# Review of Insignia NS-B2111 (KEF Knockoff's)



## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

I picked ip the Insignia speakers yesterday afternoon and as promised I dissected one and took pics. I did a short listening session also in a very bad room. Here's the pics and initial feelings about them.

They came in a pretty green box, BTW BB's order on line and pick up in store is great! No waiting line and nobody asked me if I wanted magazines or extended warranty's 

Pretty green box and how they are packed:


They were well packed, you would have to really do something stupid to the box to damage them. Aside from puncture damage I would not be afraid to have them shipped in this carton. The box includes Manual, (did not read of course) Speakers, and some sticky rubber feet for the bottom of the enclosure. Incidentally the enclosure is marked with small circles as to where the feet stick on, neet, kinda.

They are good looking speakers, as I was un-packing them the wife came in and mentioned "ooh, those are pretty," which beats, "Why the hell do we have ANOTHER set of speakers!?" Here's the specimen freshly unpacked:




I was pleased to see binding posts but disappointed to se that they are not spaced for dual banana plug use, when will speaker manufacturers EVER figure this one out? I WANNA USE NANER PLUGS! Having one over the other also requires a bit of intricate trimming as to exert even force on each wire, if they were horizontal and spaced appropriately they would fit on the back panel. This would also allow for an even wire hang. The posts have plastic insulators on them and are touch-proof to conform with CE standards, the insulator caps pop right off but they DO have holes to accept SINGLE banana plugs, no need to pop them off. The front panel is gorgeous black lacquer, it looks great! The paint is of high quality and the finish is deep and reflective (kids with fingers will change that)

Just like Sid in Toy Story, I cannot resist the urge to dismantle anything in sight. At first it looked to be a challenge but it was actually quite easy (and ingenious at that) The posts that hold the grille on accept a 3MM hex head. They thread thru the decorative front panel and hold it to the fiberboard enclosure. After removal of these 4 fasteners one simply lifts the decorative panel off and sits it aside.



The baffle is single thickness and is joined in the middle via a Dado joint. More on this when I describe the enclosure construction.

The driver is removed via 4 wood screws and unhooked via 4 spade terminals of 4 different sizes (can't screw that up!) but I labeled the driver anyway. This reveals and enclosure with egg-crate foam as absorption, a brace between the driver and port area and a crossover network:



Removal of the egg-crate foam, that is not glued in, further reveals the cabinet construction and crossover. Here's the crossover: 




The crossover is glued to the support member, is 12dB/Oct HP/LP has resistor padding for the tweet and polyswitch protection for the tweet. The coils appear to be about 18Ga, maybe 16 but I doubt it, and the caps are 'Lytic. If the sucka came off the support easier I would have immediately upgraded to poly caps right there  But then the listening tests would be inaccurate right?

Now, you will see that the cab is ridged on the inside. The curve of the enclosure is achieved by notching a SINGLE chunk of Fiberboard to a certain depth and then BENDING the fiberboard around the support/top/bottom. The corners are probably cut deeper but it is quite evident that one piece of wood is used for the front/back/sides, This is then joined in the front as described earlier. This concerned me having wood that thin on the sides and after exertion of brute force to the sides it was noted that they DO flex, the brace is there for a reason and another would not hurt things. Without the brace I honestly feel that I could have broken the enclosure. I will admit that it took a lot of force to make it move (I'm not a small person by any means) but it moved none the less. I like enclosures you can drive over and they come out unscathed  It IS a vented enclosure an no Flexing was really noted during high level testing. It has just been noted as a weird design.

On with the driver. It is a REAL Carbon Fiber Cone, not a look-alike! It has a textile coated fabric dome centered inside a small plastic waveguide. It is well constructed, seems to have even gluing around the surround and former, nice tinsel leads, a stamped basket, and a substantial motor structure. I pressed on the cone evenly and HARD around the VC and could not get the VC to bottom out. It has a relatively stiff suspension. Unfortunately I did not get a pic of the back of the magnet, (sorry) but there is a hole in the pole piece that the lead wire for the tweet goes thru, it is sealed up with a plastic plug and some ackey-puckey. The tweeter leads are small gauge coated copper wire that is heat-shrinked. This leads up to the terminal strip on one side of the driver. The other terminal strip opposite of the tweet strip connects to the woofer VC.



The tinsel leads are not affixed and CAN touch the cone as with any free hanging low-exit configuration. No lead-slap was noted in listening.

Like an idiot I forgot to bring my notes with me that contained driver dimensions and DCR measurements. I also do not have the means to do any T/S testing at home currently, bummer, maybe time to invest? I would say that the driver would be an interesting viable option as a DIY Automotive Driver, It's worth a shot, if I had a vehicle that would come a part easy I would try it. The tweet is fairly small so a higher XO point would be advisable but since they are concentric it should be no big deal.

Initial Listening.......

