I know I'm super late to the party but I just ordered these off of Amazon for $149.99 & they'll be here tomorrow & I can't wait but I'm curious if my Aiyima A07 Pro is enough to drive them really well???
I've read that the Treble can bit a little bit too much. How aré they? And has anyone tried the mod that Joe and Tell mentions at the end of His Review?
It's great to see that the measurements correlate well with the overwhelmingly positive reviews for the Micca RB42. They really did a great job with this speaker!
Excellent breakdown!Real knowledge of internals and real world cost estimates for manufacturing. I just found this channel and subscribed much quicker then I would normally . Nice job ......really! 👍🔊🍻
I was really glad to get to see/experience the testing for the Jamo first hand, & having all three of us wracking our brains over the wildly different responses based on the position of the inputs, only to find it was caused by the terminal linkages being made of some poor quality material.. even if we still don't know what or why.. lol As for the tiny guy, I could definitely see going with better quality parts, esp the resistors & caps, as well as adding some bypass caps to the tweeter circuit. Tho depending on the layout of the PCB, it might be tough to pull off effectively. Otherwise you're gunna be stuck with an external crossover, esp when switching to larger, high quality inductors...
I own both speakers. Micca rb42 are God tier. Wonderful in every metric. The Miccas alone can easily dominate a living room. No center, no middle, no rear. Them by themselves are great. The Jamo's tweeter is the best I've ever heard. But it cannot go nearly as low, and the woofer is arguably a hair metric worse. There isn't much low end, so subwoofer is heavily recommended. Once you add in a subwoofer and maybe rears (Even something small/cheap) they will beat the RB42's with a great mid range and God tier treble, but it's a close call
I just completed a house renovation, What I learned from that is that you can build a New home for the same amount of money or a little more in half the time. I'm attempting right now to build my own Klipsch KLF 30 from scratch.because a used set is $1000+ and many times far away and you still end up with a Vintage speaker and old worn out parts that is in need of upgrading.
I paid $129 for a pair of the Jamo C103 on black friday 2017. I have since replaced them with some Triangle Borea BR08. I have the Micca RB42 on my desk and they are great.
I put together a micca 5.1 minus the sub in my bedroom. A pair of rb42s one rb42-c and two covo s for rear channels.the sub is a bic f12. Super budget build and I couldn’t be happier. Shout out to Zeos for the recommendations. Plus aesthetically I love the compact look vs the bulky look at me Jamos speakers.
I would totally upgrade my RB42s. What attracted me to them was more so the small formfactor rather than the small price. I would just need someone who knows what they're talking about to tell me how.
Bypass the tweeter caps with high quality audio-grade, low value caps, say .05 mfd or about that. If you use a sub, get self-powered(recommended), put a 100 hz high pass filter in the line between sub and Micca. Improves mids clarity and allows your amp to 'coast', not having to reproduce the low notes. . . lot of improvement for a little work. Get parts from PARTS EXPRESS . . .
Thanks for this. The older Jamo c series are really good. I have the c607 (paid $700) that sound better than some of the $1500-$2k speakers. I use 10 gauge copper wire as a jumper Love them
I own 2 sets of them, and 2 c603 and 2 c60 cen. They’re great speakers, but you need some quality electronics to make them sound good. An AVR will make them sound compressed in the mids.
@@RenRenification That's funny because I don't really hear any difference between any decent AVR or stereo amp at my volume levels. There's a difference in sound with some flavoured hifi amps but whether it's better is another thing.
@@RennieAsh Well, that's just something elitists say to justify themselves a bit. I also have the same experience as you. A decent or high quality AVR easily sounds as good or better (also because of room correction eq) as a stereo amp.
Had some Micca ceiling speakers (paid $40 each) installed for surround sound. Pleasantly surprised, sounded great for music and movies. Thought for sure no one else heard of this brand.
In 2000's very few speakers could touch Jamo's. Not only sound wise but also design and looks wise. Unfortunately after the Klipsch takeover they're only but shadow of their former selves.
"Around 64% of listeners, even those working in the audio field, enjoyed the Harman curve the most. Almost all Harman curve lovers were younger than 50."
Danny you know the speakers' market very well when you run out of topics to talk about you may want to discuss marketing speakers' issues, e.g is there such a thing as selling them based on the type of 'voicing'(*) of the speakers. Also other marketing issues you may like to include. * ie based on the freq. resp. of the speakers output.
