Cost. Cost.

Bass. Imaging.

I bought these last year the day after Thanksgiving. I bought 4 of them for a surround sound system. They are well worth the money. Even though I purchased these for a surround sound system, I mainly listen to music. These are not for the critical listener. The bass is on the thin side, even for a speaker of this size. Imaging is Okay, but far from good. My new Polk Audio r15's improve upon both of these aspects. The also cost 80 dollars. So I guess you get what you pay for.

Similar Products Used:

Polk Audio r15

Just a note. I briefly had these speakers for experimenting (not critical listening) and they claim to be shielded. However, i notice much picture distortion when placed on top of my TV. Be cautious, i don't think they are truely shielded; don't expect much out of a $9 speak.

For the price these are great speakers for casual listening just as they are. They have bucking magnets to reduce magnetic radiation making them ideal as replacements for the cheap speakers found on most computers and the internal acoustic stuffing makes the enclosure seem larger to the woofer producing good bass. Removable grills, rarely prodvided on cheap speakers, make driver replacement easy.

Treble and upper midrange need improvement if you are a serious listener.

I bought these speakers thinking I would ditch the drivers and use the nicely constructed cabinets for a computer speaker project I wanted to build. Hell, you can't duplicate these for $9.84 each. Anyway I was very surprised at the performance. The bass is fine and for a 5 incher does well on most music. Their weakness is in the treble, the 7/8 inch tweeter is crossed over at 8Khz by a 2.2 mfd capacitor so the upper midrange suffers a lot. Replacing the tweeter with a 1" dome type and a cap ( 5mfd) for a lower crossver point of 3 to 4 Khz will better the performance.

Price, Price, Price good power handling/volume magnetically shielded

Harsh treble Boomy, muddy midbass

Well, for $30 bucks they dont sound too bad. They have plenty of volume, and midrange is acceptable. They are magnetically sheilded, and these would be perfect for rear surrounds. That said, I am using these hooked to a late 70's Sansui G-5700 receiver as mains. The treble is not very smooth, even harsh at times. Mine have bass ports in the rear(I guess some dont?) and while you can feel them through the floor when you crank them, the bass seems muddy and/or boomy. This may be due to wall placement, but I have tried different positions with little difference. I mainly bought these to use as a stopgap speaker since my old Sansui floor speakers were too heavy and large to be worth taking with me to Denver from South Bend, IN. I plan on upgrading to some Paradigm Atoms and a sub in the near future. Until then, I can't complain. In this case I think you get a little more than what you pay for.

Similar Products Used:

old 4way-5speaker sansui floor speakers.

price, AM is nice clear speech, Lots of "stuff" missing in certain freq/ ranges. I'll leave it to engineers to specify. Sounded better than the "flasgship" KLH9012 9015 and one 4xx because of tubbyness in those..

punch, kick, brilliance, crispess, gloss . It has a nice aura and you don't miss the bass once you get used to it. You need a small room, mine, 11x10

This speaker is very smooth and places vocals ahead of everything in the mix. However there seems to be a lot of information missing in the 300-800 khz. I think the 86 db sensitivity helps it not being fatiguing however o found that going back and listening to tv made the sound on vocals very dull. It could be ftigue or simply that forward sound. THe sound seems to float in the air. Soundstage is brilliant therefore in a 11/10 room with nor furniture, but what wouldn't. I think i got a differnet speaker than the one they had on display and labeled 911B at BB. This has a platic piece over the tweeter , and that one was all rubber. It sounded better in vocals than any KLH in their switchig selector. KLH bass is muddy in the subwoofer , so don't bother there. This is an acoustic suspension model then going down to 80hz. Deep bass settles in but nothing kicks so it seems thqat overall bass is fair. Keyboard stuff is great Can this be modified? Someone said there's a cap for a crossover. What does that do make it unchangeble? Is there insulation inside? I got 12 gauge wire .47 a foot at Home Depot beating monster cable. Id give it a 5 for value and a 3 overall. I wish they had the Yamaha 5290 and 6390 set up . but no such luck.