The shop system consists of the following.... An Old Skool Sony CDX-5100 car CD player used as CD and tuner and a XM roady for sources. The preamp is an Onkyo Integra P-304 and drives a Phase Linear 400 (Flame Linear, REALLY old-skool) The Flame outputs 202W/CH all day long into 8 Ohms and is conservatively rated, Dynamic power is amazing, I don't even want to wager a guess because I'd feel bad about hitting these little speakers with that much power  The normal speakers are Jensen's (yes folks) that came stock with Wife Ver2.0 They contain a 15" woofer and an ass load of mids and tweets. The enclosure is vented, the crossover in minimal (I'm afraid to look) they are BFL speakers that make everything sound good whether it originally sounded poor or great, everything just sounds good, even XM  Perfect shop speakers! Cables are 100% shield RG58U for signal (I do a lot of RF work) and standard zip cord for speaker cable. There are ferrites on the speaker cables normally, to quench back RF trying to slide up the backside of the amp. These were not used in the insignia testing as I used different, un matched, poopier 16 GA cable, just to prove that I don't believe in snake oil 

The Insignias were placed on the top shelves of the storage rack about 5' apart and canted in a bit. They are about 1-2 Feet above ear level (I'm short)

Shop rig, Don't laugh, it gits-er-dun: 



Initially I noticed that they were not NEARLY as efficient as the Jensens, but in all fairness the Jensen's stomp them in Cone Surface Area! They did need a little coaxing from the flame to come out of hiding. Immediately I noticed excellent imaging, They are concentric, I'm no stranger to concentrics  I have never heard "imaging" in that room before, which, incidentally is a concrete floor and sheetrock shop 200 Sq feet with 10' ceilings 10'X20', there are NO soft surfaces and lots of metal. I was listening to a classical performance that I recorded and was amazed. I then threw the new Buckcherry album into the mix, it sounded like ****, it was bright, it hurt and had no low end. I then flattened out all the tone controls and it sounded better, a bit of low end was added and it became acceptable. I had never heard this album before outside the car so I took it up to the studio and it was still a little bright so that was OK. Over compressed pop music sounds.... over compressed. The speakers do not lie! I like that!!! I played around a bit more and had the same results, XM had no high end, radio sounded like radio. I played pop loud and noted that the speakers would play INSANELY loud, snare drum was nice and hit you in the chest and jaw, big low end was lacking, they will want to be placed close to a wall, unlike this rig (they are out about 3'). I switched to the classical CD I made that has NO compression and is a very dynamic performance. Again I was impressed. I unloaded that whole amp into those speakers and then some and they took it with stride, in fact I was feeling bad for a bit when realizing I was hitting a 'lil over +3dB on peaks equating to over 400W!!! They never seemed stressed before my ears did, pretty darn cool!

So now that I have tortured them it's time to take them up to the recording room and give them some serious listening. I'll let you know the results of that probably next week, it may take longer since I'm outside more. I also plan to bring them into work and let others listen; I'll post those results too!

In conclusion I must note that my first set of "hi-fi" speakers were the original model of the Realistic Minimus 7's back 20 some years ago. Those speakers retailed for $49.95 EACH.... 20 some years ago. These (Insignia's) are that price of ONE of those TODAY, WITH TAX! Going out on a limb, without doing critical listening, I can say that for 50 bucks you cannot beat them! If you don't like them put them in your garage or use the drivers for rear fill  Just don't buy them all up before I decide if I want to buy a bunch for the Uni 

I’ll post driver measurements tonight, I promise.

Chad


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Now that's what I call a review.


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## AzGrower (May 30, 2005)

Would this be a good match for these?
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=300-952


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

AzGrower said:


> Would this be a good match for these?
> http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&DID=7&Partnumber=300-952



If you don't listen very loud and it's in a small room. They do want some power. Unfortunately the smallest amp I have now at the ranch is 150W/Ch (Crown DC300A) In the last pic you can see the guts of an old Kenwood receiver I'm ressurecting (older than the flame). When I get the PS rebuilt I'll try to drive them with that, it's around 30-40W/Ch discreet.

Chad


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## 300Z (Mar 20, 2005)

Thanks for the very nice and detailed review Chad.

Makes me wonder if i should continue with my plans of building a small bookshelf using the Aura NS4 + Dayton RS28A (or maybe the BG Neo) drivers... or just buy these Insignia instead? What do you think?

Once again, Thanks.
Leo


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

300Z said:


> Thanks for the very nice and detailed review Chad.
> 
> Makes me wonder if i should continue with my plans of building a small bookshelf using the Aura NS4 + Dayton RS28A (or maybe the BG Neo) drivers... or just buy these Insignia instead? What do you think?
> 
> ...



