Apogee Diva's or Infinity IRS Beta's?

I know of a friend of a friend that picked up a pair of Divas while owning the Betas, and the Betas went up for sale afterward. As I understand, it wasn't a completely obvious decision, but unfortunately I don't know the particulars that swayed him. If I can find out more, I'll post again.

As you may already know, the Divas will have somewhat faster bass, but you'll have the dipole cancellation that should probably make for some unevenness in the response down there, while the Betas will be very flat except for any room modes that both speakers will exhibit.

a fun read:

http://www.apogeespeakers.com/reviews/a_search_for_the_ultimate_speaker_bestofaudio.htm

Dave

About 5 years ago a friend had both a set of Infinity IRS Beta's and a set of Apogee Diva's. This Diva's killed the IRS Beta's. It was not even close. Perhaps the other componets up stream could have been a better match with the Apogee's. What I observed was that the Diva's were way more coherent. The bass timing was way off on the IRS compared to the Diva's. No matter where we moved the bass cabinets or the ribbons on the IRS we could not get the same performance as we did with the Diva's. The midrange and the highs were much better with the Diva's as well. the timing of the driver complement on the apogee was far superior. In addition the control module for the IRS also induced alot of noise into the other componets. The IRS Beta's are a fun speaker to listen to but the Diva's are far better.

I never heard the Divas, but I have had my Betas for around 10 years now, so this is a bit one sided, but here goes anyway. The Betas require a lot of care to set up just right. The woofers simply overpower most normal sized listening rooms, and most audoiphiles eventually give up. Me, I moved and put them in a 16.5 x 40 foot room. That was a great start. If you want a plug and play, the Divas with Krells of the era are probably much easier to find happiness with. The Betas are a bit like a trophy wife/girlfriend. It will take time and effort to get them to perform just the way you want them. Big tube amps on the panels and big solid state amps with a high damping factor on the woofers is where you need to start. When you get them right, they are spectacular, and although I still go to high end shops and listen to big $$ speakers, I have yet to hear anything that makes me want to upgrade. To each their own, and hopefully you will find some audiophiles who have these set up so you can listen to them. Eventually this hobby does become subjective and personal. The control module, BTW, only needs to be hooked up to the woofers, which you can see for yourself when you look at the schematics.