Infinity Renaissance 90 questions

Hi everybody,

nice to see so many enthousiasts for Infinty's Renaissance 90.
I bought them in 1995 in black ash, mostly because of their marvellous mid range and the stage imaging. Until summer 2008 I had a Treshold Fet nine + OCM 200 (some 250 Watt /channel) to drive them. I choose this combination after having heard a couple of different things, beetween them there was also a Classé Audio (which number ?? I can't remenber).
In August last year I had at home a Audio Research Ref 3 and Jeff Rowland's Capri & monoblocs 501 (1000 watt per channel at 4 Ohm) ...

Oh my goodness, this was incredible, I discovered 13 years after having bought them how really they can sound. This was a shock (a beautifull one ;-) ) the staging became completely holografic, the musicians are just playing there in the middle of the room in front of me, I can zoom with the ears beetween the instruments, the sound never gets hard, and the stage is deep and wide.

I think these elegant beasts need a lot of power, the more they get the better they are under control and only in these conditons they can show their best.
Now I have upgraded everything in my system, I use Rowlands Capri, Monos 501 with their PC1 (a unit which makes the 501 sounds even better). Perfect and precise bass and mellow middle & high range. (I hear mostly Symphonic Music, Opera & Jazz).

At your place I would definitively try Jeff Rowlands Monos 501 , you will just wonder. Maybe you could also consider Nuforce. From this point you have then to build your system like a french dinner in a 3 stars Michelin Restaurant, choosing the right I.C. & P.C. which matches with your taste and you will have long years of pleasure ;-)

Infinity's Sigma is a little different as it is a dipole speaker, one Emit is on the back and the bass and mid speakes are bigger than Renaissance's ones. I have never heard them and would be happy if somebody could tell the differences beetween them.

Furthermore I wonder if somebody could tell which speaker in 2009 has similar sound caracteristics or is a succesfull further development of the R.90.

Hi Okeeteekid,

Thanks for the comments. Yes as indicated in an earlier post I made a dedicated EMIT crossover using Mundorf SIO and copper foil inductors. I have also tried Claricaps. My favourite are the Mundorfs but they need a special DC bias generator to sound their best. I'm sure there are quite a few caps that sound better than the Solens but IMO they are not too bad and if they do err it's on the polite side so they might be more listener friendly for most people. But then it's more about personal choice when it comes to caps and there always seems to be a diversity of opinions. Nice work on the K9's though. They are a great bang for buck speaker.
Cheers,
Timpani

hi timpani,

i may try your tweeter crossover mod in the future on my ren 90's, like i said after completing the k9 mod and comparing it to the ren 90's, you can really hear how the high frequencies roll off on the rens, being that the k9 has the smaller and faster semit in it, i don't know if you can get the rens to equal the k9's performance over 10 k, but i think i can equal or better the k9's dynamics as the rens tweeter is a little larger.
greg

The main issue with the EMIT as I see (hear) it is that they become very directional above 10kHz and they are too hot on axis and too rolled off when off axis. The tonal balance from 10KHz down is best when 30 dgrees off axis and for that reason I have always found them to sound most accurate when firing directly down the room without any toe-in. These emits are the same as used in the Epsilon but in the Epsilon they are used with a specially designed dispersion membrane which increases their horizontal and vertical dispersion and eliminates the hot on axis response, making them more accurate over a wider listening window. As you would have read in my previous posts my ultimate recommendation is to use a supertweeter to augment response above 10kHz but you need to have some technical expertise to implement this correctly.
If you want to experiment another option is to slightly modify the existing EMIT crossover. If you can locate the 5.6uF solen capacitor then solder a 1uF 2% polypropylene film cap in parallel with it. Then locate the 0.5 ohm (2x1 ohms in parallel) closer to the EMIT crossover input, and remove one of the 0.5 ohm resistors so that it becomes 1.0 OHMS. (Do not touch the 5W 0.5 ohm resistor at the crossover output.)
This mod will remove a saddle in the response between 4 and 8kHz and will allow you to toe the speakers in a bit further without them sounding as peaky in the 10 - 12kHz region.
Timpani

i tried firing them directly down the room without any toe in and i also find them to be more accurate and to me the sound stage also improves, but with 1/4 of an inch toe in i find that they image slightly better in my room, do you angle your speaker back? i like mine about a 1/4" angled back, a laser comes in handy when measuring, i also like them with no angle at all, its amazing how 1/4 of an inch angled back can effect the sound, thanks for the advice, i think your right, the super tweeter is the way to go.
greg