RB42-C Reference 2-Way Passive Center Channel Speaker, Each, Walnut

Objectively, these are absolutely amazing speakers for the price. First off: as these are budget speakers, It seems fitting to write this review based on my experience with them in a budget system. I ordered two of these center channel speakers and am using them in a stereo setup. I am using my computer's DAC and feeding it to an SMSL SA-50 stereo amplifier to power these speakers. These are far more efficient than the RB42's. The RB42's are rated at 83dB; these speakers, the RB42-C's, are 86dB. For reference, the RB42's would need twice as much power to play at the same volume as these. That makes far easier to run, and far less anemic at the low end with amplifiers below the 75-or-so watt output per channel. Instrumentals are more transparent than most speakers in this price range and lower bass is very punchy, with no muddiness in the subbass range. Instrumentals just sound cleannn at any volume. Vocals are also open and unmuddied; I'd say veering on transparent. At least, more transparent than any speaker in this price range that you don't have to build yourself. Vocals are, however, a tiny bit more recessed than instrumentals. That's not a bad thing, and Micca even describes these speakers as having that characteristic; they're warm speakers, so of course they're going to sound like that. That being said, my bias leads to me preferring more sibilant speakers. I really like accentuation on the S's and T's of singers' voices, and i prefer forward sounding speakers because they're really good at just tearing recordings apart and showing me how good the recording quality is. If you want piercing vocals, these may not be for you. Now, these are definitely speakers for small to medium sized rooms. My bedroom is about 14x14ft, which i consider to be smaller side of medium sized rooms. Around 20x20ft is where you really start getting to large sized rooms, which these speakers might have a hard time filling. Before you continue reading: note that the below info only applies to you if you want to put these in a larger room than like 18 or 20 square feet. In my room - which is smaller than that - this isn't an issue and these sound great. If you are looking for speakers for a room the size of mine at this price point, then just buy these speakers because holy crap they're good. These speakers are not good for large rooms because they have the MOST egregious port chuff at loud volumes I've ever heard in my life. Let's set the stage. I got one of my two speakers a few hours before the other one. I immediately set up this single speaker in my living room and played it without a subwoofer. Pushing about 20-30 watts into it, I genuinely thought it was broken. At first, I thought one of the two woofers was already getting coil rub. The second speaker arrived and it made the same noise! Statistics say the likeliness of two DOA speakers is unlikely, so I investigated further. Turns out, the ports on these speakers are just extremely loud at living-room-volumes and boy do they RUIN music and movies with any signal below the midrange, so you better have a crossover set at 80 hertz or so and have everything below that sent to a sub. Overall: These are frickin' amazing speakers. Especially at this price point. I've heard speakers for $300 and $400 range that just can't compete in the RB42-C's capacity for transparency. Vocals and instrumentals are clean. They're easy to listen to and they make me want to listen to my collection again to hear how beautiful pianos and female vocals are. They're worth $200 for a pair.

With good reviews on their bookshelves my sister was looking for a two channel set up in a living room, seeing how these can output more I recommended these. When she got them we hooked them up and started playing Music, and you could tell these Were cut from a different cloth. I was so impressed I ordered a pair for my bedroom setup. So I’ve had them for a few days and they are impressive. Hooking them up to the Yamaha R-S700 The sound was punchy while being detailed but not too revealing. These strike a good balance of being forgiving but also giving detail on the top end. Wanting to see how the Miccas compared I brought them into my living room to do a bake off with my Klipsch RP 8000f. Hooking them up to my marantz sr6012 they were adequately able to fill a large living room, I did notice a drop off in bass but that was easily augmented with a subwoofer. The Marantz really opened up the Micca’s, it allowed them to breathe, while the imaging wasn’t as precise as on the Klipsch. The soundstage was larger and even seemed to extend past the speakers. The Klipsch’s had a more forward performance with a stage in front of you. While the micca’s sound seemed to wrap around you. Mid range speed and accuracy is something the micca’s Excel in While the klipsch’s had a much more weighted and punchy mid range. Overall for $300 a pair I couldn’t Believe how well these Were able to keep up with my $1200 a pair towers, even preferring the Micca’s in some songs. Overall these are a Homerun, they’re affordable, they sound great, and they’re incredibly well-built. Caveats: These speakers need some time to break in, when I first got them I noticed the treble was a little shrill but it calmed down over the next hour or so. Also as I continued to play music through them the soundstage seemed to open up more. These have no problem filling a medium size room and under with loud levels with no distortion. But with large rooms I did notice a drop off in bass, it worked best to run these with a sub and a high pass filter. Once I did that I could play them at similarly loud levels as the Klipsch’s without distortion. The speakers need to be pulled away from the wall a little, the ports are very small and there’s a lot of air that comes through it so I noticed if it was up against the wall you would hear port chuffing. But an easy fix just pull it away from the wall a little bit and it goes away. overall five stars, great speaker Micca

