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The Best 50 Dollar A Pair Speakers Ever ??

It just cracks me up how obtuse I think some of you guys are being, but again, that is only my opinion. Not trying to chap anyone.

Brad, all respect to your opinion and your courteousness, but I could look for those Altecs for the rest of my life and never find them. I'm sure there are many ak'ers who would love to make a find like that one. My buddy Vegaman9, who NEVER posts, found a working Kenwood Model 9 GX for 10 bucks, and the butthole finagled the seller down to SEVEN dollars! Impossible find, impossible price.

I never get that kind of deal!

I can go to BB and get a decent set of these speakers any day of the week.

There's the difference. In a crunch for good speakers?? Get a set of these and mod them. Got the time to peruse pawn shops and yard sales, that is a different story. (I don't, although I LOVE to when I get the time....besides, Bowling Green sucks. The local GW always rushes stuff out the back, and locals don't know diddly as a rule about good sound)

I just think for the ORIGINAL price (got mine for 39.99, + uncle sam's cut) they are a fun, suprisingly good sounding speaker, and in my book, a bargain. :yes:
 
onwardjames said:
I could look for those Altecs for the rest of my life and never find them.
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I think we have drifted a bit from my original question and maybe thats my fault, I was inquiring if the Insignias would make a "good" or at least "descent" pair of surround speakers. Those Altecs may be great speakers but they look a little big to hang from my wall :). I woke up in the middle of the night, groggy, and checked the post (and got a glass of OJ), it seamed funny to show all these old beat-up speakers, in need of major repair in some cases, as an alternative to a nice set of new speakers, I half thought he was kidding, seamed like a lot of work. I had forgotten that I had rescued a pair of Boston Acoustics A100's from the garbage at my work at a local high end AV store (Desco - if anyones from my area), reconed the woofers and have been using them for over 7 years, actually my son uses them now, they're a nice set of spks.

Anyway, I see Zilchs point better now, but I think the BB's are better for my needs.

Thanks again,
Brad
 
gyusher said:
The best thing about the BB speaker is price period. What you get for very little money are brand new speakers that are acceptable right out of the box and with minor tweaking are actually decent speakers. What makes them great again is the price. You can tweak'em till your ears fall off and the worst that can happen is you ruin them. Not a big loss.
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I'm STILL dorking around with the $15/pair POS Presidians here. There's no denying I, too, get considerable mileage out of cheap crap speakers. :p:

Another thought comes to mind is AK's resident expert in economy speaker design, RayW. A search of his past posts will likely uncover one or more of his recommendation for DIY Insignia killers, and the one he's sitting on in "That" pic may be one of them. :thmbsp:

The curved Insignia-esque prebuilt boxes from PE are quite beautiful and well made, but kinda pricey @ $136/pair. Did someone say WalMart has cheap DIY kit speaker cabs? IKEA, maybe? Another AK Design Collaborative? :dunno:
 

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Off thread, but has anyone thought about an AK Design Collaborative DIY design that AK can offer to defray some of its costs? Lots of talent involved here. If the design relied on components from AK advertisers, it might benefit AK supporters too.
 
Robie said:
Off thread, but has anyone thought about an AK Design Collaborative DIY design that AK can offer to defray some of its costs? Lots of talent involved. If the design relied on components from AK advertisers, it might benefit AK supporters too.
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It's certainly possible. Jackgiff and I did it with EconoWave for entry-level horns. It just takes a couple of members with a common interest and purpose.

I'll talk to Ray about some possibilities for a design. I have a couple of ideas how to make the slick curved cabs, and we have several members who might be persuaded to make the "flats," i.e., a kit form of those. The boxes seem to be a major hurdle for many who would otherwise be building their own speakers here.... :thmbsp:
 
The cabinets would absolutely be the sticking point in kicking out an ultracheap pair of speakers. Outside of cabinet costs, I'd imagine we could come up with a couple of options with a 50.00 budget. Might make a fun contest among the speaker builder types amongst us. Set something like a 100.00 budget and then maybe ship them around for subjective testing. :)
 
Zilch said:
Another thought comes to mind is AK's resident expert in economy speaker design, RayW. A search of his past posts will likely uncover one or more of his recommendation for DIY Insignia killers, and the one he's sitting on in "That" pic may be one of them. :thmbsp:
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Resident expert? Cool. I need to put that on my resume.

The speaker I'm sitting on in that pic is indeed a budget design, but only because I had access to the drivers at the time. The woofer is from a Martin-Logan hybrid and the tweeter is a Peerless that we used in a HT design at a previous employer. I have something like $40 invested in the drivers but to buy them (not that you can buy them) retail would probably be in the $160-170 range.