I have a pair of the Micca RB42's and one tweeter died. I had some Dayton AMT tweeters laying around (forget the model number but they are the small, round, 8 ohm version). I am sure the response wouldn't measure "ideal" but for desktop $149 speakers, who cares? The top end improved A LOT! I always loved the speakers but for me they sounded a little too dark. The AMT added a lot of really smooth detail to them. Some day I may measure and tweak the xover for the 8 ohm vs 4 ohm driver... but then again, probably not.
Another great video Danny! You are in the pocket with these. I do think you missed an opportunity to mention the LGKs when talking about the Micca RB42s. I would love to see you talk about the Micca M42X, the RBs less expensive brother at just $89 per pair! They are a little easier to drive but do not extend as low.
My friend is considering getting those Micca speakers for his desk as a small music system for his computer... Looks like they might be worth it actually! (He doesn't really want to spend any more than $200/pair, just because of what they're gonna be used for.) If I owned a pair of the Miccas myself, I would definitely consider making a separate matching box for an outboard upgraded crossover that then could also be used as a "speaker stand" or base to raise them up slightly higher... Idea? And if I was the owner of those Jamo speakers I would probably attempt to carefully pry off those "beauty rings" around the drivers, even if they got slightly dented by the pry tool, because it would be worth trying to improve those crossovers for sure! A lot of room for improvement if you could get the drivers out!... Me personally, I don't care too much about absolutely perfect cosmetics, (I deal with thriftstore used speakers quite often even), I just want whatever I have to sound the best they possibly can, and those drivers in those look pretty decent, and their cabinet is nice looking too, so, yeah... ALL plastic trim rings WILL come off in one way or another, you just have to be very patient and as careful as possible, and if they end up with a few minor dents in the plastic it would be no biggie to me, especially if they could be made to sound and measure much better!... But alas, I am not the customer that sent those to you, so that decision would be up to them. If you DO end up improving either of these speakers in any way, I would definitely be interested in seeing a follow up video about what you did to them!
I don’t know jack about XO’s but that little Mica’s XO looks impressive for $150/pair. I’ve owned speakers where the XO’s look like they belong in a Cracker Jack popcorn box.
wow, that Micca is a performance beast for $150 a pair, I have heard some good stuff about Micca bookshelfs, I wonder if they make some good floor standers of that quality at a budget price.
No upgrades but it is a very interesting video none the less. Not only because we are being given some insight in the decision making process about what to do with these speakers but also because I was very curious to see the performance of these Jamo speakers. Back in the 80's when I was fully emerged in the Audio hobby (more than today to be honest) I always hated the sound of Jamo speakers. Specifically the bass was booming but they would be for sale everywhere and people where lapping them up by the truck load, together with their Aiwa Midi systems. Today, Jamo is trying to reinvent them self with a more classy high end image but auditing them is not so easy anymore as in the 80's. Anyway thanks to this video we know that as the Italians say, the wolf looses its fur but not its habits. As for the Micca, wow, at that price I would count my blessings with the cross over network that is stock. Perhaps a hobbyist can just buy some Mundorf caps and have some fun with it.
The Micca RB42 is one of those "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" kind of products...... The speakers sound so good "stock," chances are high that something would get "knocked out of whack" in the (subjective) sonic presentation if they were to be modified...... (And leave one scratching his head wondering why.... ) I would only modify these speakers if full measuring facilities were available (like at GR Research) to validate the changes. An audiophile with a good critical ear would help too.
wow, this is a great channel, just subscribed, i am looking for a small speaker not bigger than 4 inches driver, that can have in a way not a choppy frequency response but can be called as a kind of average consumer speaker voice, can be passive or active.... (is as another reference for mixing music) ..... any good contenders for the RB42 that seems cool? thanks
2/2023: Any thoughts on the Jamo Concert 9 Series C 97 II? Have you or will you test and check these speakers out? I'm seriously considering replacing my older Polk 2-way TSi500 speakers with the Jamo's that are reasonably priced compared to most 3-way floor standing tower speakers. My budget is somewhat limited presently. Thoughts on your part please. Thanks in advance and best regards
Jamo speakers are very sporadic in design and with no set DNA, unlike a set of B&W or Klipsch and many others have, so they differ a lot between models. Jamo concert 8 will give you surprisingly good drivers to work with, the drivers are Seas excel drivers, so that's a graphene treated magnesium woofer cone with lots of detail. Besides that Jamo had a set of open baffle speakers called the R909, those 2 models I would say is nice, the rest of the speakers from what I have experienced will be malpositioned in Hifi store and more of big box store kinda level.