I terms of looks and construction quality, these speakers are great: nice elegant shape, low key tasteful exterior, very solid feel. They don't come across at all as a $200 set of speakers. With the MTM speaker layout, these speakers are much more in line with normal speaker efficiency compared to the basic RB42's ( which are inefficient at 83db - comes with the small size), but these are at 86db which isn't especially efficient, but in the right ballpark for decent speakers in this price range. I can't really compare these speakers to anything current - my pair of RB42-C's replaced a pair of old MUSA Cambridge Soundworks Model 17s hooked up to the TV, and these are a huge step up. Vocals are much clearer, bass is less distorted and everything is just much clearer. Bass is good - the smaller RB42 was tuned for a lot of bass, and they changed the crossover on the RB42-C to de-emphasize the bass and help with vocals and I worried that the bass would sound weak. But I think the bass is good for the pop, house and jazz that I listened to - as a speaker for the TV, the clearer vocals are ideal. The other reviewer observed a lot of port chuffing, but for me, at volume levels that were loud for a ~12x15 room, on music and movies, I didn't notice any port chuffing.

These are very nice budget speakers. Possibly the nicest budget speakers I've ever had the opportunity to own. The weight of the cabinet, the veneer, the binding posts, the grill, it all oozes quality. The sound is not top-tier, but that's not expected at under $100 each. What you do get is excellent sound, with great sensitivity (it gets loud easily compared to the rest of the Micca lineup). It works exceptionally well as a center channel with the OoO speakers for a discount 3.0/LCR setup, but all of these, even the RB-42c, really need at least a mini-subwoofer to round out the bottom end. I'm not going to say something silly like, "these sound as good as speakers costing $500 each!" but honestly, if you're not into golden ear hi-fi or an audio snob, these probably will sound great until you hit several hundred dollars each. The only reservation I have about them is a bit of cloudiness in the mid range, but that's more physics than anything--you'd really need to move to a bigger or stiffer driver to resolve that (no pun intended). High end is smooth and enjoyable, a far cry from the awful MB-42x. Low end is represented but not strong; this is not a home theater speaker without a subwoofer. I would be more than happy to have a full set of these across the front if I was looking to spend less than $800 for a 5 channel setup (minus sub). I don't have a set of RB-42 but unless that extra inch of height is a deal-breaker, these seem like the way to go for the additional sensitivity. They get loud easily and that's a good thing. Level matching them to the OoO takes -5dB, which is very nice.

For me, this is an awesome price point vs quality unit. I have a moderate budget system. Nothing high-end and expensive. I was missing a center channel and a sub, so I started to investigate for those to two pieces to enhance my home stereo and upgrade it into a 5.1 system. After much research I found out about the Micca RB42-C after almost buying the MB42-C. After hearing a review from a YouTuber Joe N Tell, I decided to try it. There are many more purchases for the MB42-C and I'm sure it sounds good as well for under a hundred dollars, but the RB42-C is more refined right at a hundred dollars, so I went with it and couldn't be happier. Not sure what a 500.00 center speaker would sound like, but I don't have 500.00 to find out! It's a budget system that sounds pretty darn good and I'm musician, so I have an ear for music! After several hours and tweaking my Audio Visual Receiver ie, dimension, surround, levels, image, equalizer, ect. I got it dialed in pretty good and am enjoying it a lot. Hugh difference over just left and right signals. It took me a while to understand all the functionality of my receiver (Yamaha RX-V375) since I never had it set up in a 5.1 environment, just stereo left and right and to get all the speakers working "together" for the sound I now have and it's awesome! What a difference! Glad I finally did it! Way to go Micca! For the price of this unit, the quality of the build and the clean natural sound it adds, I don't know how you could go wrong! Well worth checking it out, but you will have to learn your system to get it all to work together. Once your system is dialed in everything should work together to focus you on the TV, not any one element of your sound and when those certain tracks come in the movie that's when you know that those subs, front, rear and center channel are working and sounding. When I got to that point the RB42-C was really a great addition. Just plugging it in and turning it up on a surround setup won't be enough to really utilize what it's able to do for your "budget" system. When I say budget I don't mean cheap, I mean a sweet spot for money spent vs hearing pleasure. I am very pleased with it!!!

