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OK so I bought a pair yesterday at BB for $35 and hooked them up to the system. There is definetly potential here
but didn't really hear the magic that turns me on to equipment. I guess they have to break in.
Anyway they are in the basement blasting to white noise for the rest of the week.These are the problems that I heard and hope someone can tell me if these areas will improve.
1. Excessive warmth. Is the tweeter working? Sounded dull and on certain music just plain flat.
Will they come to life and sparkle?2. Soundstage. I read it in the posts but I don't have any magic here.
Instruments are blended together in a blur.
They don't stand out clearly and don't seem to have a dynamic to them (compressed).
Will instruments have air around them and dynamics?3. Little beamy. Seemed like a tight "sweet spot". Are these super directional? Will the sweet spot widen?
I would appreciate any comments from those experienced with these
on whether these areas improve or not over the break-in period.I understand these are $35. but trying to understand the hype.
Thanks,
Jeff
Follow Ups:
I am surprised by your comments on the tweeter performance. I find it as good as many high-end speakers costing more than 50-100 times as much. This is based on listening to jazz and classical music with lots of cymbal crashes and cymbal brushes and other high frquency sound. I found them smooth and fairly detailed, not the least bit bright, and reasonably well-balanced with the rest of the frequency range. Of course I've heard better, but for a lot more money. The biggest difference is in richness and complexity of the high frequencies, that note of reality that is missing on these speakers. But they are certainly very satisfying. I should add that my system feeding the Insignias cost about 200 times the cost of the speakers, so the signal they are being fed is very good.Joe
Well as I described below the experience was much better when I switched off of the Goertz M2 and onto simple magnet wire.
The M2's were just too warm for these and dulled them out.
So I found that my brighter cables worked better with the Insignias.
And the near field was much better than trying to fill a large room.
That's part of the fun for me. Finding the magic!Jeff
I find them lacking a lot. The midrange is all over the place for sound. But what the hell do you want for such a cheap speaker. I have some ten inch woofers. I was pondering an open baffle orion type design but I am far too lazy. However I think these SOBS with an open baffle and sub could have potential. If only I werent such a boob with basic math and science. I really like the speaker for what it does per buck. It is not the cats meow audiophile speaker but it deserves some praise where it is due. No other speaker can do what it does for the price per pair.I know for the price that drivers are worth every penny. Add a well designed x-over and some magic can happen. All the hype regarding tweaks seems rather dumb to me. For all that effort...Why not build a new cabinet. Stay tuned because I might do just that. The X-over seems like a simple mod but not worth the hassle. BTW I drank over four pints of Spaten...By all means discount my credibility...hiccup! as an audiophool. I am appaled by the the harsh reviews of this speaker. It is indeed a cheap POS...But it is a cheap chinese POS with soul. It aint perfect. It should be praised for pure value. It sounds alright. A cheap reciever and these speakers with a cheapo Toshiba DVD and you got one helluva mini system. End of discussion. Don't aruge with me. I am a right. You are indeed foolish to equate this with audiophile priced goods. Per buck this speaker rocks. It is a modest butt kicker. Nothing more nothing less. Lets enjoy the cheap frills while we can.
.
Well I just finished a very enjoyable evening with the Insignia's.
I was struggling to get them to work in my room that is about 25 x 12.So I decided to do 2 things.
I went to the near field mode. 6 foot spacing and I am about 5 foot away from the speakers.
Ahh yes - nice big soundstage.
Tried both straight on and toed in.
Aiming a foot in front of me seemed to be the best but liked both.
My mistake in thinking these speakers can fill a room that big.I was still troubled with the (over) warmth and lake of magic and layers and started to think that my cables could be a problem.
I am using Goertz M2 with my Brines which are warm and work well with the Fostex driver.
I decided to try a pair of magnet wire cables I had previously made using clear packing tape.
These did the trick.
With only 10 hours on the speakers the magnet wire cables delivered the detail and the instrument locations and DEPTH.
I mean these things really have depth.
I lost that fake over-warm bass and got magic in the soundstage.So after this little experiment I am IN on the Insignia's in the near field using magnet wire cables ($1.00).
As enjoyable a night as I have ever had. It really is great to have the Slim Devices SB2 (RWA modded) to tear thru the music collection.
Jeff
It has been getting better and better for me over a course of a week. I'm sure having fun with these (as you said, tearing through a music collection) and getting good sound without using any expensive electronics. I sure hope many many folks will give them a try!
They are sure a lot of fun.
Just as a Lowther or Fostex has "something about it" so does a coincident driver, like the one in the Insignia's.They are new, but just imagine how good they are going to get as people start doing the GR Research mods, discover best wire/stands/amps, etc, etc.
With all these drivers out there, I predict it just a matter of time before someone will come out with a Marble type enclosure, or even a transmission line ?
My GOD man, a carbon fiber coincident driver for God's sakes, for cheap!
I predict open baffle arrangements, or maybe even a bi polar version ?
Just you wait, this is going to be big!
. . . cease "blasting" the white noise. You may have already fried the tweeters, hence your point #1. White noise has too much HF content to safely use your method. Use pink noise or FM interstation hiss, which is similar, as they have reduced HF content.Best way to break in speakers quickly is to put them right up close to each other, face to face and nearly touching; then reverse the wires on one speaker, making the pair out of phase. Then you can truly "blast" music or pink noise through them and much of the resulting sound will cancel out. Throw a blanket over them and the process is nearly silent.
