BIC AMERICA DV64 2-Way Venturi Tower Speaker, Black

I will boldly state that I am not an Audiophile! I listen to music religiously and regularly enjoy my home theater. Years ago I gave into my wife's demands of not allowing my Polk Audio floor speakers to be a part of our marriage. Being a kind and gentle husband, reluctantly agreed and installed NXG in wall speakers with a Yamaha powered sub. The NXG's sound ok but even with my average hearing I could hear the limitations of the in walls. I never considered that I would be single again so I sold my much loved Polk Audio LS50's. Recently my wife moved out and I started the feel sorry for myself phase. In order to find happiness I needed to take control of my life. The first bold change I made was to buy big speakers for my home theater. I was one click away from purchasing a new pair of the Polk Audio Monitor 60 series and at the last second I decided to read more reviews of similarly priced speakers. I was surprised at how inexpensive entry level speakers are and the variety of different name brands offered on Amazon. After much research I narrowed it down to the BIC America's Venturi DV64's and the Polk Audio's Monitor 60's. I had never heard of BIC America speakers and their web site is a bit under done IMO. Not a flashy web site! I was hoping the reviews would help me make an educated decision. Not the case! The reviews for both the BIC and Polk speakers were equally good and not definitive so I decided to base my decision simply on the price. BIC's were cheaper so I took a leap of faith and into the shopping cart they went! Not having the ability to hear speakers prior to buying causes a bit of anxiety but I rationalized that the cost of speakers is so low if I didn't like them I could return them and then upgrade to whatever I wanted to spend.Out of the box my initial impression was "Wow the BIC's are beautiful"! The cabinet is narrow, elegant and well built. The color is more a Dark Charcoal rather than straight black. The picture on Amazon is not flattering for the DV64's. After hooking them up I kicked on some blues and immediately noticed that my entire room was filled with clear beautiful sound. The BIC's are bright and tight with the base and I was suddenly in love with sound again. I heard notes that I didn't know existed in songs I have listened to for years. I sat in my living room with a big stupid grin on my face and submersed myself in sweet music for hours. I listen to all types of music and noticed with heavy metal the bass seemed to be a bit confused. I read that BIC America speakers need to be broken in. After 20 hours of rocking heavy metal the bass slowly started to make sense again. With every passing day the speakers continue to grow and impress me. The passive driver design works well. Over all I am very happy with the Venturi DV64's and plan to purchase more speakers from BIC America when finances permit.It's hard to believe the BIC America Venturi DV64's are considered entry level speakers. When it comes to purchasing speakers the best advice I received is this. It's not how much you spend or what the brand is but rather, do they sound good to your ears. This simple advice applies to the average listener but for a true Audiophile it depends on their budget. Audiophiles understand sounds and frequencies and can find flaws with most speakers. I am happy when my hearing aid has a good battery and I can hear a note over my constant tinnitus. I followed the above advice and it really applies to the Venturi DV64's. They sound beautiful to my ears, look amazing in my room and for the cost you can't beat them.

Have been listening to this speaker and it really sound very nice. I use them only for music and cannot comment about home theatre performance. As an earlier reviewer wrote, the BICs has a sound similar to the old ElectroVoice Interphase A speakers which I owned many years ago and forgot about. The BIC speaker has "a tight punch" to it. It is very tight sounding. Drums sound real good. I am satisfied with it, but I am finding that I prefer my open sounding Bose 301 Series 5 to the Bics because of the high end. However I run the Bose with a subwoofer. Without it, I prefer the BIC because it has far superior low bass. The BICs are very very good for the money despite having a slightly muffled upper midrange. It can sometimes be a bit challenging for me to tell some of the instruments apart on the higher end.I also like the fact that the speakers take up very little floor space. The speakers are attractive and built very nicely for $130 each including the shipping. I do not know of a better buy for the money. Life is a compromise. It seems that to have a really very good music system these days one needs to spend more than $260 for really good speakers that cover the highs and lows and that is just for stereo. However, I have found that for around $500 for a pair of Bose 301 & BIC 12 or Polk PSW 505 subwoofer I am quite satisfied, and the effect far surpasses these speakers alone. They sound better than many $1000 systems. The BIC Tower sounds like a an excellent $260 Speaker system. I tested the BICs with a subwoofer which helped, but it still left me with slightly muddled high midrange. I use this as a stand alone speakers in my studio and am quite satisfied for the price.I also feel lucky that these speakers arrived in one piece intact. The packaging is on the wimpy side and had a big rip in it, but all was ok.

