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The Microlab Solo 6C speakers ship in a large, predominately white box with an image of the speakers on the front. They follow a more ‘hi fi' oriented bookshelf design ethic, rather than a traditional PC speaker design. This should appeal to a different audience of user.
The speakers are protected between some thick, heavy duty Styrofoam, which is just as well as our review sample box looked like it received some heavy handling during shipping.
MicroLab include a user manual, remote control, a cable to connect to a computer and a cable for connection between the speakers.
The tiny remote offers control over input, treble, bass and volume. There is also a handy mute button at the top.
The speakers are constructed from wood and are shipped with removable front covers, as shown above.
Bottom left, the signature seal of Peter Larsen himself, the designer behind the Solo 6C speakers.
The speakers ship with a thick plastic protective sheet, which covers the delicate tweeter. This is easily removed.
The speakers consist of a 1 inch tweeter and 6.5 inch woofer. The impedance is rated at 4 ohm with a signal to noise ratio of 85db. Input sensitivity is rated at 440mV. The tweeter delivers 10 Watt of output, and the bass driver 30 watts. They are considerably larger than many other speakers we have reviewed in the last year. As a means of highlighting this you can see one of the speakers next to a Nikon SLR lens cap.
The overall appearance is surprisingly good, especially considering the modest price point. Sadly we noticed some damage on one of the woofers as shown in the image above right. Luckily whatever caused the damage, didn't perforate the cone, but the surface ‘slice' was quite long.
Our concern with this would be that this set of Solo 6C speakers left the factory with cosmetic damage. The speakers ship with covers over the cones, so if damage occurred during shipping then the covers would have been ripped before the cones received damage.
One of the speakers contains the amplifier system and this is cooled by a large, metal heatsink. There are two sets of input connectors, a left/right speaker connector (to connect to the other speaker) and a power button and volume control. This rear mounted volume control is unusual in that it doesnt ‘stop' at a maximum or minimum point but will rotate indefinitely. Just be sure to keep this low before turning them on.
Bass and treble can be adjusted from 0-8 via the controller, and this is represented by a red LED readout bottom right of the primary speaker.
The support speaker is connected to the amplified speaker by a simple set of Hifi style binding posts. Audiolab supply a decent quality speaker cable for this.
Very good indeed. like the look of them.
The remote is a great ideal, especially for a media center system.
Th designer of these speakers used to make very high end speakers for a different audience. I agree their name is crap, but I bet these are really very good indeed.
Very good value for money IMO. I like the design, more classic hifi than computer speaker, which wins it points.
Hello. I would like to ask for an advice here as I haven’t found any Microlab forums. I have just unpacked my new Solo 6C speakers. Connected them to my computer and switched them on, and noticed a problem straight away – a buzzing noise. It is not very loud but it drives me mad. I do not understand any technicalities but I don’t think the speakers should be doing that. The buzzing noise level does not change as I try to increase or decrease volume. Unplugging the stereo jack from my PC is not helping either. It only stops when I switch the speakers off at the back panel. Is it normal or is there something wrong with the speakers?
Did you try more than one source? There should be no buzzing….
If you mean a power source, then no, I haven’t tried a different one. But I have discovered that the back panel of the speaker with the amplifier gets burning hot, even without me playing any music. I just switch the speakers on and in a few minutes I could start frying eggs over there. That is definitely not right and I am returning the speakers. Hopefully the next set will be fine.
Thank you for the interest Zardon.
Sorry to hear that, sounds like a faulty amplifier inside the main speaker to me – would explain the buzzing sound. It should get quite warm after a while, but not burning hot.
I have arranged a replacement. Thanks for help Zardon.
Jan: The new speakers are OK ? Without buzzing noise ?
Thank you 🙂
I am experiencing the same humming issue as described above by Jan. The speakers are brand new. Planning to replace them next week.
Forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical about the T40 II’s sounding better than these; particularly after extended burn-in.