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The Best 50 Dollar A Pair Speakers Ever ??

TrexT said:
Hey, What are you driving yours with? How much power?

I've seen those other sites with the mods. Very excited to see just how better these can get within reasonable cost of course. These drivers do look like the KEF's. I'm expecting a press release shortly saying stop the sale of these things!!

The biggest I got is 80wpc so that will have to do.
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I am using an Ashly FET 500 amp with 500wpc into 4 ohms, and these love it!
The Ashly is a warm Mosfet amp, really not the best choice for these.
I bet an Adcom or Krell would be better, as they are thiner sounding amps.
If anything, these speakers are perhaps too rich and warm sounding, and need a more transparent amp to make em right.

But, I uses what I gots, and my only other big amp is the Moscode 600 tube/mosfet hybrid, and way too warm for these.

My kid has my Adcom 2535 amp, and I asked him to return it, Dam Kids!
 
Brudha said:
What do you mean took 3 days for the tweeters to turn on?

The pair I got sounded like one of the tweeters was working and the other one wasn't. I'm going to return them and get another set. Looks like their Quality Control might be lacking. Either that or, in fact, it takes a while for them to 'turn on'.......
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Both tweeters "worked" out of the box, but they didn't start to sound really good until 3 days of almost solid play!

This speaker is 8 days old, and has gotten better every day that I have played it.
 
Urizen said:
Adcom GFA-545II. 100 wpc @ 8 ohms, 150 wpc @ 4 ohms. This speaker's impedance drops into the middle 5 ohm range.

2 days here now, and after fiddling with speaker placement and some break in, they sound better, much better. The highs are smoothing out nicely, and they can take some serious juice, as mentioned above. :thmbsp:
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I wish I had my Adcom back for these!
My freaking kid has my Adcom 2535.
My big MosFet amp has the juice, but it is a very warm, romantic sounding amp, just what I do NOT need for these.

I bet they sound great with the Adcom!
And yes, they can take some juice, and seem to love it too.
You are only 2 days in, wait until a week of constant play, they really start opening up.

They are great for TV watching/movies too.
We watched "Troy" with Brad Pitt, sounded great.
I wish I looked like that, LOL
 
Brudha said:
Easier just to take them back for me. Just got back with another pair.....

DAMN!!!!! This is what it's all about!! Unbelievable sound coming from simple coaxial design speakers! The first pair were definitely bad (at least one of them). Got a lower box # in the lot series this time. Box 51 of 370. These definitely kick ass all over the Polk R15's!

Probably best bang for the buck going right now. 2 pair left at local Best Buy store - might have to pick them up tomorrow as gifts.

Anybody testing a 2 pair stack please chime in..........
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You might get interference patterns from a stack ?
But, if you turned the top speaker upside down, the drivers would be closer together.
I owned stacked Advents, and screw the theory, they sounded great.
 
You guys think these would work well with older SS amps? Seems like it would compliment the sound judging by what people say.

And as far as stacking, do you think it would be better to have them stacked with the drivers on the outside, and the ports in the middle, or the ports on the top and bottom with the drivers in the middle?


Thanks!!
 
I snared a pair last night after work. I'm off to Ark for the Klipsch Pilgrimage, so I MAY set them up for grins there, but I'll probably wait until I return. Then I'll do a comparison with my small speaker collection (Polk 15, CSW Newton M50, Mission 761i), as well as a compo to the best small speaker I own, the original Mission 700.

When my wife sees two new speakers, I'll probably get that other thing I needed...a hole in the head. ;)
 
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There seems to be some quality control issues for sure...

Picked up a pair today after work. The woofer portion of one speaker has zero output. Tweeter works fine though. It's a crossover or wire problem... not sure which one.

The one speaker that does work sounds quite good for the price.... I'll be keeping them once I get a pair that works 100% ;)

Anyone have any ideas what it could be? If it's an easy fix I might not have to return them.
 
pmsummer said:
When my wife sees two new speakers, I'll probably get that other thing I needed...a hole in the head. ;)
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:lmao: Just my thought, as I stopped myself from going to Best Buy :)
 
Well... I'm not a patient person, so I just found the problem myself. The positive lead to the woofer had a break in it somewhere. New piece of wire and viola! Both speakers working beautifully.

I'm used to larger, older speakers, so these sound different, but I'm VERY pleased with my purchase. Can't decide if I should use them as rears as I had initially planned, or use them with my computer system...

Those of you with them, have you been using the included rubber feet?
 
