This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the BIC FH6-LCR home theater speaker. It was kindly purchased new by a member and drop shipped to me. It costs US $150.
Speaker is the usual center configuration of "MTM" (dual woofers with tweeter in the middle) which we know will create a narrow sweet spot -- opposite of what you want in most home theater applications. Dual woofers look nice (marketing) and provide excellent power handling which we do want.
What we don't want is shoddy construction but that is precisely what we had. Upon unboxing I saw one woofer screw ready to fall out:
Tried to tighten but could not full as the thread was stripped. Tested the rest of the screws and none would tighten in either woofer! Clearly the front baffle is thin and screws were overtightened causing none of them to really hold. I expect low quality from "BIC" brand but this is lower than that low bar.
Edit: forgot to post the back panel:
Nice to see various mounting hardware.
BIC FH6-LCR Measurements
As usual we start with our anechoic frequency response measurements created by Klippel NFS measurement gear:
Ouch! There seems to be no attempt to create a flat on-axis response or control resonances. On the plus side sensitivity is quite high so we should be able to correct these to some extent with equalization. Note that these measurements are in horizontal configuration unless stated otherwise.
Due to beaming of the dual woofers, we actually get a self correcting mechanism to some extent when we look off-axis:
Indeed, we almost get a flat predicted in-room response!
We know though that this will sound bright perceptually.
Due to lack of port, the near-field (non-anechoic) response is better than some other speakers, sans the uneven tweeter response:
Impedance dips very low but fortunately it is at higher frequencies where the demand on the amplifier is lower:
We can see the problem with MTM configuration clearly in our horizontal directivity measurements:
You can rotate the speaker and use it vertically and then these vertical measurements become horizontal:
Here, the tweeter is beaming so no panacea.
I was pleasantly surprised by the low distortion at 86 dBSPL:
Finally, here are the waterfall and step responses:
BIC FH6-LCR Listening Tests
The "showroom sound" quickly got me on the first random track that was in my listening test queue. The highs can bring the experience of hyper resolution and openness. Predictably, after a minute of listening and switching to my standard reference tracks and I wanted to stop the music: it was that bright. So I brought out the EQ tool and applied a few quick corrections:
Now the sound was more balanced and quite good at times! I think the low distortion contributed to clarity I was hearing (or maybe it was left over showroom sound
). Speaker refused to play anything in sub-bass region which was good actually. Many speakers try to play and what comes out is very distorted. Since home theater applications have subwoofers anyway, this is not a bad design.
Beaming of the mid-woofers was quite apparent with large tonality change as you shifted left and right at close distances to the speaker.
Conclusions
The cost of this center speaker is quite low. And you do pay for that with shoddy construction. Assuming you remedy that (put toothpicks in each home and tighten the screws in that), what you wind up with is an ultra bright speaker if listened to on-axis. And completely different response off-axis. EQ helps with the former but not the latter. Assuming you can put up with that, you have a decent sounding speaker.
I am not going to recommend the BIC FH6-LCR speaker due to poor construction and out of box tonality.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Speaker is the usual center configuration of "MTM" (dual woofers with tweeter in the middle) which we know will create a narrow sweet spot -- opposite of what you want in most home theater applications. Dual woofers look nice (marketing) and provide excellent power handling which we do want.
What we don't want is shoddy construction but that is precisely what we had. Upon unboxing I saw one woofer screw ready to fall out:
Tried to tighten but could not full as the thread was stripped. Tested the rest of the screws and none would tighten in either woofer! Clearly the front baffle is thin and screws were overtightened causing none of them to really hold. I expect low quality from "BIC" brand but this is lower than that low bar.
Edit: forgot to post the back panel:
Nice to see various mounting hardware.
BIC FH6-LCR Measurements
As usual we start with our anechoic frequency response measurements created by Klippel NFS measurement gear:
Ouch! There seems to be no attempt to create a flat on-axis response or control resonances. On the plus side sensitivity is quite high so we should be able to correct these to some extent with equalization. Note that these measurements are in horizontal configuration unless stated otherwise.
Due to beaming of the dual woofers, we actually get a self correcting mechanism to some extent when we look off-axis:
Indeed, we almost get a flat predicted in-room response!
We know though that this will sound bright perceptually.
Due to lack of port, the near-field (non-anechoic) response is better than some other speakers, sans the uneven tweeter response:
Impedance dips very low but fortunately it is at higher frequencies where the demand on the amplifier is lower:
We can see the problem with MTM configuration clearly in our horizontal directivity measurements:
You can rotate the speaker and use it vertically and then these vertical measurements become horizontal:
Here, the tweeter is beaming so no panacea.
I was pleasantly surprised by the low distortion at 86 dBSPL:
Finally, here are the waterfall and step responses:
BIC FH6-LCR Listening Tests
The "showroom sound" quickly got me on the first random track that was in my listening test queue. The highs can bring the experience of hyper resolution and openness. Predictably, after a minute of listening and switching to my standard reference tracks and I wanted to stop the music: it was that bright. So I brought out the EQ tool and applied a few quick corrections:
Now the sound was more balanced and quite good at times! I think the low distortion contributed to clarity I was hearing (or maybe it was left over showroom sound
). Speaker refused to play anything in sub-bass region which was good actually. Many speakers try to play and what comes out is very distorted. Since home theater applications have subwoofers anyway, this is not a bad design.Beaming of the mid-woofers was quite apparent with large tonality change as you shifted left and right at close distances to the speaker.
Conclusions
The cost of this center speaker is quite low. And you do pay for that with shoddy construction. Assuming you remedy that (put toothpicks in each home and tighten the screws in that), what you wind up with is an ultra bright speaker if listened to on-axis. And completely different response off-axis. EQ helps with the former but not the latter. Assuming you can put up with that, you have a decent sounding speaker.
I am not going to recommend the BIC FH6-LCR speaker due to poor construction and out of box tonality.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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