Hello Danny I have a simple question after seeing your very interresting videos about crossovers. can we always replace electrolytic capacitors by polypropylene or other technologies ? I heard that we cannot always do that but I'll be interrested to know what do you think about that. Thanks from France Max
Danny, do you ever get a chance to listen in to these speakers when doing upgrades ? Have you heard worse measuring speaker sounding better than better measuring speaker?
I see the main difference is in the mid area, but the woofer also have some output in the mid area there, I assume the woofers bit is added to the tweeter to give the full response, the tweeter had a different response on the discrete test because the woofer did not add to it. But yeah those Jamos do not look good at all.
But it was an interesting find, lets call it an eyeopener that those clips have such a high resistance. I hope they didn't reason it would reduce inter-modulated distortion that way
I picked up those exact Jamos for $125 a pair new. Liquidation company didn’t know what they had. I have to admit though, I’ve been a bit disappointed. Once tuned they’re very good, but not $1800 good. For $125 though…
Hi there i have a pair of Jamo D830 bookshelf speakers great sound however i bass driver is faulty am looking for replacement. I am based in West London England can you advise any dealers for original drive units please?
I have pictures of the crossover of the older Jamo c603 speaker. Drivers are much more accessible. Would you be able to tell us if the crossover is just as bad?
Thanks for taking time to do this. It's real shame to see what has become of Jamo, a once highly respected speaker company with some reference models produced between 80es to late 90es that to this day are almost unmatched by others in the same class. Klipschs seems to have positioned it at the budget, low end of their product spectrum. That C103 you tested was the largest stand-mount from the relatively recent Concert series and should have been their reference model, the largest, most imposing (and very expensive) model in the two-driver Concert range (C109 was at the top of the floor-stander range). Unfortunately, the reality tells us otherwise. That is a one cheap-a$s build right there. These concerts aren't worthy caring the well known Jamo Concert name, sorry. If you look at the older Concert 8, 10, 11 etc, which admittedly came with the top shelf Sears drivers those are a reference class. This C103 should be a continuation of the well known and respected Concert 830 and Concert 803 stand-mounts, what they're serving us up by Klipsch parent company is nothing short of rubbish. RIP Jamo. BTW, those beauty rings are removable by the plastic wedge that's used for opening laptops, phones and other electronic gear which comes with snap-on cases. You can find it on Amazon or eBay or most of the electronic stores. I recently removed one of the C91s drivers with it. Fortunately they're not glued, just snapped on. As for the ghost resistance on those binding post jumpers, have you contacted Klipsch and told them your findings? Thanks once again.
Yes! -And as a Dane I'm disgusted by this. I have been a fan of Jamo since late 80's in my childhood and teenage years. They made fantastic high-end stuff and the budget speakers were also very high regarded with good quality sound and build. It's a sell-out now and just sad. Instead of carrying on, it would've been better to just delete the brand. It hurts too much to see the downfall. Greedy swine..
Those jumpers on the Jamo’s explain some speakers sounding better (or at least different) in bi-wired. I have some Kef Q500’s bi-wired and there is a just about perceivable improvement compared with single wired. The takeaway for me is adding the ability to split the crossover is probably more expensive to execute than simply designing a well put together crossover, even when bi-amping is used. Much appreciate you sharing your knowledge.
I think if you enjoy the speaker its personal preference i mean $200 for something your happy with vs $1,100 pretty ok is obvious i would think purpose over price?
Check this video out at 2:05 ish ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-RVlbZtEfKog.html shows how these are put together, with a small plastic tool you can pry the outer ring off, takes a bit of force but totally doable without damage. I have the large C97 floorstanders using the same drivers and tweeter and think they are great sounding. I didnt love the tweeter out of the box but believe it or not it has mellowed after a few months solid use and they sound really great.
I have the same plates on my Jamos and they measure 0.08 ohm using a low ohm meter (Metrel MI3101, calibrated). This doesn't mean they are identical to the ones on the bookshelf Jamo you have there though.
