Official BIC Venturi Thread - Page 3

I'm liking the idea of the DV62CLR-S as a LCR even more for my needs. Does anybody have them wall-mounted? Or do the rear ports need a few inches of breathing room?

I opted to put these on stands and not to wall mount them due to their large size and rear ports. But that doesn't mean you can't wallmount them. It would depend on what your highpass frequency is on the surround receiver. If you end up going with like 100Hz, then I wouldn't worry about it. However, if you are intending to push them with a 60Hz highpass, then you will want like 15-inches of clearance minimum from the wall. I've read people try to give 18 inches.

I will be using an 8-inch distance. I myself am going to be forced to use a 90Hz highpass due to Pioneer's stupid engineers who restricted all satellite speakers in the system to use the same highpass frequency. So, I won't be able to take advantage of the deeper bass people say these speakers have. At least not right away. Someday maybe I'll get a receiver with an auto-tune I like which gives me more options.

I didn't find out about the Pioneer xover limitation until after I ordered three DV62CLRS speakers. But they are still going to have plenty of quality in other areas of sound from what I read.

Mine are wall mounted with PinPoint AM-40 mounts:


My center is lying down, so I use a Samus component shelf:



My ports are really close to the wall. I have no problems.

tk

Tough break. Out of curiosity, which Pio are you using? Hope it works out.

Pioneer 9040/vsx-21 txh model. It's the best bang for buck IMO and I really like the resulting sound of the MCACC auto-tune that my brother's VSX-919ahk receiver produces. So, it's a done deal for me. Until I find an auto-tune I like better, the best for me right now is the Pioneer.

Gotcha. The 9040-level does have it's allure. Since this will be for the "man cave" (pool table/darts) I'm looking a little further down the Pio food chain, but the new models look really promising. I wasn't aware of that, but will look for that detail on the latest specs. The alterior motive is to find a happy medium of size/substance/budget (hench lurking in this thread) to reduce the WAF for future, more elaborate endeavors.

I'm going to keep these in mind but for now I don't want to wall mount every speaker, especially the mains because I live in a condo and can't be having direct vibration going from the speaker cabinet to the wall. I bet that would enhance any sound the neighbor hears. Better to use stands that transfer the vibration to the floor which is carpeted and likely to absorb all of the non-bass vibrations.

I have been looking for so long for an "official" Venturi thread, can't believe I found one I use 4 V-52s for surround in my system. It is a 5.1 system so I run 2 in series on each side of an Adcom GFA-545 amp, works fairly well. Nice little speakers.

Brad

Well,

I got the DV62CLRS's today and haven't been able to fire them up but I'll give my initial impressions on it.

The build quality is not fantastic but that was already something I half-expected. What I didn't expect was that it doesn't pass the "knock" test. Knocking on the side of the enclosure I can easily hear a hollow low midrange resonance (I would guess around 300Hz - 400Hz range).

In comparison, my Cambridge PSW1 sub and Optimus LX-5 II surrounds pass the "knock" test with flying colors. Absolutely ZERO resonance.

It wouldn't surprise me if these speakers sounded a bit "chesty" but this can be cured with some equalization. It's not a big deal unless the speakers really HONK when they get a loud passage.

I've liked speakers in the past that didn't pass the "knock" test, so it's not a huge deal, just letting everyone who is interested in reading about this speaker know that it's got the enclosure build quality of a $100 speaker. It's more like particle board than a cross-braced 1/2-inch MDF enclosure like some speakers a few hundred more. In defense, I've also heard some well-braced speakers that sounded lifeless and bland. So, just because it's cabinet isn't perfect doesn't mean it will sound bad. I will be testing out the sound sometime in the next week. I will allow for some "break-in" before making up my mind on the sound.

If I don't end up liking them, I may sell them to try and recoup some of the $300 I spent but for now I'm going to keep an open mind. The other contenders were the less sensitive SVS SBS series speakers. But the lack of efficiency (loudness) is what drove me to try the DV62CLRS's first. They will get loud on less power and there are tons of positive reviews on it as well as a high end speaker designer who sells modded versions of them, so at $100 each they seemed like a pretty cheap and safe risk.

