Review: BIC Acoustech Cinema Series 5.1 Package

[rlogle]

Acoustech Cinema Series 5.1 Package.

Ten years ago I picked up an Aiwa bookshelf system. It was on clearnace at Wal-Mart and it had two front speakers, two rears and a center channel. I took it home, hooked it up and was instantly in love. For about 9 and 3/4 years I loved that system. Since that was my first surround system and it came as a complete system I tried several times to upgrade to another HTIB and I could never find anything that could put out the sound that that old Aiwa did. Well one day, someone mentioned that I may want to try putting together a system, piece by piece.
When I started out I went from receiver to receiver and speakers to speakers. I bought this sweet "little" TV, a Sony KDS-R50XBR1 and then knew I had to have something great for the sound system. I picked up a Yamaha RX-V750 and some BIC Acoustech Cinema Series Speakers.
The Yammy does a great job at driving the speaker system and I added some presence and side surround speakers to the package, this review, however, is for the speakers, and I hope it helps.

Before I make any purchase, be it new laundry detergent, new car or new speakers I research. I research. I research and then I go back and re-research. After all that I research my research. I originally went to a local sound and vision shop and tested some Klipsch Ref. series towers. I'd researched enough so that I felt comfortable laying out $480.00 each for the speakers. After using them for two weeks they just didn't give me what I'd hoped for. I ran across the Acoustech speakers by accident one day and then attempted to research them. I found very little information and one big, glowing review that was posted all over the net. I couldn't find many other reviews. For someone that is a research fanatic this was disheartening. For someone that is a reserach fanatic to send an unknown entity almost a thousand bucks to purchase a speaker system that was all but unknown to said researcher was sheer insanity, but I did it.
I'll not go into the problems I encountered with the purchase and shipping, for that information send me an email and we'll discuss it.
I'm no techno-savvy reviewer, I don't own an SPL Meter, heck I'm not even sure what an SPL Meter is. I only know what sounds good to me! The speakers arrived after I'd gone to work, my husband called to tell me that they'd arrived. Since all my grandparents had died numerous deaths, numerous times in numerous ways over the past several years I couldn't come up with a good excuse (read lie) to leave. I had to endure eleven more hours until I could get to my speakers.
Hook-up was simple, quick and painless (read: Husband did all the hook-up). With the grills on the front of these speakers they are beautiful, with them off they are stunning. Each HT75 tower is heavy and solidly built with beautiful black lacquered tops and bottoms. One of my friends refered to the copper colored woofers as hideous, I see them as beautiful and classic. The HT63 rears, HT65 Center and H100 powered sub are all as well built. All are beautiful and all have removable grills, which is how I keep them. The sub deserves more of an in depth review than I'll give it, I'll hit the high points: BASS, BASS and more BASS. On the rear of the sub you'll find three toggle switches. One is a power switch, it toggles to Off, Auto and On. The other is for Phase, either toggles to 0 or 180 degrees (I'm not sure about that so I leave it at 0). The third toggle's so that you can switch from Digital 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 receiver or Pro Logic receiver, I just now switched it from Pro Logic to the other and can see a dramatic improvment from the sub, and I didn't think it could get better. There's a volume knob and a crossover knob which I have set to 7 and 80hz, respectivly. There are speaker terminals (In case you don't have a sub jack on your receiver). The sub jack and a rear
port round out the rear. The HT63's have two mounting plates on the rears to make wall mounting easy and they work well.
My room is probably an acoustical nightmare. Hardwood floors, plaster walls and 10 ft ceilings are, I'd suspect, not ideal, acoustically speaking. The rear of my room, close to where I sit has a brick and plaster fireplace in the center of the wall and that's flanked by built-in's with two glass and wood doors on them. These glass doors shake and are very distracting during low rumbling bass. Behind the TV is a doorway. To hide the door I've hung a very large mirror behind the it, covering the door and doorway. The mirror rattles and shakes so that it also annoy's the p out of me, but for asthetics sake I'm leaving it now.
One of my favorite movies when testing new equipment is The Incredibles. This movie has fantastic lows and highs. I had no idea what I'd been missing. In scene 17 where Elastigirl in on the plane with her kids, the missles lock on and the action begins. I found myself, even after seeing this movie about 37 1/4 times, sitting on the edge of my seat. When I popped Saving Private Ryan in the 'ol Sony DVD player and selected the Omaha Beach scene I had no doubt that not only had I embarked on a new journey, I'd entered an entirely new realm of home theater nirvana. I ducked and rolled, jumped and ran, held my breath, p'd in my pants and almost cried as the Nazi fighting force held me and my men at bay. The water was everywhere, the bullets whizzing by my head, my comrades falling left and right. My jaw hurt for three days from clinching my teeth during that one scene. Master and Commander, which never ceases to amaze me, was stunning, breathtaking and house shattering.
Final Thoughts: These speakers are exceptional for the price point. These speakers are exceptional for double the price point. I refered to Master and Commander, through this speaker system, as house shattering, with this these speakers it is neighborhood shattering.

[JCD]

Great review!
Would these be the beauties you were talking about:


I do have some follow up Q's..

What was it about the Klipsch speakers you didn't like? And were there any other speakers that you auditioned?

I'm like you, research the issue until I can write a doctoral thesis on the subject. I think it took me a good 4-5 months of research and auditioning before I finally settled on the speakers I ended up with.

JCD

[nova]

Nice review!

One sugestion on your new sub. Try turning the x-over all the way up, and let the Yamaha handle the x-over duties. You'll probably like the results.

Second, learn a bit about SPL meters. They are reasonably priced (Radio Shack about $40 -$50 depending on model) and can make a marked improvment in your set-up/calibration over setting levels by ear.

Enjoy your new system

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Nice review, Randell. Always nice to see a female enthusiast participating in our little hobby!

Regards,
Wayne

[Sonnie]

Yeah... and apparently a pretty smart av enthusiast to boot. I wasn't thinking female when I saw the name Randell, although I thought it was an odd way to spell it. (Okay... I know I don't get out much). So when I started reading the review and read "husband" I was like .... this is a female writing this? Kudos!!

I can't get my wife to even begin to get interested in av stuff. She thinks I'm speaking Arabic.

Thanks for that review Randell. Very good indeed!

Those BIC's are horns huh? They don't look too much different from the Klipsch Reference line... and for you to like them over the Klipsch, speaks highly of them.

[rlogle]

LOL..... To all the female post's. I'm a dude..... Husband? Well not legally. Should have written (typed) partner, I guess. Probably wouldn't have mattered, most people don't believe I'm gay anyway, what with my love for tv's, movies, HT, cars, trucks, beer, Jimmy Buffet and my lack of decorating, cleanliness and enjoyment of the theatre.... Sorry for any confusion.... it's actually Randy. My real first name is Randell, I go by Randy and the username I wanted was rlogle. My complete name Randell Lamar Ogle, but I ended up with randell..... Oh well....

[Sonnie]

My sincere apologies ... you know, I kept saying to myself that the writing sure didn't come across to me as a female's writing and the thought that you might even be a male had entered my mind.

[rlogle]

Not a problem...Just goes to show ya what we say on here is not always taken as it was meant... Really funny...