Impressed by the speaker, I measured it down to 40 Hz inroom, but crossed it over at 80 Hz to offload the reciever. If you have a subwoofer and a reciever that does level calibration and room correction, I would consider crossing at 80 Hz. If you have a proper amplifier for the speaker, you could go lower, but I run it off a reciever. Vocals are clear, I got high output and crisp output. You can play loud with it without it feeling like it makes your ears "tired", which I feel for instance Klipsch can become. I would say that it is a good looking speaker too. Just waiting now for the RB42s for a 7.1 setup. Im really happy with the speaker overall, just a bit jealous of people in the USA dont have to pay 25% VAT on this like we have to in Norway.

all my home theater speakers with exception of subwoofer are Micca: MB42X as surround, MB42C as L/R and this RB42C as center channel. I must say it's a huge upgrade over the factory speaker system i had from Pioneer but even still i'm not a fan of the sound profile even though they are loud and vocally clear. I find the treble too harsh and bass too boomy and not deep. I'm not a fan of boomy vocals and piercing highs and like my sound profile neutral. I thought the RB42C would have better vocals than MB42C due to a 18db crossover circuit, however i dont think this is the case. I'm thinking of replacing this center speaker with the MB42X-C.

**Copied and modified from my review on the RB42 reference bookshelf speakers** We purchased this speaker to match with the RB42 reference bookshelf speakers and created a 3.0 setup for our TV space in our apartment. It replaced an old Onkyo LS3100 system that seemed to oscillate between having too much low-end for an apartment and no low end whatsoever when using the alternate sound mode packaged with the system. I had been researching budget alternatives and decided a 3.0 system was the direction we should go, rather than settling for a soundbar that likely wouldn't be able to produce much low-end without a subwoofer. What we can say immediately is this setup is exactly everything we had hoped for. The 3.0 setup (currently operating via an old Harman Kardon AVR 144) has a great overall sound while watching movies. We haven't done much testing with music, though music in movies sounds stellar. As for movie experience, the voices come through beautifully via the center channel speaker while sound effects, music and the like fill the room predominantly via the left and right channels (as any decent 3.0 system should). I seriously doubt any soundbar could come close to this without resorting to a subwoofer setup, and even then I question if the midrange would come close to sounding this good without opting for a fairly expensive soundbar solution (these three speakers cost us about $240 total after opting for the RB42-C open-box that was available at the time). What we were really looking for was a good sounding 3.0 setup that still produced decent low-end, as we live in an apartment with picky neighbors, so a subwoofer was not an option. I can confidently say this setup has surpassed our expectations thus far, and my next upgrade will be to ditch the AVR 144 for something better, though receivers seem to be hard to come by nowadays. If you're considering a budget 3.0 setup and you want decent low-end without a subwoofer, I can confidently recommend these speakers along with the RB42-C. That said, if you're looking for even more pronounced low-end and you don't have my apartment/neighbor constraints, you may want to consider going for tower speakers for your left and right channels, but I imagine you know what you're looking for if you've landed here.

Crystal clear sound. Love it!

Was looking for something to replace floor speakers wasn't sure about these even tho the reviews were great. Bought 1 now i have to buy a matching one. Not an audiophile but I have had alot of cheap speakers over the years these are 1000x better. Mids and highs are great and bass even tho it's not the floor rattling kind (Duel 4" not going to do that) sounds as good as the floor speakers with 10" sub built in. Blown away truly.

Guter Klang, gut verarbeitet.

É uma coluna de diálogos para o preço bastante boa com uns graves acentuados!

Value for money! Keep the Crossover at 80HZ to enjoy the sound better