The gear I'm using with these:

55" LG 55LH90 TV
Pioneer VSX-919AH receiver
BIC DV62CLRS speakers (24" speaker stands R/L, 10" stand center)
Optimus LX5-II surround speakers with dipole tweeter
Cambridge Soundworks PSW1 subwoofer
Magnavox blu-ray player


I ran my initial setup using Pioneer's MCACC auto-calibration. I then tested the calibration and how well it matched up the front channels to my rear speakers. The MCACC, while having done a "decent" job, really didn't match the sound up. I tested this by connecting a 2-channel music input to the analog 5.1 inputs on the back of the receiver and setting it to play the external analog inputs.

I set the analog cables to play the left-front and the right/rear speakers only in stereo from the CD player. The fronts and rears definitely didn't sound like a matched pair.

So, I went into the calibration menu and manually adjusted the EQ by hand, having to painstakingly go into and out of the menu to listen to my results one speaker at a time. First I set the rears to sound good on the music CD. Then I did the front-right/left DV62CLR's. Then I kept switching back and forth between the rear and front left channels until they both sounded virtually identical. Then I mirrored the results with the speakers on the other side.

Finally, I plugged in the right-front and left-rear speakers and played 2-channel music and EUREKA! They sounded like a virtually matched pair in stereo music. I swapped each channel on the front and matched it to each rear speaker and it was like listening to matched pairs all around.

Having FINALLY calibrated all the speakers over a 4-hour period, I popped in a test movie. Casino Royale.

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

My opinion? They sound really, really "soft". I don't mean they are low-volume/low-efficiency. I mean they sound very smooth and I had to boost 1KHz - 2.5KHz range heavily in my tuning to get the sound somewhere near normal. 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 on a graph would look pretty bad if the drastic EQ boost 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 make a nice 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. In reference to this speaker's "sound", in order to get my rear speakers to sound "matched", I had to set the EQ to +3db @ 8KHz and +6.5db at 16KHz. This is of course AFTER I already set the DV62CLRS to a -2.5db @ 8KHz and -4.5db @ 16KHz so that they would sound balanced on the music in my room.

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.

The imaging of the speaker 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 sound while "out of phase" wasn't "full" but rather "transparent/empty" and not in a positive way like the classic positive audiophile terminology. The "phantom center" produced in 2-channel mode was very good. It produced a solid monaural sound right in the middle of the speakers.

When the phase test was conducted with all my speakers from front to back, it was perfect imaging all around. Where the Joe Kane DVD indicated the sound should "seem" to eminate from, is exactly where I heard it. This is AFTER my intense calibration, so I must have really hit the nail on the head with my manual adjustments. I didn't mess up either phase or the balance of the sound between channels. In fact, they matched better after my calibration than speakers I've previously heard (from other systems at the store and in other houses) which are supposed to be a matching set and cost thousands of bucks. Granted these speakers all have polypropylene material on the cones and tweets, so it follows they had a chance from the get-go to matchup in character after some EQ work.

The Pioneer MCACC's EQ is amazing and if I can match up these "polypropylene" speakers to each other, then it's a probability other people can do something similar with this receiver. It's one powerful tool and does a great job of calibrating a speaker system. The manual controls make it so you can really fine tune things for YOUR ears and your own tastes. I'm absolutely sure the MCACC "auto tune" is good but it doesn't match speakers up very well. I was able to manually tune in a matching EQ curve.

Music sounds great. Particularly classical. The mix is smooth and I can hear all the instruments but something seems "dead". Something is missing that gives perfect speaker sound it's defining character. These speakers sound like, cotton candy. Fluff supreme. Overly smooth with nicely detailed highs. The dynamics are merely average. I think they may need more watts on them than what the VSX-919AH put on them.

I can tell you for certain these speakers are easy on the ears. Very easy to listen to and non-fatiguing. They lack "shout". What I mean by that is when a singer "belts" a loud dynamic passage they seem to not get loud enough. I will double check my receiver settings tonight to verify no dynamic range settings were accidentally on. So, if there is such a thing as "too sweet" (highs) and "too soft" (mids), these speakers seem to be that way when the highs are toned down to a more balanced sound. Remember, this is even AFTER I bumped DOWN the highs and balanced the sound, they are STILL sweet and soft.

