[Xeo]

<frustration>ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG</frustration> heh

Ok, so I bought a pair of Infinity Primus 150's because everyone said a good pair of bookshelf speakers were bound to blow away almost any set of computer speakers. The reviews for these speakers were glowing so I bought them. I also bought the JCV rx-f10 receiver to power them.

Anyway, I'm doing a side by side comparison on my two computers. One with the 5021's and the other with the primus 150's and a cambridge soundworks 10" subwoofer.

I start playing the same song at the exact same time (Violet Vision - Your Voice) and the first thing I notice is that the Primus have a more "muffled" sound, not hugely, but it's there. The second thing I notice is the 5021's pronounce all the instruments in the song much more clearly, the bass extension seems greater, and the bass also seems much more musical because it's very punchy where it needs to be and very smooth and even at other times. I hear the biggest difference with the piano, I can almost hear the hammer-hits with the 5021's but the initiation of each note is almost none existant with the primus 150's. Even with the EQ's mids slid very high, I couldn't get that good pronunciantion with the Primus 150's.

I'm really dissapointed. I was wondering if a crossover would help the 150's. I think the altec lansings have a high pass at 150hz and below that freq the sub takes over. What do you guys think? If adding a high pass filter to 150's would help, how could I go about doing that?

 

[lan]

How new is all this? If still fresh from the box, maybe you need some more burnin time.

 

[Xeo]

I forgot about burn in...It's about 24 hours new. I opened them on Christmas and set everything up last night.

Looks like I jumped the gun. I'll write again after they've had several days of burn in. DOH!

I really hope they improve

 

[Xeo]

I started reading about burn-in and of course you guys know that some people claim its a myth and others believe it.

Is there any proof that burn-in time actually has an audible effect on the speakers, like some kind of frequency response graphs showing changes over time?

 

[rogerlee]

Yeah, there are graphs for headphones available somewhere in the headphone forum comparing pre-burnin to burned in that show very prominent differences. Also, many claim that the burn-in phenomenon is VERY easy to tell when listening to HD650's. Also, some people have compared their equipment compared to other people's brand new equipment side-by-side to confirm that burn in does exist.

And, by the way, why is this in FS/T?

 

[Nak Man]

I'm sure you're used to brighter sound coming from your desktop speakers, and getting to like flat sounding music would really take some time - no thumping bass no exaggerated highs, only smooth natural sound. Although I never heard these Primuses, they look quite flat on this chart:

Considering the differences you heard, imo no speakers burn in time will make that much change, only subtle improvement. The effect may be more pronounced on phones due to different scales (less power, single driver etc) but even then past few days of listening they should more or less stabilise. If you really don't think you can learn to like infinity's sound, best bet is to return them while they're still new.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xeo I was wondering if a crossover would help the 150's. I think the altec lansings have a high pass at 150hz and below that freq the sub takes over. What do you guys think? If adding a high pass filter to 150's would help, how could I go about doing that?

A crossover is only a filter, so using AL crossover would free Infinity from reproducing below 150hz notes. The sound you described, piano etc is above that XO point therefore in this case crossover shouldn't make any difference at all.

Ugh I didn't notice this is in FS/FT threads. Sorry.

 

[Xeo]

I thought that a high pass filter would enable the speakers to focus on producing higher freqs without the disturbance of trying to produce bass. Even if the "flatness" doesn't change, I'm thinking that maybe the mids and high's will be more articulated if I cut away some of the bass. Am I right or wrong?

I posted in the wrong forum by accident, then I asked Tim D to move it for me (Thanks Tim).

 

[NAXOS]

your infinity speakers should be 5ft apart and 1ft-2ft from the wall. thier not designed to be 2ft. apart.

 

[NAXOS]

Doe! jvc reciever? your altecs have their own amps, right?try to listen to your infinitys on another amp. how sensitive are your speakers? too there more revealing so you will hear warts and all.

 

[gsferrari]

NakMan - we need to change your name to ChartMan

 

[fr4c]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari NakMan - we need to change your name to ChartMan

haha yes, we ought to.

 

[ooheadsoo]

It's not the amp, let me tell you that much. The amp is excellent.

 

[Nak Man]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xeo I thought that a high pass filter would enable the speakers to focus on producing higher freqs without the disturbance of trying to produce bass. Even if the "flatness" doesn't change, I'm thinking that maybe the mids and high's will be more articulated if I cut away some of the bass. Am I right or wrong?

You are right that the speakers can be more 'focused' in reproducing upper notes but in this case not as much benefit compared to altec's tiny mids, since i believe primus woofer can handle full range better. Of course mids and highs will be more pronounced if you cut the Primus at a high 150hz (you won't be hearing any music below that freq) but there's woofer integration issue esp around that frequency if you decide to pair them with altec / cambridge subs. But anyway it's seem easy enough to give it a try. Just make sure you don't crank them high as we can't be sure what kind of amplification resides inside altec system. Very easy to fry a tweeter with loud underpowered amp !

Quote:

Originally Posted by gsferrari NakMan - we need to change your name to ChartMan

Nah ... just gotta follow them stereophile rules ya know.

 

[Xeo]

Ok I'll give that a try.

In addition, I think I'm going to drop the cambridge soundworks because I've reallized two things. The first is that this 10" sub has barely any bass extension. Both the small 6.5" subwoofers that came with my previous two altec lansings go way deeper than this honker, lol. Frustrating. The second thing is that this woofer is SLOW. It's a power sub so the I dont think the problem is insufficient power. The bass is always almost .25 seconds behind the music if it becomes percussive or quick. I think I'm going to have to get a different sub to complete the package.

I'm kindof changing the topic now, but based on my experience with the two altec lansing subwoofers, small woofers in medium sized enclosures seem to go super deep, are very fast and tight, and have that punch which I love. Does this have to do with the woofer and enclosure size or is this just another "altec lansing" characteristic, similar to the colorization of their multimedia speakers?

 

[ooheadsoo]

The trick is that there is no real deep bass, it's all mid bass. Go try a sine wave sweep on it. There's probably a gigantic bass hump.