Otherwise, I don't find them lacking treble. Many audiophile-grade speakers are, to my ears, too bright; perhaps your regular speakers are simply brighter than these. Also, Danny's measurements indicate a midrange suckout--perhaps the lack of midrange energy is being perceived as too much warmth.
#2 and #3 will get better with break-in, but it's clearly too much to expect from a $35 pair (!) of speakers that they will match speakers costing 100 times as much in these areas.
That said, they're stupid good for $35, and will make my son happy!
" Danny's measurements indicate a midrange suckout--perhaps the lack of midrange energy is being perceived as too much warmth."Actually the mid-range area is in the 300 to 600Hz range where is is fairly flat. The peak is in the upper mid-range and that sucked out area is past the mid-range area.
Danny Richie
And bravo for defining the "midrange" as you do. I do too, actually, but most audiophiles think it extends considerably higher.
You are absolutely right, they are stupid good for the money.
I have told many about them, and most are delighted with these.
Danny's mods will take em to a whole new level, not to mention the satisfaction and introduction to audio tweaking many newcomers to our hobby will get.IMHO, the Insignia is the first true breath of fresh air our Hobby has had in years.
Suddenly, one can get into the fun for a measly 50 dollar investment!
20 years from now, when half us old men are dead, these new audiophiles will talk about these like we talk about Advents or Dynaco of our generation ?
where are buying them for 35.00 ?i paid 51.00 at best buy
I checked the one in W. Hollywood on Saturday and they said regular price. In another store nearby (Burbank) they were $35. Those who ordered on line could claim $15 refund over the phone.
BB had a 2 day sale - Fri and Sat (yesterday).Jeff
I paid $49 and was going to bring in my receipt to price-match, but using $7 in gas to get a $10 gift card seemed pointless.
.
I found they sounded congested for 3 days playing loud, woofer stretching rap music and bass CD's.
You need to get that woofer moving!It took another couple of days playing Telstar with a loud, intermittent synthizer to loosen up the tweeter, and turn it on.
All in all, it took 9 days to really come around, and that was mercilessly beating on them!
Just be careful not to clip your amp, or get carried away.
They need to be well out from walls, and on at least 24 inch stands in my experience.They do not like really warm sounding amps, preferring a more neutral, detailed sounding amp.
They will never replace my VMPS RM 40's, my 801's, my Von Schweikerts, etc.
But for the money, I know of nothing that will touch them ?
My son and I both plan to do the GR mod because I have faith in Danny's ability.
If you expect the little Insignia to replace a mega buck speaker, just return them to Best Buy, and move on.
But, if you appreciate them for what they are, keep them, and have fun with them by doing some mods that are here now, and more will be coming, that you can bet on.
What are you comparing them to ?
I'm wondering about those mods;if you like Insignias so much with the relatively ragged on-axis response they start out with, it seems to me that you may like them less with the mods.I'm curious about the breaking in period;maybe Danny could check the response again on an unmodded pair that was has really been beaten on to see if the measured response changed. I'm betting it won't change much;it looks like the roughness comes mainly from cabinet resonance, interference effects between the drivers (probably made worse by the first order crossover) and diffraction (though that cabinet design looks pretty good).
Peter Aczel held that a great coaxial speaker needed to have the drivers coplanar as well as coaxial; the only one I know of with dynamic drivers like that was a design by Dr. Win (SM-8 or SM-10), though the reviews said that Matsushita had a patent on such designs. Weren't there some dynamic speakers with flat driver surfaces driven by separate coils? Some Japanese brand?
I'm guessing that flatter designs will get more popular because of HT driving a desire for on-wall/in-wall speakers.
"maybe Danny could check the response again on an unmodded pair..."The problem with that is that I no longer have an un-modded pair.
"that was has really been beaten on to see if the measured response changed."
Burn in doesn't change the measured response except a slight change in the lowest frequency range where it is near impossible to measure accurately to begin with.
"it looks like the roughness comes mainly from cabinet resonance, interference effects between the drivers (probably made worse by the first order crossover) and diffraction (though that cabinet design looks pretty good)."
Most of the roughness all comes from the woofers response. There was a bad peak at 850Hz and some break up at 4.5kHz. The first order crossover just was not enough to take care of any of these areas.
Most of the cabinet noise is in the lower ranges.
Danny Richie
bertagni. from south america-?argentina? cant remember. anyway, they were styrofoam panels with voice coils in different areas of the diaphragm for different frequencies.
...regards...tr
Well of course just comparing to what I look for in a speaker system.
However, my current system is the Red Wine Audio Slim Devices SB2 into a RWA Clari-T into a Brines FT1600MKII Single Driver system.Jeff
Is that a Lowther based system ?
I think my friend Ozzie had a pair, sold them soon after he got em.
He now has Magnepan MG 3.5's
Did any magic make it in after the break-in?Jeff
A whole lot better!
Much congestion disappeared, and the tweeter opened up.
Efficiency also improved, and a new sense of aliveness appeared.
Bass Cd is best to really break in woofer, get it moving.
It seems to be a tough driver physically, let em have it for awhile, but check up on em to be sure they don't blow, or your amp clips.The tweeters take awhile too, it takes a loud synthesizer, harmonica, sax, etc to turn em on.
I've been playing mine for about 30 minutes now. I think the warmth you are hearing could be due to the flimsy cabinet.So far I pretty impressed with them. They lack mid-range detail, but the overall balance is very good and the highs are surprisingly smooth for such an inexpensive speaker. Nice, punchy bass, too. I think I am going to recommend these to my non-audiophile friends.
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