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After an afternoon and evening of playing with them, here's some quick comments;

1) Don't even THINK about using them as computer monitor speakers after all is said and done. They are unshielded in a very nasty way. Keep 'em about a foot away from your TV, too.

2) They sound better than Polk R15s on first listen, but not as good as CSW M50 or Mission 760i speakers.

3) They are surprisingly light weight, which isn't a good thing.

4) The connectors are horribly exposed and easily broken (would be my guess).

5) They are fun, good sounding small bookshelf speakers that sound best on stands about a foot out from the rear wall and three feet in from the sides (so far). Six feet is a good minimum seperation between them. Closer than that and they lose imaging (no surprise here).

6) Might be fun to put that driver and xo into a better rectangular cabinet.
 
After listening to them for several days,Ive found that quality issues are many:
The distortion level gets very high sometimes,and then disappears altogether.
The tweeter does like to get brighter,and duller from time to time.
I love the soundstage.Kinda reminds me of my old DCM CX-17's.
Nice features for such a cheapy speaker.
If I had found my wonderful 20 dollar speakers first(KLH six)I wouldnt have bothered with these.
Another set of speakers finds its way to the garage.
Jimmy
 
Jimmy, Mine did the same thing and amazingly enough after 15-20 hrs listening time it now is a constant good sound from the highs. Give them time.
 
Well I bit and bought a pair for myself. Driven by both a adcom 545 in my h/t setup and a amc 2030s from my audio setup. I first compared them to my recently recapped sansui sp-2000's: They have deeper bass, better mids and much more precise imaging. The sansui's are much more sensitive but that's the only way they are better than the insignia's. Next against my polk rt7's which are known for great mids. Finally a pair of recapped minimus 7's The result for both: I prefer the insignia's. Their imaging is just plain better.
These will definately be my speaker of choice until I can afford some Paradigm monitors or B&W's.
Has anyone tried stacking 2 pairs?
 
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I got a pair last Friday evening and spent an hour or so playing with them. Left them on an Eagles CD while we went to dinner. Played with them again for an hour or so on Saturday afternoon, and again let them be played loud while we were out (and again on Sunday). Hopefully I will have some time today - no, I don't think so - to do more comparisons but here are the initial results:

Not bad for $50 new but there are many better out there (at more cost). I don't like the connector placement up high on the speaker body and the banana spacing is not standard so I have to use a clip lead to jumper them. Ugly solution, that. The tweeter level on mine is low compared to everything else, but two clicks up on the Yamaha CA-1000 tone control with turnover at 5k makes them come in. The bottom does not go all that low, either. But it is a pleasant speaker and images well. People have done a lot worse for more money.

I would like more time and to invite my neighbor/friend over again with my other pair of speakers that I have loaned him to do a massive comparison. Meanwhile, here is what I have compared them to -

Axiom M3Ti. Almost the same physical size but the Axiom plays lower and higher (before tone control tweak), may be smoother in the mid as well. I am glad I have these instead of the Insignias (but at about 6x the price, they better be better). You can almost go it alone with the Axiom on a large orchestral work that does not make it on the Insignia.

DCM CX-17. Physically much larger than the Insigina, and it plays significantly lower. As other owners of these DCMs have noted, surprising bass. Imaging quite good, but the DCM may seem midrange heavy or forward in comparison. I need more real time to evaluate the differences, as to which I might prefer. I think the DCM but I am not sure of the forward presentation.

DCM Time Piece. This is also a 6-1/2 inch two way, I think. I have only a single one so cannot speak for the imaging. My Time Piece can be tossed, in comparison to the above. The bottom does not come alive without significant boost in the bass tone control. The finish was nice, and it was 8 bucks, but the mate never showed up.

My Audix MM15 are at the friend's house so I cannot say. These were my bedroom studio monitors before I got Michaura M55s. I have not put the Michauras against the Insignias yet either. I need more speaker cables... I had forgotten how many little speakers I have about. Still need to refoam the Boston A40 II as well.

Qysonic Array tower. No contest. I fell in love with my speakers again and I have them 30 years now. They do things these other little ones cannot. Like go much lower, and have magic in the middle. A big orchestra has impact that the little ones will never do, without help. The image floats like it is real. You think the little ones are good until the Qy come on. The the violin sits in space above the piano on my recording of Pachelbel Kanon and it makes you swoon. Funny that because I used a single mic above the violin and a stereo pair on the piano under the lid. But that is the way the cookie crumbles.

The Insigina are good so far for 50 bucks new, but may go back in 24 days because they don't signifcantly best any of the others yet. An update will come later if I can arrange a good comparison session, and get them broken in better too. I still might build a portable system around them, hey maybe.
 
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