New speakers build on the strength of the Solo7C’s, offering 140W RMS in a stereo tower form factor.
New speakers build on the strength of the Solo7C’s, offering 140W RMS in a stereo tower form factor.
Two weeks ago Tony reviewed the excellent H30 BT and H50 BT stereo speakers, and it appears that the manufacturer Microlab are planning to bring yet more models to the UK this month. In a tweet by representatives of their UK arm Microlab revealed that the Solo9C’s were coming to these shores at the end of this month, supplanting the Solo7C’s at the top of their Speakersystem range.
We looked at the Solo7C’s way back in 2012, finding them to be of great quality and excellent value. Since then the model has undergone an update, adding more accessible physical volume and equalisation control, improving the remote control and bundled cabling, and slightly widening the frequency response. The listed specifications for the Solo9C’s go further.
Microlab Solo9C’s continue with the ~50cm tall tower speaker configuration featuring one midrange, one woofer and one tweeter driver. Raw RMS wattage has been increased from 110 to 140W, staying within the 50Hz-20KHz frequency response of the 7C’s updated variant. Sounds good so far.
The most meaningful improvements on a day-to-day basis however may be in the realm of inputs. The 7C’s were restricted to two RCA inputs, generally for the PC and one additional analogue device; the Solo9C’s however are adding HDMI, TOSLINK (Optical) and Coaxial RCA options indicating an additional on-board digital decoder. This greatly expands the number of devices the speakers would be compatible with, making them much more viable as an accompaniment to HTPC & console setups.
Apart from pricing, the major technical quandary is whether it will have HDMI passthrough. Only time will tell.
For updates on MicrolabUK products check out their twitter feed and official website. Microlab audio solutions are available from many mainstream UK PC etailers.