@@dannyrichie9743 It will really shine. Space them coils apart and place the box away from everything but near the amp as possible. Another little hot rod trick. Then again add new box and drivers. Eton had an nice little 4 1/5" with small V.C. 7/8" or 1" just add in a 1.2-1.8mh. coil.
@@dannyrichie9743 Count me in, I really like the miccas and if having an external crossover made them significantly better, I would dish out the money.
Very interesting (and sad) to see how the performance of the Jamo changes based on the influence of the links. I tested some Jamo S807 tower speakers earlier this summer and was incredibly disappointed with them; even considering they were about $300/pair. The treble was about +5dB over the midrange with a high-Q bass boost around 80Hz. Basically, a very troughed midrange. Many people didn't like me commenting how terrible they were so I caught a lot of flack for it. But, people need to understand that a poor performing speaker is a poor performer and unless you have serious hearing issues, there is no reason at all for someone to purchase such a speaker. It seems the Jamo you tested here shows a similar HF issue as well. Jamo seems to be doing a terrible job with their products. It's pathetic, really. Hopefully I'll come across something of theirs that measures and sounds good. So far, though, I've had nothing but bad experiences with what I've heard (and measured) from their namesake.
I would steer away from Jamo's "S" series. Total rubbish, both build and sound quality wise. "C" is a little better, but in those they went with the lowest quality $60 'bullet-plug' Sears woofer drivers. Real $hit-show.
The Jamo looks like it would be tuned similarly to the big ones I have. Woofers seem quite nice. Tweeter is a bit hot and ragged. As for getting the trim rings off - maybe have to heat the thing up and hope they used glue that gets softer with heat. Luckily mine don't have beauty rings
A year late but they're just press fit rings around driver. They pop right out. Like yours, my tweeters run very bright out of the box and I didn't bother to check what my room correction did. Needless to say, I blew a tweeter 3 days later.
Adequate low frequency measurements of loudspeakers is really challenging due to the impact of the surrounding environment. The physics inherent with the long wavelength size, dictate that measurements extending into the low freqs performed indoors are difficult to aquire with any level of accuracy. Attempting to do so simply results in the room's response of the speaker. Of course there's various workaround methods too, like a suitably large anechoic chamber or measurements performed outdoors high above the ground. Some employ gating to mitigate the environment's impact, or you can also perform close mic'd measuring and splice the two measurements like J.A. has done for years in Stereophile. Close mic'ing helps however the issue is the mic needs to be at a reasonable distance so the total response of all the drivers/sources is properly blended. But at such a distance the environment's boundaries interact with the big wavelengths of the lower octaves.
Hello! No one in Europe buys "Made in the USA" because of shipping costs and Taxes. Jamo is not that expensive in Denmark (where they are made) , but a Micca RB42 probably is - never heard of it???
@@drazenbabich Yes! You're right and I'm totally wrong here! JAMO was very hot here as I was young (1990's) but things has changed! Check fx. JAMO 707! Sorry for not doing my homework!!!
Unless you are going to buy the Miccas new, I don't really think it matters how much they cost originally in terms of how much you might want to spend to upgrade them. In fact, cheap but good speakers, if they can really benefit from some upgrades, make more sense to spend money on than already expensive speakers. The reason to buy expensive speakers is that they don't need upgrades. The only logical way to look at whether or not it's worth the cost of upgrading a speaker, regardless of how much it originally cost, is what the outcome would be versus the money (and effort) spent to do the upgrade. Yeah it makes sense that you probably aren't going to get as much out of $200 worth of upgrades put into a fundamentally bad design as you would out of a fundamentally good design that just needs some quality parts. But if the design is solid and the only thing holding it back were some costly components, then why not? The argument that I should not put $1,000 into a car that I bought for only $2,000 doesn't hold up if that car will be worth $5,000 and work as well as one costing $10,000. Simple business calculation for the value of expenses put into something you already own: value of finished product - cost of upgrade = added value. There's no cost of the original item in that calculation, because the expense was already taken. By the logic of "don't spend too much fixing or upgrading something that only cost a little," no one should ever spend money fixing or upgrading something they got as a gift or won as a prize, because those items are essentially worthless - you paid nothing for them. Again, I get that cheap things are likely less worth putting money and time into, but what you paid for them is not a hard indicator of what they are worth to the owner. My question is this: how good do you think those Miccas could be with better capacitors, resistors, etc? If they could be really great, who cares what they sell for? In fact, the cheaper the better!
