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Reviews For: Kenwood SP-890 Speaker

Category: Speakers for communications

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Review Summary For : Kenwood SP-890 Speaker
Reviews: 4MSRP: New $200-$240
Description:
Matching speaker for the Kenwood TS-890S
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044.5
5B4AIY Rating: 2024-06-10
Expensive, but certainly an improvement Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Finally, something good to say about an accessory speaker! The SP-890 is the matching speaker for the Kenwood TS-890S transceiver. At first listening it showed a couple of resonance peaks and when I removed the cover I was not surprised to discover that there was no attempt to make it into a proper enclosure, with neither bracing nor wadding to damp resonances.

The speaker itself is a 3" unit mounted on a solid die-cast front panel rather than the usual plastic panel, and the case itself is of sheet metal construction. Unusually, the manufacturers have fitted a decent driver unit with a substantial magnet assembly, the whole thing weighs 300gms.

There are two filters, a high-pass and a low-pass, but these are only a single 47uF capacitor in series for the high-pass, and an unmarked ferrite inductor in series for the low-pass element. Whilst they do make a difference, it is only marginal.

There is provision to connect two audio sources, as well as a front panel 1/4" headphone socket.

In order to tame the cabinet resonances I decided to fit the Phonema PHITS-K89A acoustic wadding kit. This requires you to disassemble the entire unit, removing the front panel assembly in order to put the bottom pad in place. The ribbon cables connecting the speaker to the rear panel sockets are tied up with cable ties, and these need to be cut. This ensures that there is sufficient slack for the ribbon cable to lie over the bottom pad rather than underneath it. The pads themselves are a snug fit, and it takes a bit of wriggling to get them to fit properly.

When re-assembling the case it pays to follow the Phonema instructions as to which screws need to be inserted first. Even so, some of the screws will require you to squeeze the case together to get the screw holes to align themselves, making sure you do not cross-thread the small 3mm screws.

The final test was to try it out, and now with some acoustic wadding the cabinet resonances are completely tamed, and for once we have a speaker that is worth listening to, especially with both the low and high pass filters out of circuit. Nevertheless, with the cost of the Phonema kit added to that of the speaker it is a fairly expensive accessory, altogether more than 300 Euros, so even though it significantly improves the audio quality I can only give it 4 stars, but at least it is an improvement.

Adrian, 5B4AIY
N4EEB Rating: 2021-11-23
Excellent with Phonema Acoustic Kit Upgrade Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After installing the Phonema Acoustic Kit, I can report that this speaker is solid and a pleasure to listen to. Very nice match to the TS-890S. Love the headphone jack, and the audio filters actually work. Solid construction. A winner.
N4UE Rating: 2019-12-16
Overpriced, good looks, mediocre sound Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I'm upgrading my rating of the SP-890 Speaker to a '4'.
This is due to the installation of the Phonema Acoustic Kit, made just for the SP-890. These are available from DXE.
When I opened the SP-890, I was surprised to see not one bit of acoustic material. Not even a closed back 3" speaker. Just a big, empty, metal box. No wonder it sounded so poor.
The speaker 'rattle' is gone.
The 'end' result?
The SP-890 sounds 'almost' identical to my Palstar SP-30B. Which is very good.
The reason it's not a '5', is because I have almost $300 in the Kenwood Speaker and Acoustic kit. The Palstar was NIB, $70 and free shipping. The SP-890 should have been 'good out of the box'.
Details of the Phonema are in it's own review.

ron
N4UE

I'm surprised I'm the first to review this speaker. Folks on the TS-890-Groups.io site rave about it's audio.
I'm not a newbie to speakers, I have LOTS, thanks to several local thrift stores.
I have the matching speakers for all my radios from Allied to Collins. Typically, they all could use a bit of help, at least to MY ears.
I really enjoy my 7610 and 7300, both of which are wired to select different speakers, as I wish.
I find the TS-890 to be a FANTASTIC radio and I was hoping the SP-890 would be good 'out-of-the-box'.
I had been using the radio switching between a Kenwood KES-5 and a Palstar SP-30B.
The KES-5 has LOTS of volume and highs and the Palstar is much more subdued. BIG difference.

Although expensive, I knew going in, that the 3" speaker in the SP-890 would probably need help. It sounds mediocre at best, so I also purchased the Phonema 'upgrade' kit.
These have helped somewhat, in some other new OEM speakers.
We'll see how that goes...….

If it improves the quality of the audio, I'll update this review.
BTW, I also added the Phonema SP-890 'upgrade kit' as a separate entity.

ron
N4UE
W3DDF Rating: 2019-12-14
Excellent Speaker Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I recently purchased a Kenwood 890. I didn't buy the matching speaker because I had other speakers to use. I really didn't like the sound of the other speakers so I decided to purchase the matching speaker. I am so glad I did. The filters in the speaker are great. The speaker is a bit pricey but well worth it. Plus it looks great right next to the 890. Highly recommended.