RBH Sound MC-6CT Floorstanding Speaker First Look

[admin]

The MC-6CT are the flagship of the MC line and have won numerous awards over the years. With additional bass, a steader speaker, upgraded front baffle, identical pricing, and a better all around aesthetic, the only thing you're missing from the original MC-6CTs is a Cherry veneer. Seems like a fair trade off to us.


Discuss "RBH Sound MC-6CT Floorstanding Speaker First Look" here. Read the article.

[ozmedia]

I have always loved teh MC-6CT as it really delivers the punch and detail you expect from RBH products. In fact, wih the MC series being so close (but stil different) to the Signatures, I am surprised that they sell for so little.

looking forward to your full listening tests.

[jdmccall]

Thanks for the report on the new RBH MC-6CT. It has got to be one of the best looking loudspeakers I've seen in a long time. And the price looks more than fair. I've taken a chance and ordered a pair for my main two-channel rig. They are scheduled to arrive at the dealer (Audio Input -- Joplin, MO) on Friday, September 25th. I'll follow up with an impression later.

[Matt34]

I'd be interested in a shoot-out review between these, the Revel F12 and the Aperion 6T.

[Soundman]

I'd be interested in a shoot-out review between these, the Revel F12 and the Aperion 6T.

I'd be interested in seeing that too!

[ozmedia]

the only thing you're missing from the original MC-6CTs is a Cherry veneer. Seems like a fair trade off to us.

No great loss really, they haven't had cherry veneer in years, the last few years of MC-6CT's were only available in black. I still have a few of the old cherry edition brochures kicking around (AVInteriors review from 2001), totally different look altogether! Personally I think they look better in black anyway. I especially like the new look with the full RDAB front baffle instead of the half cap for the upper drivers only.

[ozmedia]

Thanks for the report on the new RBH MC-6CT. It has got to be one of the best looking loudspeakers I've seen in a long time. And the price looks more than fair. I've taken a chance and ordered a pair for my main two-channel rig. They are scheduled to arrive at the dealer (Audio Input -- Joplin, MO) on Friday, September 25th. I'll follow up with an impression later.

Awesome! You will fall in love with them instantly, great build, incredible detail and big soundstage. I fell in love with the first pair i
I heard, dragged them around every audio store in town auditioning them against Mordaunt, Klipsch, Paradigm, Axiom, you name it, and they blew people's minds over and over again by equalling, if not outperforming, the others while still at a much lower price point.

Enjoy and feedback!

[jdmccall]

Well, I picked them up today and high-tailed it back home as fast as the law would allow. I got them moved from the driveway to my basement family room and began unpacking. These things are really packed well! A thick outer box with foam rubber and styrofoam inside surrounding another thinner-walled box. Once you get that box out and open, you're still not home: there's still a layer of plastic and then a layer of thin sheet foam. Definitely one of the better-packed speakers I've seen.

It's really surprising how such a compact speaker can weigh so much. Fifty-five pounds may not sound like too much for a 40" tall floor-stander, but for one that has a footprint of only about 8"x12"? Pretty solid little pups, I'd say.

The rich, black oak veneer looks real nice...if you like black (which I do). Fit and finish seems to be very good over all. Maybe just a notch below some of the best I've seen. The aluminum drivers look great and the grill is wood instead of plastic -nice, but the audiodork in me would like to have seen the inside front edge of the grill frame beveled or rounded off. Still, the grill looks very nice and would seem to be much more robust than many of the flimsy plastic ones I've seen.

The base plinth attaches very easily, and is finished in a kind of soft sheen black. I thought it would be more of a "piano" black gloss, but it's not. Still, it looks nice and is well made and appears strong enough to steady the speaker and even allow carefull walking of the speaker into place. Soft footers and spikes are also provided. These screw into threaded inserts in the bottom of the base.

And speaking of walking the speakers...I did just that, into my usual speaker locations more or less, with the front center of the speakers ending up about 4' from the back wall and a little over 4' 4" from the sidewalls...which left them about 7' apart and almost 10' from my big, fat head.

Next I hooked'em up with my generic 12ga. stranded copper wire. Now this is where it gets a tad...interesting: I've been using a pair of Velodyne DLS-4000R subs in my two-channel set-up for quite a while, so my current scheme is to feed the subs from my Onkyo amp's speaker output, then drive the loudspeakers from the subs high-level output. Which is all well and good, but that high-level output is high-pass filtered, switchable to 80 or 100 Hz, both with 1st-order slopes. And being in a hurry to hear the RBH's, I didn't want to fitz around too much, so I just set the low-pass to 80Hz, the high pass to 80Hz, and with the foam port plugs left in, I let'em rip...

Wow. These speakers sounded good right off the bat! Very surprising. My previous speakers, Energy RC-50's (which also have aluminum tweeters) sounded real edgy when new, but soon improved to one of the best-sounding speakers I've owned. I expected these RBH's to be similarly in need of a good break-in period. Not that there's no room for improvement, mind you, but still, very impressive. Immediate impression was the presence. Not a forward sound, but certainly not laid back, either. Just a very lively, in-the-room quality that serves much "popular" music very well. Classical and jazz or bluegrass? We'll see in time, but right now, my time is limited...gotta watch Mizzou play Nevada. I turned the tuner on to a classic rock station and et the volume low and just let them simmer while...

...Mizzou notches another W!

It's now post-game and I'm too pooped to listen to music.

More later!

[gene]

I recommend running these speakers full range and using a split line level subwoofer out to run your subs. If the bass is too intense either use EQ on the sub channels or try running the speakers small using your receivers bass management.

Also just try running the RBHs full range with no sub just to get a level set on their true performance.

Good luck.

[Vaughan Odendaa]

Nice speakers.