15 year old Infinity Primus 250 towers.

[Nelson Gonzales]

I bought 2 Infinity Primus 250 towers brand new 15 years ago and I still use them today in my Home Theater. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them other than I have the upgrade bug. I am asking if anyone has any technical knowledge on speakers and can tell me if it's time for an upgrade or if these bad boys still kick butt? They were bad ass when I bought them and they were expensive.

 

[lovinthehd]

How can we tell from that whether you really want new speakers bad enough to do something about it? Not familiar with your speakers particularly but looking at the specs you could certainly do better, but how much would you be willing to spend? Don't know what you mean by expensive as those weren't particularly expensive when new. OTOH if the speakers work well in your setup why worry?

 

[zieglj01]

If you like them, then keep them, but there are some nice/decent options out there -- based on budget.

 

[Nelson Gonzales]

How can we tell from that whether you really want new speakers bad enough to do something about it? Not familiar with your speakers particularly but looking at the specs you could certainly do better, but how much would you be willing to spend? Don't know what you mean by expensive as those weren't particularly expensive when new. OTOH if the speakers work well in your setup why worry?

If memory serves me right, they were like $300 a piece when I purchased them. To a poor young police officer at the time, that was expensive. I guess I am asking if I were to spend around the same amount now, would I be getting something better enough to be worth it?

 

[lovinthehd]

Hard to know. Just what does your current setup consist of for gear/speakers/subs?

 

[Nelson Gonzales]

Hard to know. Just what does your current setup consist of for gear/speakers/subs?

Polk audio center channel, infinity towers, 12" sub, polk audio ceiling speakers for rears and Denon AVRS720W. And trying to decide between getting Atmos upfiring speakers or good front hieght.

 

[lovinthehd]

I wouldn't do the atmos bouncy house speakers myself....and currently don't want to mess with my ceiling so not going that direction at all. You have ceiling surround speakers rather than rear surrounds, yes? My brother had ceiling surrounds, I didn't care for those at all.

What sub is it? How big a room? Might be a better place to spend money....

 

[j_garcia]

What is the total budget and what are you hoping to get out of it? Better music, better movie experience, etc...? $600 a pair will get you an upgrade for sure, but not a "night and day" upgrade IMO. With a decent budget, I'd replace the front 3 together for the most bang for the buck and then focus on the sub.

 

[shadyJ]

The Primus speakers was and still are a good design. If you want to significantly improve on them, that can't be really done cheaply.

 

[TheWarrior]

If you're happy with them, then stay happy!

Even Dr. Floyd Toole kept his Infinity's for almost two decades - his signal for wear was the audible rubbing of the voice coils which had simply warped over time from extensive usage.

 

[Alex2507]

$600 a pair will get you an upgrade for sure, but not a "night and day" upgrade

I bought and sold my 250's for a hundred a pop. Then I started playing with the 360's for about the same money. The 360's are better but my point is that every time I hear my old 250's at my friend's place, I like listening to them. IIRC the sensitivity and power handling on the primus line was decent so you didn't need a ton of power to get 'em blaring up around 90+ db. Not everything that sounds better than the Infinities sounds better cranked (subjective opinion based on a few trips to Best Buy's Magnolia thing).

$600 is enough to start sniffing around the used and diy markets but not really enough for 'new' mains. I'm probably gonna die with used speakers but even with another thousand bucks on top of the $600, I would be burning a trail to used Salks.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

And speaking of Salk, as Dennis Murphy helped to design many of these, he also gave away one Diy design and it's called Er18. You can find long thread right on these forums. Price for parts alone was about $600, but I guess it is a bit higher now: https://meniscusaudio.com/product/er18mtm-ribbon-pair/
I strongly believe and these would be good improvement over Infiniti 250&360

 

[Alex2507]

And speaking of Salk, as Dennis Murphy helped to design many of these, he also gave away one Diy design and it's called Er18. You can find long thread right on these forums. Price for parts alone was about $600, but I guess it is a bit higher now: https://meniscusaudio.com/product/er18mtm-ribbon-pair/
I strongly believe and these would be good improvement over Infiniti 250&360

True.

Getting a cabinet together is a fair bit of work.

Getting a cabinet to look nice is difficult.

Getting a cabinet to look like a Salk ... NFW.

 

[zieglj01]

I bought 2 Infinity Primus 250 towers brand new 15 years ago and I still use them today in my Home Theater. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them other than I have the upgrade bug. I am asking if anyone has any technical knowledge on speakers and can tell me if it's time for an upgrade

Polk audio center channel, infinity towers, 12" sub, polk audio ceiling speakers for rears and Denon AVRS720W. And trying to decide between getting Atmos upfiring speakers or good front hieght.

For that tight budget and if you really want to do something -- then I would take a serious look at the Canton GLE 490.2 three-way towers, almost a no-brainer for me -- some really good pricing and sold each -- then I would aim for their center, which would help to balance the front stage. --- then in the future work on atmos if you are an atmos fan.
https://www.accessories4less.com/make-a-store/item/cantgle4902blka/canton-gle490.2-8-3-way-floorstanding-speaker-black-each/1.html