Most of my economy designs have stemmed from something or other being on sale. I would assume we would want drivers for this that are always available on a budget so I'll have to ponder that a bit.

As for cheap and easy cabs, here's one take...
speakers2.jpg

The round little jobbies on the floor are made from Quiktube (aka Sonotube). Just cut a couple circles for front and back, a driver cutout, stuff in a coax and you're done. BTW, the little MDF box on the left on top of the black tower is the one I'm sitting on in that pic before it was finished out.

So who's gonna start the new thread?

Ray
 
I'd read all these threads for years but finally had a reason to go to BB (WALL-E w00t!) and grabbed a pair for the full $88 price. I hooked them up and got right to listening and I'm... very impressed. Like, very satisfied with this purchase and feel like most people wanting a stereo could happily stop here.

They're hooked up to a NAD C325BEE with a Dual 1228, Sony SCD-CE595, Sony HD Radio Tuner, OPPO 980, and whatever iPod or Sansa I hook up to rock out to. Other speakers in my (embarrasingly large) collection I've done a direct comparison to:

Infinity Primus P362

Polk Rti6

Polk RTi A1

Polk Monitor 30

Aperion 532

Klipsch Synergy B-2

IMHO the only speakers I might prefer over these for or near the retail price are the Infinities and the Klipsch, though the former don't image as well and the latter are missing a lot of the mid-bass excitement.

The RTi-series Polks actually sound very very similar but don't image quite as well, again IMHO. They do have a slightly cleaner treble, though these Insignias only have about 20 hours on them so maybe that will change. The Monitor 30s are (again IMHO) terrible in comparison. Hooking them up after the RTi6 was bad enough as the Monitors are boxy, congested, chesty, etc in comparison, but when you stack them against the less expensive Insignias the embarassment only grows.

Though I suppose I wish I'd rather have paid $39 bucks for these, they're still a great deal at the asking price. I'll keep an eye on the website for a price match in the next 30 days, but these are definitely staying and I wish I'd found them a long long time ago.
 
I just found this thread, while searching fo a pair of speakers for my new (to me) 980DB. it looks like they have almost doubled in price, form $50.00 to $87.98

I may still give them a try.
 
I still use mine in a nearfield system. I think that BBuy knew about the buz AK and other sites were creating. They initially were a loss-leader. Know they are more in their main stream selection. I would go for it if I were looking for a new speaker on a budget.

You may be able to find a better speaker on line for about the same price, but then you have shipping, etc. Parts Express has a very good system called BR-1 that is a very easy kit. Have done two before. Looks like they are out of stock right now.
http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=300-640

I haven't gone thru this thread completely, but you will find many say that they were very happy with the speaker. I still am.
 
I was in a bar the other night and they had the Insignia Speakers for their sound system. I would like to pick up a pair but not at $87.
 
There has been a lot of talk in this thread and elsewhere on site about "refoaming" or "replacing surrounds."
We're making it sound as if old foam-edged speakers have a simple maintenance problem! Psshhha! Balderdash! In the interest of perpetuating our hobby, let's stick with the technically correct and, thankfully, still commonly used terms "blown" or "broken."
 
I am still very satisfied with my $50 a pair Insignias, unmodified. I listen to them in my study and they have held up well. I would recommend them, even at the higher price. Slightly more expensive is the Cambridge Sound model 6's, which I have not been able to hear, but have been given good reviews. I do have the Polk Monitor 30's and they sound excellent to me, but they are paired with the Polk PSW 10 self-powered subwoofer, so perhaps they need a sub to sound correct. I have found the sound of the Polk combo to be efficient, clean, with excellent imaging.
 
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Zilch said:
"Suck" would fit in there somewhere, but I am obviously "Indigniafied...." ;)
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No need to get "Indigniant" Zilch.:D

My Insignias sit on a shelf unused since I built my my Indignias. Every once in awhile I get them down to see if I'm missing something. I hook 'em up and then they go back to the shelf.

IMO, Insignias are not bad but Indignias are just so much more enjoyable.
 
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I appreciate a new anything anytime, but for my $50.00 I'll settle for the Polk Monitor 5's with Peerless tweeters from circa late 1970's, which while larger physically, are also far larger sonically.

That's why I love vintage.

But if I were to go for new stuff for a small space, yeah . . ok, they'll work fine.:thmbsp:

Cheers
 
I blew a tweeter in one of my insignia drivers. Does anyone know where to get a replacement driver if they are even available.

Scott
 
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