Hello. Uh, one day, I decided to do some looking around in Circuit City, and I saw that they carried the Infinity Beta speaker line. Well, when those speakers were playing music, I noticed that the center-channel speaker sounded kind of boomy in the 60-120 Hz bass range, while the tower speakers sounded a little more balanced, even though the towers were larger than the center-channel. Can somebody please explain to me why this is happening? The reason why I ask is because I thought that big speakers were supposed to have more bass than small speakers.
Betas are ok but not for the money. The Ascends are in a completely different category sonically than the infinity speakers and you would be much happier with them.
infinity speakers used to kick butt back when they were all acoustic suspension. (1985 or so) it was a friend's TINY 4 1/2" clear poly woofered minimonitor with a 1/2" grey styrofaom (yes... FOAM) tweeter that otally blew my mind and turned me into a hi-fi freak.
that was the first time i'd ever heard bass (not alot true) that was fast and detailed. that was the first time that i'd ever heard a real solid image. i'd heard stereo shop systems that had impressed me before, but those little $120 puppies made my jaw drop.
nowadays, infinity has jumped on the evil ported speaker bandwagon because they know that most sheep, i mean consumers will buy whatever sounds loudest, not whatever sounds best.
the center channel sounded boomy because it's small and probably couldn't be tuned much lower. if they did tune lower, they'd probably lose those ever important SPL and sales to all the other vomit box vendors competing for who's the loudest.
*sigh*
thank goodness NHT was still making acoustic suspension minimonitors until just last year at least.
Ruh Roh. Before the Beta bashing gets too deep, I thought I'd chime in here. I don't know how the Ascend speakers sound. But, I did get my Betas for 50% off of MSRP from an authorized Internet E-tailer.
I will also state the the Betas sound sweet with the Panny XR55 receiver.
Budget - Those Infinity's were great speakers. My father had them hooked up to a Marantz 2200B receiver and Technics SL-BD2 TT. That was probably one of the best set-up's I've heard at that price point. The only down side was the foam surrounds. His dry-rotted after about 7 or 8 years.
"nowadays, infinity has jumped on the evil ported speaker bandwagon because they know that most sheep, i mean consumers will buy whatever sounds loudest, not whatever sounds best."
This is marginally correct. Infinity was bought out by the Harman Group (as in Harman/Kardon) quite a few years back. I don't know for sure, but i think that they basically bought the name. I don't think they are designed by the same people anymore. Today's Infinity's are nothing like the Infinity's of back then.
I usually go for whatever sounds the loudest too. However, unlike anybody else, I also have to see and hear how silky the highs are, and how much bass the speaker can pound out on its own. So, as you know, I am a little bit picky somewhat.
Loudness and pounding bass is equally a matter of your power source as much as your speakers. That's one reason why the powered sub plus bookshelf combination is so common these days, most people don't want to spend the $$$ that kind of hefty amp usually entails.
However with these ridiculously cheap new all-digital receivers even that conventional wisdom just might go flying out the window.
I have the Alpha 20's, are the Beta's considerably better? While I haven't heard the two side-by-side, it basically appears that most of the change Infinity made was cosmetic - (i.e. switching over to the metal grills, etc.) I don't think I'd give up the Alphas for the Betas.
i had heard MANY full range towers and ported speakers from brands such as polk, klipsch, bose, boston acoustics, and JBL (plus others i can't recall) many times in showroom demos, but the very first time that a stereo ever made me hard was a friend's tiny $120 4 1/2" woofer two way infinity minimonitors.
the speed, detail and imaging that those tiny CHEAP speakers provided made my jaw drop and was the FIRST time i'd ever said "oh sh##!" when listening to a stereo.
$4,000 klipsch la scalas, $800 boston towers and $1,000 bose speakers couldn't touch those tiny magical lightning fast $120 puppies with a 10 foot pole. the first time i ever heard $4,000 "best in the world" B&W 801s (back when they had oval midranges and octagon cabinets) i was totally unimpressed... they lacked the speed, neutrality and detail of the infinities that remained unmatched for many years in my experience.
when i heard 4 1/2" acoustic suspension woofers totally kick ALL 8" plus (especially ported) woofers butt for speed and detail, i finally became a hi-fi junkie. the pricy gear was nice, but those rounded edge minmonitors were able to float a razor sharp image that large boxes couldn't match even a little.
the worst bass i've ever heard has always been ported. i can tell by the one note "woom woom woom" (not Boom) that my knucklehead neighbor has large ported woofers. my (too large) 12" sealed woofer is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more detailed, faster and doesn't have a resonant note or overhang.
ported speakers are ALL designed to resonate (add sound that isn't part of the original signal) at a specific (one note) frequency.
if you want to hear the sound of a ported speaker, blow across the top of a bottle... if you want to hear the "sound" of acoustic suspension, put a cap on and try again. acoustic suspension designs have no resonance, and the air spring better controls the woofer making it snap faster.
resonating internal airspace is a form of hideous distortion to my ears.
long live punchy acoustic suspension 4 1/2" woofers! screw their rolloff. loud distortion is still distortion while quiet reality is still reality. i NEVER heard REAL hi-fi until i heard a $120 pair of tiny 2 way speakers. those little woofers were the first time i heard real bass... that is fast distortion free bass.
that's my OPINION. i'm sure every "bass at all costs head" will totally disagree with me. that's their opinion.
Thats totally untrue you cant tell evrey speaker thats ported is one notey thats ludicrious.Just last year I went to one of my friends audio dealer,just to look around I know he likes to experiament with new gear especially the Chinese companies,well to make a long story short he had speaker that looked just like the Sonous Faber Cremonas and I was intrigued by them they were tall real wood just like Sonous's,but they were a sealed design.I thought I always wanted to own a design like that,the company was Jungson I knew who they were for about 5 years they built great amps so the new the speaker couldnt be bad,I mean the build quality was to die for,they did have all Vifa drivers in them a sound I had grown acustome to over the last few years.So I play with these speaker for a couple of months,I feel im missing something,so I bring home from work a pair JM lab Chorus 714,a ported design,the Jungson was good in the midrange,but the Labs were better especially in the bass the speed was better and the impact of the notes were better.I always wanted to try a sealed design and I did and I came away from the experiance the same way when I used to listen to the Linn speakers unimpressed especially the bass, was the bass faster no not then a good design.Till this day the only sealed design that I heard that sounded good was the Rogers,Harbeth,and Spendors and the old KLH Monitors,the sealed box verses ported box in a speaker does not mean that the sealed box is gonna be faster and it deffinetly wont mean that its better,Avalon doesent think so anymore a company that only made sealed designs uintil the Eidonlons introduction,argueably the best speaker in the world and sound faster and its quicker than all of their sealed designs.