I don't know your plans or the application but remember that the NS4 is only 84dB 1W/1M and handles a blazing 20W. The tweeter will then have to be padded down to that level, you will have some grossly inefficient speakers 

2 NS4's will cost about the same as the insignia. I'd go with the insignia, but it DOES go against ALL DIY 

Chad


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## 300Z (Mar 20, 2005)

chad said:


> I don't know your plans or the application but remember that the NS4 is only 84dB 1W/1M and handles a blazing 20W. The tweeter will then have to be padded down to that level, you will have some grossly inefficient speakers
> 
> 2 NS4's will cost about the same as the insignia. I'd go with the insignia, but it DOES go against ALL DIY
> 
> Chad


Thanks for the input Chad.

I'm planing to just build a small high resolution monitor set. My listening position is only ~3' away from the speakers and i don't need it to play very loud, 90-94db would be plenty for my app. The low end will be complimented by a sub.
Right now i'm using Vifa PL7 + Dayton RS28A and i'm happy with the results that i achieved. But i would like to have a second set just for comparisons every now and then you know...  

Thanks again.
Leo


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## sqkev (Mar 7, 2005)

I made the purchase of these speakers today since there has been much talk about them on several different forums.

My impression, the build quality of the speakers from the outside is superior than most sub 100 speakers. I like the curve side panels and really like the front black metallic baffle. Construction is not what you would expect from a $50/pair speakers. They would put those mixing monitor speakers to shame in terms of looks.

Onto the sound, out of the box driven by a pioneer elite dvd running optically to the deq2496, then onto the dcx2496, then to an older akai amp, the speakers sounds a bit rugged in the midrange and highs. The voices sound blanketed/covered and thick. The highs is what you would expect from a metal dome. Peaky in certain areas and can leave a bit of fatigue after awhile. 
On the plus side, bass/midbass is more solid than what I would expect from this small speakers in my rather large living room. The soundstage is what you would expect from a fullranger type of speaker. 

After a bit of listening (2 hours?), I went ahead and measured the response. As suspected, the midrange and highs is a bit rugged. But, not as bad as a measurement i saw from diyaudio.com. The speaker seems to roll off around 70hz. After a quick auto eq and hooking my paradigm 10" bandpass sub to the system, the speakers definitely made improvements. 

For someone who loves to build speakers as much as I do, this is one of the best purchases I've made in awhile. I love how it looks and how it sounds now thanks to the eq. The speakers can definitely pass for a 200-300 pair due to how it looks and sounds. My comments about the speakers above are direct comparision to my dipoles and the TMM that I built, which are in the living room right now. 

I'm planning to make speaker stands for the speakers and probably will keep them in the living room as a backup speaker (in case somehow I blow up all my speakers and equipment? lol)

If anyone's interested. I can probably post some measurements that I can get from the deq2496.


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## chuyler1 (Apr 10, 2006)

I'd love to hook these up to my upstairs TV. Can anyone suggest a cheap (less than $100, preferrably less than $50) 2-ch amp to power these with? Perhaps something I should look for on eBay?


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## geoffire (Oct 21, 2005)

its a coincidental coax!? For $50 it might be worth the buy just for the drivers!

any chance you could measure the fs and Q values?
http://sound.westhost.com/tsp.htm

Very nice review btw!


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

I could get close to FS via an impedance plot but don't have the gear to do Q values. And... Once again I forgot to post measurements of size and DCR... I PROMISE I will do it tonight!

Chad


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

chuyler1 said:


> I'd love to hook these up to my upstairs TV. Can anyone suggest a cheap (less than $100, preferrably less than $50) 2-ch amp to power these with? Perhaps something I should look for on eBay?



Pawn Shop 

Chad


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## rimshot (May 17, 2005)

I bought a pair as well, for 50 a pair I couldnt be happier and they sound good and look great, still breaking them in but for the money, i cant complain.


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## geoffire (Oct 21, 2005)

I just bought a set. 
my initial listening show the imaging and sound stage is great. They need some eq work, but I don't like the sound of the bass. I don't know if its the ported enclosure or what, but the bass doesn't sound good to me. also I feel like I'm missing a few details in some familiar recordings, eq may bring them back though.

all in all I think the rs125/nd20 combo i have in my car sounds better, although for the price, not half bad.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

According to the Best Buy website, these are on sale for $35 right now. Who knows how long it will last.


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## Guest (Jun 26, 2006)

The 2 day sale lasted 2 days.  
Zaph was kind enough to take the time to post lots o' SE measurements http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=938711#post938711

Cheers,

AJ


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

AJinFLA said:


> The 2 day sale lasted 2 days.
> Zaph was kind enough to take the time to post lots o' SE measurements http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=938711#post938711
> 
> Cheers,
> ...


I wasn't sure if it was part of the 2-day sale or not. The 2-day sale said 15% off, but this was 30%.


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## KAP (Mar 18, 2007)

Now what about these insignia car amps for 9.99 on ebay.


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## ludlamtheory (May 31, 2005)

employee cost on the 2111's is 30 bucks... its lovely


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