I have the Jamo C93 II's (2nd Gen) and they sound awesome! And if you look at reviews of 'em online, most users absolutely rave about them. (Zeos from 'Z Reviews' loved them as well)
That's great, well done ! Danny's intention, I believe, was to demonstrate that appearances and price tags can be deceiving and that perceived value may differ substantially from the actual one. Miccas measure better in terms of on and off axis linearity, whilst these particular Jamos have a "loudness" filter built-in in a sense and blend poorly. It does not mean, that marketing such speakers should be classed a criminal offence, many others do that, like JBL or Klipsch to name but a few and that profile may be appealing. As to the jumpers ... 12 months detention without parole, far removed from the proceedings of a reputable Hi-Fi enterprise to include effectively resistors there.
@Fat Rat Sr Rat! Didn't know you were a big Jamo fan too! Yeah, about those C97's, there's another RU-vidr named Andrew Robinson who really really loves that model too! Extremely impressed by them! (In fact, he likes all the Jamo stuff he's reviewed). Thanks for dropping in and leaving a comment. Hopefully your 97's tweeter will start smoothing out soon!. : )
@Fat Rat Keep the JAMO high impedance jumpers in place - then connect your speakers cables to ONLY the lower red and black (bass) speaker connectors. In this way, the lossy jumpers will be working for you to help tame the hot tweeters. This assumes you are not using bi-wiring. I think you will find the change dramatic! It might give you the attenuation of the tweeters that you need... Please report back! :)
More proof money doesn't always get you quality or fidelity in this hobby. For what it cost to upgrade most budget speakers its better to just sell them and buy a better speaker with good tests and reviews. Unless you have time and enjoy the work thwn by all means go ahead its a fun project.
The problem is (just as we've seen here) that usually that "better" speaker isn't really much better when the guts of it are the same cheesy parts used in the cheaper priced models.
I have a set of the RB42 I use in one of my spare bedrooms, and for the price they're not bad (I wish they weren't made in China)...I have them paired with a D/T sealed sub with passive radiator and it's a good sound...I thought about hunting around on Madisound for some upgrade crossover parts...haven't decided if it's worth the trouble...does the iron core inductor have the value written on it?
They were $130 in that sale. Basically they were intended for a US Jamo launch, but they (wisely) went with the Studio series instead, because no one was going to pay concert-series prices for a brand with no name recognition in the US. Around the rest of the world, people were paying $1k+
You can make any of them sound different but not necessarily better. I've seen instances of people doing these kinds of changes to AR3a and LS3/5A speakers based on speakerbuilder magazine in the 90s which are classics and they now no longer have resale value. be careful what you modify. often you screw up the designer's sound. Any jerk can tell you what will make it sound different. and have been doing it a long time much to owners later chagrin.
Those grills only cover the drivers. Looks good but maybe they were designed to discourage anyone from tampering with the drivers- one slip of a screwdriver and there's no way to hide the scar
is there too much emphasis on flat response? the resolution is just as important. i heard designers say a flat response can sound bad. 3 db off is not awful is it?
A speaker can have a flat response and sound bad or a flat response and sound great. There are a lot of other factors. But you aren't going to magically make it sound better by deviating from an accurate response.
@@dannyrichie9743 I personally don't have much experience with that. But it makes me think about Bluetooth speakers and soundbars and how they could potentially sound better than my 'traditional' setup which used a gigantic unsightly Yamaha amp and set of Klipsch RP600M bookshelf speakers.
If only I had seen/understood what sort of speaker I was buying when I bought the Jamo s803. The more I mess with trying to get the best sound the more I realize how bad they are.
@@drazenbabich The plan is to eventually to move them to surrounds and replace my LCR with something significantly better and buy a cheap used avr and move the old surrounds and center to the garage. My biggest focus is getting speakers with good off axis response, and quality center channel design being either M(t/m)M or coaxial design but ultimately it has to sound natural in my room. Going to buy room treatments and in ceiling speakers first tho. Thanks for the suggestion! Definitely open to any brand just have to make sure they are right for my needs.
