Infinity Renaissance 90 questions

Melbguy, you mentioned how sensitive the rens are to electronics. That is definitely the case and has enabled me to hear subtle changes in the preamps I've designed over the past 10 years. Although the power amp usually offers the biggest contributor to SQ I have also heard great power amps ruined by poor preamps and front ends. One power amp that was really outstanding was a ME1400. I had Trevor Wilson from Rage audio up here one day demo'ing one and I have really never heard any amp since to drive the Watkins woofers the way the ME1400 did. Unfortunately the ME1400 was going to set me back about $8000 so I resisted the purchase - just. That big ME amp could apparently output more than 60 amps so I think there's a message in there - that high current is the way to go to get the best out of the WWs.

Hi Timpani,

I was wondering in your response: "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." were you referring to the silk membrane which is described in the breakdown of the High Energy Emit in the Ren's technical white paper?

I was also curious about your comments about the dispersion of the Emit in the Rens as Infinity state in their White Paper - "The new High Energy Emit is operated with a relatively narrow frequency band which assures maximum dispersion within its operating range" & this..

"The High Energy Emit's new mechanical structure permits also permits the driver to be used at lower frequencies than previous Emit drivers enabling it's speed and transient capabilities to become even more meaningful to the overall balance of the system. Crossing over the High Energy Emit lower also results in better dispersion because the Emim midrange driver is removed from the system before it can acoustically beam from the shorter wavelengths generated at higher frequencies. The High Energy Emit also features newly designed vertical apertures that provide wide dispersion and permit high frequencies to spread evenly and broadly throughout the listening area."

So given the above statements, I had an impression of the Ren's Emit offering a wide sweet spot and a large, expansive soundstage, so I was surprised to read your observations :S I guess proof is always in the pudding as they say however. I found out today my Rens will be arriving in about 2 weeks :))

Hi Timpani, I completely agree with your comments on the quality of upstream components (particularly amps) & the need to feed the Watkins high current, that's why I like the Classe so much, it gives you enough watts in a single pa, but a truckload of current to boot. For me, the Classe combined with a Reference 3 pre-amp is a match made in Heaven for the Rens :)

Okeeteekid, it was great to read your comments on your K9s! What is exciting about your findings is that, taking me as an example, I purchased a superb example of Ren 90's with a long-term view. I would be happy for them to be my speakers for life, but of course at some point in the future age will catch up with them. The Watkins and midrange drivers will require re-foaming, the internal caps will degrade & the wiring will oxidize, so it's encouraging to see how much more potential there obviously is there. In my case, I plan to do quite an extreme, external crossover connected with something like Nordost Supreme Reference for the short run to the speakers, but will leave the drivers alone. The guru I would get to do the speaker re-design is a guy in Australia who Timpani would have heard of - Dallas Clarke. To say he knows his stuff is an understatement! My only question is, would there be more value in spending $4000AU on a RS filter & pc or investing something like $3000 on the speaker re-design, re-wire & external crossover & just plug my high end pc's directly into a kmart powerboard connected to the wall? Would like to hear your view on that..

Melbguy, My comments need to be taken in correct context and with allowance for the fact that I have recently been playing with tweeters that have a 120 degree beamwidth at 20kHz. The EMIT's are probably as good as many or even most dome tweeters in terms of dispersion and everything you point out about their develoment is correct but I am pretty sure that they were refined further for the Epsilon and the dispersion was the major criteria. I recall reading this in the Sterephile review about 10 years ago now (how time flies). By adjusting the amount of toe-in you will certainly be able to fine tune them nicely but just don't expect a really huge sweet spot. But as I have said before the EMIT's are fine tweeters and by far and away the best planar tweeter I have ever heard. I have also heard several of the Kappa series and IMO the Rens are more accurate and detailed and because the EMIM and EMIT are of exactly the same design they are able to acheive that rare feat of almost perfect integration from mid to treble which IMO is by far the most important crossover point in any speaker system. In most respects the Infinity multi planar driver approach is better than most of the full range planar designs due to the mentioned beamwidth > frequency issues and also because planar drivers make it possible to implement the near perfect passive crossover - due to their flat and wide resistive impedance. In other words it's almost as though there is no crossover and that's why (when set up correctly) the Ren's + IRS Infinity's sound quite a bit like an electrostatic speaker.
I can understand that the next 2 weeks will be a long time
but all the very best for eternity after that. After all, 'Infinity' is forever.

i feel the speaker is the last of your components in a system that is heard and the most critical component in your system, you can run a kmart speaker on the worlds best electronics and it will sound ok but if you run the worlds best speaker on "kmart" electronics i feel it will always sound better than the after mentioned.
greg