No pics at the moment for this one, but I presume most have seen these before. I will get some later. I have listened to the Infinity speakers quite a bit since picking them up on sale at Frys. I’ve got Infinity separates in my car, so one could say I like their sound. I’ve tried a lot of different music and movies on them and here are my thoughts on them.
In stereo full range, they do well at normal listening levels. They have decent bass, but not quite as much authority as I would have expected with a 49Hz -3dB , though my room is rather large and my speaker stands are placed well away from any walls and these are also front ported. My GR A/V-2s are rear ported and -3dB at 55Hz but are also D'Appolito, so dual midbass drivers, and they seem to benefit in the bass department as a result of this. Not more extension, but bass is more evident. I notice the same thing with my A/V-1s, which are a similar configuration to the 163s but rear ported. I had them hooked up on the XPA-3 which provides them with 200W (they are rated to 150W) and they seemed to be fine with that kind of power. The first things I tried were some Patricia Barber SACD – Café Blue and Companion, both great recordings with a lot of vocals and a wide range of instruments. These things sort of surprised me right off the bat; they come across as very wide and have good depth to render the spatial cues well. Mids are clean and clear and the highs are just a touch bright, with a little bit of sizzle though not offensive. Vocals do lack a small bit of “life”, for lack of a better term, so they end up sounding a bit flat at times. They are not displeasing, just not silky smooth. They integrated surprisingly well into my system, with a similar sensitivity, though the tweeter definitely stands out as compared to my GRs.
As I mentioned, they are fine at normal levels, but when pushed in full range, either the cabinet’s construction or tuning comes into play as an obvious resonance in the lower midrange on deep vocals. I played a few tracks that tend to highlight this and found the same issue. I didn’t dig into it to really find out what caused this because when I crossed them over at 80Hz this went away completely. I expect most would use these crossed over in a typical HT configuration, so I wouldn’t call this a true stumbling point for them. It did make me curious however if the P153s have a similar issue not with the smaller driver and slightly higher tuning? The cabinets don’t seem too well braced and the knuckle wrap test suggests they are not that thick either, but feel adequately sturdy for the price range. By comparison, the Polk RTiA-3’s cabinets seemed much more solid (they are curved too though) and did not exhibit the same issue with the same vocal tracks when full range.
I switched genres to see how they would do with electronic music and found that this almost seems to be what they were designed for Something about the way they are voiced just seems to work really well with this type of music, though it also works to their benefit on Blue Man Group’s “alternative” style of instrumentation as well. They are also well suited to rock; Metalica’s DVD-A sounded solid and properly “crunchy” on the vocals and guitar and overall they seem to do well with percussion and string instruments.
I now have them in the bedroom driven by a 30W shelf system full range and they have zero issues filling the room with full sound without struggling, so they are equally at home with modest power as they are with a little oomph behind them. I am not so surprised that they are a solid speaker, having heard many of their predecessors, however having them in my own systems is sort of a different story and I’d have to say I am fairly impressed with them. Yes, they have some minor flaws, but inexpensive speakers are never perfect, and these do a rather good job all around. I had been recommending these when it comes to budget systems and owning a pair of them just confirmed that I can continue to recommend them.