This is a great speaker for softening up hard sounding vinyl records or helping out poor recordings but it doesn't seem to expose bad recordings and lacks some dynamic range. It's a nice speaker and I'm still evaluating them and they may need break-in time from what I've read, but so far they seem to be showing what I expected they may sound like.

I was originally concerned about the resonant cabinets but they don't have any resonance I can hear so far with music playback despite failing the knock test.

Okay,

Today I discovered the receiver was set with it's DRC to "auto". I shut it off and the dynamics improved greatly. I would score the dynamics of the total system 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.

I played 5.1 music tonight taking my old "Session at West 54th" off the shelf and giving it a spin. My manual channel balancing paid off when different instruments and singers were put on different channels. Whether the drums were front or rear of the stage it sounded indistinguishable to me. I'm extremely happy with this setup. My smile keeps grinning when I hear old favorites played back on it. I'm definitely looking into some 5.1 music DVDs now.

Okay,

After hearing these for a few days now for several hours, 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 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 sound '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.

Any chance to beg/borrow/steal a high powered amp to hear if more usable power gives more headroom? I suspect more power will sound good with these speakers. I went from a VSX-1015TX (very optimistic wattage specs) to a Marantz SR6003 and noticed an immediate improvement (clearer and more isolated sounds with much more details). I'm contemplating a 3-channel amp to upgrade my front soundstage and would love some input in this matter.

What do you have your LFE crossover set at?

Thanks for the review.

tk

The LFE is set to 80Hz I believe because I told the receiver that I'm using THX speakers. I couldn't get any lower because the Pioneer's calibration requires all speakers to have identical high passes. There is no way my rears will go any lower.

I you sure it is not just the limit of your speakers and system. I have the Pioneer that you had and I ended up buying the BIC Acoustech PL-89 5.1 w/pl-200 sub and 2 extra PL-66 for my rear channels in my 7.2 setup. In my 25'x22' den playing Donal Fagen "Nightfly" in DTS 7.2( never heard the rear centers play that much. Alot of info goes to the center rear.)it easily fills the room with the room at -25. I don't have a problem with headroom. Maybe it's the higher sensitivity and range of the acuostechs. The front and center are 98db and the center goes 23khz-30hz and the PL-89 go from 23khz -25hz and the side and rear surround go from 23khz to 40hz and are rated at 96db.

That's just it. I was perfectly happy with the 1015TX until I heard the SR6003. It's one of those "you never know until you've heard it" type of things. I didn't miss what I didn't have.

Having listened to my Marantz, I'm curious how much better it can sound with those speakers and what they would sound like if I added more power.

Basically, I'm trying to determine my bang for the buck in a separate amp purchase. I mean, if it will give me the same kind of improvement (going from 1015tx to sr6003), then I just might go for it.

tk

just popping in to say i'm completely pleased with my BIC purchase

for years i've been stuck with the same HTIB then last year i bought a new receiver because my HTIB's digital input died so i lost surround sound from my cable, blurays, and HD DVDs (i could still get it from the built in dvd player... also it only supported DTS from the built in player and not the digital input so blurays without a DD track were stuck with stereo even when it was working)

i didn't have the funds at the time to get new speakers so i used the HTIB speakers and picked up a cheap sub (the sub that came with the HTIB uses a proprietary connector and no way the HTIB speakers could give me any bass) then a couple months ago i used part of my tax refund to finally ditch the HTIB speakers

center: DV62CLR-S
front l/r: DV64
surround: DV62si

receiver: Marantz sr4002
sub: Polk PSW10

they arrived in the most whacked out order... the DV62si arrived first so i hooked them up to my computer room stereo and gave them a bit of break in time... also i might buy another pair later for said stereo because i really like them in that setup

the next to arrive was the center and one of the DV64s... the center was scheduled to arrive when it did but the DV64 was not supposed to arrive until the next day and to make it more annoying both DV64s left from the same place at the same time using the same shipper

when all was said and done and the stuff was hooked up i wasn't quite as impressed with the sound as i thought i would be it was great but something seemed a tad lacking... then later when i found the setup mic for my reciever and ran the auto setup i noticed the sub level went from -12db to -4db... oh what a difference it made

maybe next year i'll replace the sub... the PSW10 is a bit "meh" and the grill occasionally rattles when you get some strong bass going

Yeah,

The Venturi series has to be EQ'd on the highs to reduce them a bit in order to sound perfect. Most receivers have auto-tune and when they are done with the Venturi's it's generally perfecto sounding.