I really wanted a high quality system on a budget. Without a ton of money to spend, I spent months researching tower speakings. I tried to find something for $100 a speaker, but was willing to go up to $200 if necessary. I found really positive reviews for these BIC DV64's, and went for it.I am not an audiophile, and you can not expect audiophile sound out of speakers this inexpensive. My friend who helps with my all of my electronics has a very nice HT setup with a 3d projector, 92" screen, and really nice Onix speakers. I don't have nearly the funds that he does, and his Onix speakers are clearly better than these. But I got these when Amazon had them for $116 a piece and jumped on it. Initially sounded bright, but after a few days of constant playing they really started to sound fantastic. I have since added the DV 62 center, and along with hand-me down Onix Tykes for the rears and a dayton 12" inch sub I really enjoy movies on a budget system. Music is also clear and enjoyable, but you will need a separate sub for rock (what I listen to) or hip-hop (better half listens to). When I turned the sub off it just didn't quite hit the lows as well as it should, but once again unbeatable for the price.I can't say I've gone and and tested everything else in this price range, but friends with more expensive fluance, klipsch, and polk systems are very impressed with the value brought by these speakers. If you want top of the line audiophile sound you are not looking in this price range, and if you're in the market for quality towers under $200 you will not be dissapointed. Great purchase and I would highly recommend.Updated 12/2016Still love these speakers after 3 years. I moved into a house and turned the basement into a home theater. Currently have 7.2 setup with the matching center channel and BIC bookshelves as surrounds, and two Dayton sub 1200's. Receiver is a Yamaha v677, Projector is a BenQ w1070, and screen is a 100" Silver Ticket. I have family and friends coming over all the time for sports and movies.Movies and sports are loud, clear, and the speakers really add to the theater at home experience. Would buy again today if I was in the market.

So here is what I think after having these for 2 weeks with some background.[Background]A while ago I bought an Onkyo HT-S3400 5.1 all in one system ( http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=HT-S3400 .) It came with a 8inch sub and bunch of 3 inch speakers front and surround etc.I knew there was something missing (of course, 3 inch woofer that came with system just doesn't cut it)So I purchased 2 DV64 and after a bunch of tuning (cross over frequency for my sub and sub placement) I am impressed and happy with my setup.[My Final Testing]I turned my sub off to write have a good listen before i wrote this review (since this review is not about my sub) and The DV64 speakers are great full range speakers.[Quick Thoughts]My quick thoughts are first, they look bad ass (2 drivers + 2 passive radiators look like 4 woofers to the avg person) and second, having dual 6.5 inch drivers in each front channel, sounds about the same as having a single 10 inch driver. I figure you can't beat the deal. I originally was looking at the DV84 but someone in a review their mentioned the smaller drivers in the 64 would be more accurate/tight. I can't comment on the DV84 since I haven't heard them. For my 40 inch TV i think the 64 are fine. If i had a dedicated home theatre room (and no neighbours) then that that would be a different story. For music and movies, I'm happy I have main front speakers that hit clear highs and go down to 30Hz easily.[More detailed testing, tuning and math]So some quick cone area calculations (square inches)1x 8 inch woofer = ~50.272x 6.5 inch woofer = ~66.371x 10 inch woofer = ~78.54So for cone area / bass response, expect output to be somewhere between an 8 and a 10 inch woofer, for dual 6.5 inch.I've never owned boxes that had passive radiators but have built, bought and owned plenty of ported boxes. A passive radiator design gives the same effect as a ported design. See wikipedia for details.I did some testing with various music, bass tests, full frequency sweeps, and I have an issue with a peak at 60Hz but its a combination of room resonance, speaker placement, and my ability to set the lowpass crossover for my subwoofer.With my sub on, the tuning i did was bringing the lowpass crossover setting in the onkyo down to 40Hz (wish it went lower, feels like 45hz to me).My sub box is ported and tuned to go down to around 30 hz, and with the sub box and the DV64 and something like transformers or other explosion filled movie playing, i definitely get the floor vibrating. I originally had my sub behind the seating area and had some wave cancellation issues but that was easily fixed with speaker distance setting in the onkyo. haven't decided if I'm moving it back by TV.If I didn't have neighbor's I would get 2 more of these for the surround (why the f not) and replace the sub with something that went down to 18Hz.Anyway, just my 2 cents on this purchase. oh boy did this review go longer than I anticipated.- Jav

The speaker system is OK but seller beware. Its not " 5 way" as described on Amazon. I did not get much sound on the lower 2 speakers - found out that these are "dummy" non functioning speakers. Then I looked at catalog, it says dual passive speaker extension ( see picture enclosed). I got this thinking its 4 speaker system with one tweeter. Very deceiving. My Polk sounds great. Got this as a replacement for my BIC DV64 that I got on Amazon year and half ago, one of the speakers started giving me " Load Sparking " noise when playing at high volume - sent mulitple email to BIC technical support and also asked them about warranty - no response from BIC customer support. Very poor Customer Support. This one going back to Amazon and I'm going to replace my other BIC with Polk.