Infinity Reference Standard 2.5 speakers
I've been ecstatically happy with the Leema Xavier speakers I bought on an "eBay whim" a few months ago, and this year's hifi budget allocated by swmbo was pretty much depleted anyway. So I was looking forward to the rest of the year settled down with the highly musical Xaviers. Life could be worse.
But a few days ago we came into a bit of an inheritance and swmbo allocated a top-up to the 2009 hifi budget (what a fine lass she is). What's a box-swapper to do? .... I hoofed it on to eBay pronto, that's what, to see what was cookin'!
I saw these on auction with a couple of days to go .... did a bit of on-line research, and promptly fell in lust with them. A query to the seller resulted in the offer of personal delivery for £40 petrol money - you cannot be more reasonable than that.
So, here they are, arrived around noon yesterday.
I'll forego detailed sonic description for now, as after a few hours listening and positional tweaking they simply seem to be the best speakers I have ever heard. NMore realistic vocals I have not heard from a speaker. Maybe it's just a "1st day pride of ownership" thing. We'll see.
Here's an info link from an Infinity Fanboy site. http://www.bobbyshred.com/infinity/RS25.html
A few photos from chez-Jerry to get this review/blog going and then a few words about their intial setup tweaking here.
System setup as of now ....
And here's a photo from the eBay auction so you can get an idea of driver placement.
They sound just fine with the covers in place, so that's the way they are in my room.
Here's a closeup of the ribbon array ...
and here's the internals feeding the ribbons at the rear .. blimey!
....
and finally a close-up of what is pretty clearly a fairly recently re-foamed woofer ...
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Amplification .... from what I can glean these are power hungry monsters that go down to 2 ohms. I have a choice of 2 amps in-house - a pair of Cary 572-3SE monioblocks at 10-15 wpc, and a Bel Canto eVo4 class D amp at 400wpc. So far I have only plucked up the courage to use the Bel Canto! Any thoughts on that?
Initial setup. The speakers only have very small pads on the base, no real feet or spikes as such, so I just plunked them down on my carpet and left it at that. Initial impressions on the first disc I played (Loreena McKennitt) were "Wow, stunningly clear vocals". All was working AOK, so a large number of £20 notes exchanged hands and I was left on my own with them.
A very different sound to what I was used to, but generally excellent. Over the course of an hour or so it became evident that there was a very serious 'fly in the ointment' - a thickness and 'twangy' bloom in the lower mids / upper bass. Oh-oh.Probably a colouration from the 12 inch woofer being asked togo too high? Poo. Everything else sounded so good ....
Lovely day, so me and the missus went out for a cycle for a couple of hours. Jerry's mind pondering speaker placement issues and possible tweaks to overcome this colouration as I laboured up & down the forest tracks ....
Got back and placed each speaker on 3 1-inch high metal cones. Bingo! Colouration gone. Phew!
I shall return with more sonic impressions and system tweaks as I settle down with the things.
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Oh, and they also came with the optional outboard electronic crossover box - I haven't even looked at that yet!
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Originally Posted by Marco
- I plugged 'em into the Cary's and .... KABOOM !! The bill will be heading AoS-wards. 