Similar Products Used:

Advent Prodigy and Legacy (accurate, feathery treble and contolled detailed bass-love them), KLHAV5001 (excellent) fatiguing though, Pinnacle PN9+

Image quality, soundstaging, clean sound, actual crossover(2nd order),PRICE !!!

They lack machismo...

As crazy as it may sound, the 911B does about everything as well as the Polk RT/25i. I bought the Polks a month ago because of the Stereophile article. To my ears, the KLH images better and the driver integration seems smoother. The Polk has a slight edge in high-frequency accuracy. Neither gives appreciable sub-100 Hz bass...I never expected them to. That''s why I have a subwoofer ! As long as you use the 911B in a small, live room you can''t go wrong.

Similar Products Used:

Polk RT/25i, Infinity CMMD bookshelf

performance/price ratio, small size, good contstruction

won't fill a big room with deep bass; a tiny bit screechy

While it's agreed that the magnetic shielding on the 911B is mediocre (don't put one on top of your TV) and there is too little sound-absorbing material inside, this is a truly surprising, perhaps even amazing, speaker when price is considered. As others have suggested, simple modifications are possible and do help.

If you can wait, Best Buy puts these on sale for $40/pair around major holidays. There are intermediate sale prices of $56/pair.

If you're handy and have silicone caulk in the house, pop out the woofers and line the box with some stiff, dense fiberglass-- this helps the midrange noticeably. If you don't cover the port, you'll still have the extra bass it provides. Loose, fluffy fiberglass won't do. Be sure the woofer seal is perfectly airtight when you screw it back in. Alternatively, you can plug the port and get tighter, though not as much or as deep, bass.

My AV receiver has a builtin graphic equalizer and a bass boost. With these helps, the sound is downright astonishing for the price.

The small size of the vinyl-covered particleboard cabinet helps make it stiff. Give it the knuckle-rap test in the store and you'll see (or rather, hear). This plus the above-average quality of the drivers and the low price make it a great speaker to tinker with. Of course, even out of the box it's more than listenable. Just don't hang it on a wall unless you are going to plug the port completely (and maybe use a subwoofer.

Similar Products Used:

Sony U3033

I got these speakers for 50 bucks a pair at best buy. I needed some surround sound speakers with some nice highs and these were exactly what I was looking for. They even come with a little bass too, which was unexpected. I wouldnt use them for your main speakers by any means, but they work great as surround sound speakers. I listened to several other speakers of their size, and similar specs, and KLH blew the others away.

rigid cabinet construction with rounded corners, good sound for the money.

colored midrange, not much depth to the sound field.

Picked up the 911Bs at Best Buy for $46 the pair. These speakers can be made to sound surprising good if stuffed with acoustic dampening material and used in conjunction with the $99 at Costco KLH 10-120 subwoofer (which also must be dampened a lot to tighten the sound). Even when thoroughly dampened, the 911Bs still sound smooth, though thin without the subwoofer. That's the price of dampening out the midrange colorations. Driven by an inexpensive Kenwood stereo amp, the 911B/10-120 combination blows away anything I have heard under $750, especially in the midrange. Lateral imagining is pretty good, but only so-so depth due to the lack of time aligning of the two speaker drivers. But for $46 the pair .... and my girlfriend is very happy with this little system I put together for her.

Similar Products Used:

many: Optimus Pro LX 5s, Rogers, AR Powered Partners, JBL, Tannoy, LBA, etc., etc.

Great for an entry level system. I purchased them from Best Buy for $40. I personally needed to fill a hole (highs) along with my 200 watt bookshelf speakers. I am satisfied for now. Sound's pretty decent with Jazz, R&B and Hip-hop. I live in an apartment and they are just right. But I plan to replace these with Polk RT25 for a fatter sound.