Ok, so I got to spend a lot of time with these and might as well post my impressions. First of all, pretty much no contest, the N1x's are much much better than the Insignia Mod. However, there is one area where the Insignia Mod is actually better, it has a much sweeter and more musical midrange. It's a small but noticeable region (to my ears). Other than that, they were completely outclassed.
However, the Insignia mod is equally clear as a bell, and very flat sounding, despite having pretty much no bass whatsoever (you wouldn't think that with the monstrous bass port up front). Also, clearly the Neo 3 tweeter is in a whole other league. Despite this, the Insignia mod is a very nice speaker that anyone starting out (like I was) would be happy with. It is a real, musical, enjoyable speaker. I was happy with it for about a month before I got the urge to move on my MMG mod project.
In fact, I would say if I didn't care about bass performance, I'd say the Insignia has the more musical mid driver. Too bad it's castrated with a tweeter coming out the middle of it. I'm sure Danny will disagree with me but it's just what I heard over looong term listening, unbiased because I never use the Insignia's any more. They were never meant to be anything more than a first project to get my feet wet. At best they will get surround duty in my living room someday.
I almost feel that if you had the same neo 3 tweeter in the Insignia and the Insignia mid a full carbon fiber mid, no coax, then you might have something... The tweeter in the Insignia is, while certainly capable, and hifi, is simply, utterly outclassed by the Neo 3.
That said, the N1x's are fanstastic. I used a bunch of odd source material to listen on it, some of it was nature cd's. I could swear that tweeter is capable of resolving every single raindrop over a football field if you have the ears to hear it. Just draws you in, it's incredible. It seems to have limitless resolving power.
And that M-130 driver/vented enclosure arrangement produces prodigious amounts of bass for a monitor. Huge bass.
That said, compared to my Magnestand MMG's though, there are some weaknesses. The N1x does a marvelous job of becoming invisible or transparent, however, one senses a "bow wave" that reveals the box behind it. It's like the Insignia mod is obviously a box, it was ringy and HUGELY fatiguing before the mod, and still lacking ultimate refinement post mod, the N1X gets you about 80% there, but you are still listening to a box and can tell. With the modded MMG there is simply music, coherent and large. With the N1x you can definitely hear the transition between neo tweeter and conventional woofer, but it is mild. Still, vastly different drivers, so I'm sure Danny deserves all the praise for making them blend as well as he did. If you weren't listening for it, you wouldn't notice it.
Also, compared to my MMG's, yes the N1x puts out copious bass, but the musical quality isn't quite up to the same level. It's as though with the N1x the tweeter is the big show, and the woofer is second billing. They aren't a duo, aren't equals. It's excellent, but the midrange and bass quality do not compete with a full planar. but you are talking a small driver in a vented box versus a few square feet of mylar. Also, the modded MMG's had much much better seperation of instruments, where on the N1x's it was though they were pasted together. The MMG's have a more realistic, relaxed, lifelike presentation. And image size was muchly compressed on the N1x compared to the big panel.
However, the N1x's are capable of very high spl's, and I bet that in a fully treated small or medium room with lots of high quality power... they would rock..
The N1x did have a spectacular soundstage, capable of throwing sounds all around the room. One nature cd I played was beach waves, and the N1X did a great job, if you closed your eyes, you were there at the mouth of the bay, and you could point out the line of the beach, the tweeter carrying surging, gurgling water all around in front of you.
I really loved having the N1x's in my system. They have excellent, positively excellent imaging, an astounding tweeter, and great, rumbling, punchy bass performance that belies their small size.
Honestly though, I would have preferred to hear the N3 TL model. Too bad there isn't a tour for those.
Source: Emotiva Erc-2
attenuation: Warpspeed ldr on batteries
amp: Virtue Two.2 with ClarityCap mod on batteries
