Which outputs would be best on which?? RCA to Vincent and XLR to HD220 or??Just a guess, but based on my general knowledge of the two brands I suspect that XLR to the HD220 and RCA to the Vincent would turn out to be preferable. I can’t say that with any certainty, though.
Big of a difference between the Vincent and AR HD220, I could sell the Vincent and see if I can grab another HD220 or something simular??You’ve probably seen Stereophile’s review of the IRS Beta in the past, but I’ll note some comments in it that I think are particularly important:
First, based on the impedance characteristics and the related comments shown in the measurements section I would not necessarily expect much similarity between how a given amplifier would perform on the woofer towers and how that same amplifier would perform on the mid/treble section. The impedance characteristics of the two sections are drastically different, and are unusually challenging on the mid/treble section. And as noted in JA’s comments:
The impedance of the mid/treble panel drops significantly below 4 ohms for much of the time, reaching minima of 3 ohms at 150Hz, 2.6 ohms at 720Hz, 1.5 ohms at 2750Hz, and approximately 1 ohm at 23kHz. It will therefore present any driving amplifier with an extremely demanding task in terms of being able to deliver current, particularly in the lower midrange where the bulk of musical energy lies. On the positive side, the extremely low moving masses involved in Infinity’s EMI drive-units and the well-damped nature of the fundamental resonance of each unit will not give the driving amplifier any problems with back EMFs, as is the case with some conventional dynamic drivers.
An important point that should be noted is that the overall low nature of the impedance means that the speaker’s frequency balance will be much more amplifier-sensitive than normal. Certainly, a traditional tube amplifier with a rising output impedance with frequency will produce a sound that is much mellower in the treble than will a modern high-performance solid-state design. This was certainly the case in my experience.
And as noted earlier in the review:
When Nudell arrived, he insisted that we try using tube electronics. He even brought along one of his own Audio Research SP11 preamps (the man owns five of them!).... Nudell confirmed that the Betas, like Infinity’s other top systems, were designed in conjunction with Audio Research tube electronics, so it was hardly surprising that they sounded a little less decent with solid-state electronics, no matter how "accurate" these may have been. This report, then, applies only to the sound of the Betas with some of the best tubed electronics available. I think I can state with confidence that the system must be so used in order to fully exploit its performance capabilities.Finally, if you experiment with amplification be sure to keep this in mind:
Because the servo control involves a large amount of negative feedback, signal polarity is crucially important. The servo connecting plugs are polarized, and can only be connected one way, but if the bass amplifier is polarity-inverting, or if the woofer cables are reversed, plus for minus, the negative feedback becomes positive and the system will go into violent full-power oscillation at around 35Hz, which is (I can assure you!) one of the most frightening (and potentially destructive) sounds you will have ever heard! This can also happen if everything is phased properly but the bass amplifier has very high gain, which explains the "Open Loop Gain Comp" switch. So, regardless of how absolutely certain you may be that your bass amp is noninverting and has the right gain and the speaker cables are properly polarized, you should always set the crossover’s Woofer Level control all the way down before turning everything on the first time, and raise the level slowly to ascertain that everything is okay.That’s about all I can offer at this point. Good luck. Regards,
-- Al