point source" type imaging is exactly what is desired in home theater as front channel speakers.

After hearing these for a few days now for several hours at a time, they seem to be sounding better and better, so this "break in" period people describe about these speakers seems to be on the mark. When I first fired them up they sounded great but over 10 hours of use later and they sound 10% or so better to me. I started to really hear an improvement yesterday while pushing the system with my Blues Brothers DVD. The musical sound of these is so great.

I've auditioned quite a few speakers and my living room isn't the greatest acoustic environment so, I'm pretty shocked more audiophiles haven't been using these as vertical standing MTM speakers with 24" stands. They do seem to require a bit of tweeter taming with an EQ, so that's probably why the Ed Frias crossover is so liked by people who listen to these speakers for music only. The highs need to be reduced a bit for these to really sound silky and balanced. Otherwise it is not balanced and sounds bright, although still smooth and non-fatiguing. It's one of the few "bright" speakers that don't irritate the listener.

The people who find this speaker sounds 'great' right out of the box with no adjustment I bet have larger rooms where greater high frequency output is sometimes needed and the already strong high frequency output is just matching well to the larger room.

Bottom line. You WILL need a receiver with a built-in auto-tune and they will sound about $1,000 more expensive than their price. This is likely because the drivers sound VERY nice. I recommend that people only use these "out of the box" in a large room and in smaller rooms will want to apply an equalizer.

These are not small speakers. This is a large center channel and won't fit all cabinets/furniture you might mount it in. It's a traditional looking center channel and accents darker furniture well.

This is a great speaker, a tremendous value and equal to speakers 3 to 4 times it's price. Easily comparable to more expensive brands such as Emotiva, HSU, SVS, Ascend, Polk and Infinity.