If properly modded they need no EQ. Plus EQs distort the sound a little.

EQ doesn't distort the sound anymore than a crossover does. It's simply a filter applied to the signal. All reproduction of sound contains forms of distortion. Sometimes to get more accurate sound, EQ, or distortion is NECESSARY or you get room distortions that are MUCH worse. All an EQ or other device is doing is correcting for variations. This speaker requires some EQ but it's core quality is good.

I had my DV62si's crossovers modded by Ed Frias and that helped mellow out the "brightness" nicely.

Just wanted to say i finally got all the things to start my HT(its a work in progress....a long, long, long process). So anyways right now I'm running a 3.1 setup; went with the dv62clr-s, two dv62si, and a v1020 sub.

It's all paired up to a SONY STR-dh810, which actually sounds awesome, but my only complaint is the crappy equalizer they have(only bass and treble). The no onscreen display doesn't bother me one bit(i can read it from where i sit in the room, and could probably read it from much further).

All I can say is...wow! For the money I spent, I would not have expected this much sound and quality from the speakers. Everything is crystal clear and the bass is there(have to keep it down though because for now the system is in an apartment. However, I did test it at my place and it was vibrating the deck outside). I don't feel the the dv62clr-s is too bright like many people have said, sounds awesome to me.

best purchase I've made in the HT department. Blows the Panasonic HTIB that I had before this out of the water, in quality and volume(kinda goes without saying though.)

thanks for all the information I've gathered from these forums you guys really helped with my purchase,

mike

hello my question is would the Bic d64 towers and the 62 lcr be a good upgrade from the jbl stadiums and the jbl venue center speaker.i will be using the Bics as my front and wondered if they would be better than my jbl fronts.

EQs are usually active, meaning they incorporate amplifiers. All that signal manipulation means distortion of some type.

But to reiterate, the DV62si does not require EQ to sound correct. It's simply that you have never heard one that was properly modified. I will post some frequency response curves soon so you can see the difference.

Here it is. This is a frequency response comparison of the BIC DV62si. I have three configurations. First is the way it comes stock from BIC. Next is with Ed Frias's mod. Last is my mod. This isn't the exact frequency response of the speaker because it also reflects the response of the microphone I used and my PC sound card. It is however a valid comparison between the three because the exact same conditions apply to all of them. The only thing that changed was the components of the crossover.

Anyone hear running DV64 or DV84s and happy with them?

I have a BIC DV-62CLRB for my center channel and love it.

i'm very happy with my DV64s

I just picked up a pair of Bic Venturi Realta speakers locally. And I must say I am very, very impressed with their sound and quality. I've purchased over 5 pairs of Bic speakers over the last few years and these are my favorites thus far.

How are the DV-64s for music when running in stereo mode? Do they have a full sound to them?

Again. DIGITAL crossovers are what are used in ALL receivers these days (even "if" you used analog EQ's, you'd be just fine). With these crossovers and digital filters, you can tune in PRECISE changes in sound. The types of changes that would take YEARS of tinkering with crossover designs in a speaker to achieve. The results are no different. A filter is a filter and digital filters that are used in modern receivers are so high resolution, the noise is inaudible.

You should have no problems buying the stock BIC speakers and running the auto-tune on all modern receivers to get a great result. I've managed to manually tune my Pioneer receiver to achieve fantastic balance and quality.

Also remember that you can tinker around with a crossover for ever and ever, but the response graph you get on your test WON'T be the response someone necessarily gets in their room. This is why it's a waste of money to buy a modded crossover and then putting it in a room where it may or may not sound great.

The ONLY reason I would EVER have a custom passive crossover modified would be "IF" I were going to run a very high powered amplifier and needed the speaker to maintain it's intended sound with low distortion. Mainly only needing the inductors swapped out for higher quality ones, as inductors tend to distort with high power. With my 35-watt per channel Pioneer receiver, I seriously doubt I would need a modified passive crossover.