^There it goes again ventwood: One bad comment to counteract a crapload of positive ones and now you're like a deer caught in the headlights, here's a little bit of reassurance. I used to work in the component audio section at Circus City and was encouraged to sell what was profitable. I was ultimatly let go due to my inability to rip people off. Most of my sales were to folks who were dead set on a "big name" like Bose or the likes and were ready to buy, but after me showing them a few things, and them hearing the difference between those little expensive cubes/sats of multiple brands, they usual decided to buy bigger, better sounding, cheaper, bookshelfs... Alot of the times, they were Primus series.
Buckeye: There is nothing wrong with the Primus 150, and that is the one in question, talking about a company in whole, yet never commenting on the product in question is going to confuse ventwood into thinking that what he's considering are crap.
Many companies who have been in the game as long as HK/Infinity/JBL are losing thier audiophile following. That's because from mid-fi brands, audiophiles expect too much. Alot of "audiophiles" are on a beer budget with champagne taste, and they sit around and bag on honest companies who make systems for the masses. Why would audiophiles and the like even care about mid-fi brands? Oh yeah, because thier overpriced high end stuff is never overrated (Hsu Ventriloquist), they have to pick on the mid-fi stuff. Back when these companies were in thier prime, look at what the mainstream was, with some of the 70's/80's contraptions I wouldn't wonder why they did so well in comparison to today.
Every company in the mid-fi market is going to have it's own shortcomings in certain product lines. One cannot expect a company to have items that cater to only one outcropping of the masses, even if those products were perfect.
Saying HK's cheap recievers are junk may be true in an audiophile sense, but the guy who wants a higher end name to impress his friends is very happy with it. HK has NEVER had a decent speaker that really was a hit, but they have been making awesome recievers since the damn stone age.
The entry level Infinity towers, are for entry level consumers, and compared to what most entry level consumers buy (cubes), they are great. Yeah they are alot like JBLs towers, but most folks are happy with thier stuff as well. A large portion of the public think even the entry level Infinity and JBL is too high end for thier budget.
Judging a company by your own visual tastes is nothing to help someone base a decision on, not everyone wants a bulky, WAF failing system, so the wallhanging cascade series at least would allow someone who may not be able to have ANY system, have one, and it be of better performance then cubes/sats.
