I am just amazed to read reaction from Kchahoc. I simply don't understand his reasoning process and attitude (what's your problem?).
He just made a conclusion/implication that I wanted to "Sounds like all you want to do is talk about how good the Merlin TMS monitor" because I listed my system as a reference of my comparision. And above all, he has absolutely NO NEED to heat up when we are discussing wonderful things such as music or audio. I will take his reasonable point, and will completely disregard his flames as if they/he are/is non-existent. I don't want to waste efforts on non-productive comments.
To make the thread meaningful, I want to discuss more on the sound quality of Infinity and also want to answer Plato and reasonable parts of Kchahoc.
It is my mistake to forget the name of power amp although I remembered it before leaving the shop (growing senility?). But it was, albeit not superb, a reasonable power (MOS not tube), driving 200W each channel. And source was, as mentioned before, Denon-2900.
The auditioned Infinity MTS was a set up for home theater, 4 towers (two in front and two in rear) with two sub-woofers. They say that the system was RABOS adjusted a couple of days ago. To appreciate infinity's imaging capability, center was always turned off. Also, the rears were turned off when I did a stereo test.
My stereo testing sources are Rebecca Pidgeon's "Spanish Harlem (Raven, Chesky 94)", Diana Krall's "Why Should I Care (When I Look in Your Eyes, GRP 99)", Ella Fitzgerald's "They Can't Take That Away From Me (Ella & Louis, Polygram 00), and Richard Elliot's "I'll Make Love to You" and "Scotland (City Speak, Blue Note 96)".
Infinity did a good job on Rebecca's song, with good clarity on instruments, detailing her rather pitched voices without strain. Her voice sounded good. But I think it missed something from her voice, like fine timbre that surrounds her voices, that used to make her voice lively.
My impression is also very similar to the re-prod of Diana and Ella's songs. Infinity is used to be good on intsruments, but lacks fine aura or timbre on voices. I really felt like voice is slightly muffled. And for Ella's song, Infinity's image is not what I expected. The image was less focused, and, IMO, sound is forward.
Ricahrd's saxphone was good on Infinity. As my system is not full-range, Infinity's coverage on lower freq was a new revelation of the recording. Compared to other speakers that matched with sub-woofer, Infinity is more closely patched together between low freq and very low freq of sub-woofer. And overall bass were quite tight and controlled. They were good part. But, bad part is bass didn't go deeper down, maybe, due to woofer's physical size.
So, we decided to take the deep bass into test. Infinity is set up for home theater, 4 towers with 2 sub-woofer, center still turned off. Source was Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon. It has excellent mixture of drum sound in the scene that Michelle Yeoh chases Ziyi Zhang (the thief stole the sword and fled).
Staging and clarity of dialogue were very good. Voice delivered clearly without being buried in the sound effects. Tight bass was also a good point. But, very low frequency was not what I expected. It has some trouble in re-prod the very low freq of big drum. Very low freq almost sounded bright!
Allow me to repeat my first posting again, "I was disappointed of unclear image and rather dull sound quality."
Infinity was a good speaker, but its high and mid were ratehr dull, compared to good Monitor. As a full range with woofer, it is tightly patched at freq cross-over at low freq. But it had some problem at deep bass.
My judgement on this setup was "Infinity was rather dull for stereo music. And for HomeTheater, it misses deep bass, and may be too expensive."
My question is, after a long delineation, even with some insult from Kchahoc, is this an expected problem, or were there any mis-matches on equipments? If it is because of mis-matches, it may be because of power amp (I think Denon-2900 is a reasonable dvd choice). If I change power, will sound improve a lot?
Thank you advance for your comments.
He just made a conclusion/implication that I wanted to "Sounds like all you want to do is talk about how good the Merlin TMS monitor" because I listed my system as a reference of my comparision. And above all, he has absolutely NO NEED to heat up when we are discussing wonderful things such as music or audio. I will take his reasonable point, and will completely disregard his flames as if they/he are/is non-existent. I don't want to waste efforts on non-productive comments.
To make the thread meaningful, I want to discuss more on the sound quality of Infinity and also want to answer Plato and reasonable parts of Kchahoc.
It is my mistake to forget the name of power amp although I remembered it before leaving the shop (growing senility?). But it was, albeit not superb, a reasonable power (MOS not tube), driving 200W each channel. And source was, as mentioned before, Denon-2900.
The auditioned Infinity MTS was a set up for home theater, 4 towers (two in front and two in rear) with two sub-woofers. They say that the system was RABOS adjusted a couple of days ago. To appreciate infinity's imaging capability, center was always turned off. Also, the rears were turned off when I did a stereo test.
My stereo testing sources are Rebecca Pidgeon's "Spanish Harlem (Raven, Chesky 94)", Diana Krall's "Why Should I Care (When I Look in Your Eyes, GRP 99)", Ella Fitzgerald's "They Can't Take That Away From Me (Ella & Louis, Polygram 00), and Richard Elliot's "I'll Make Love to You" and "Scotland (City Speak, Blue Note 96)".
Infinity did a good job on Rebecca's song, with good clarity on instruments, detailing her rather pitched voices without strain. Her voice sounded good. But I think it missed something from her voice, like fine timbre that surrounds her voices, that used to make her voice lively.
My impression is also very similar to the re-prod of Diana and Ella's songs. Infinity is used to be good on intsruments, but lacks fine aura or timbre on voices. I really felt like voice is slightly muffled. And for Ella's song, Infinity's image is not what I expected. The image was less focused, and, IMO, sound is forward.
Ricahrd's saxphone was good on Infinity. As my system is not full-range, Infinity's coverage on lower freq was a new revelation of the recording. Compared to other speakers that matched with sub-woofer, Infinity is more closely patched together between low freq and very low freq of sub-woofer. And overall bass were quite tight and controlled. They were good part. But, bad part is bass didn't go deeper down, maybe, due to woofer's physical size.
So, we decided to take the deep bass into test. Infinity is set up for home theater, 4 towers with 2 sub-woofer, center still turned off. Source was Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon. It has excellent mixture of drum sound in the scene that Michelle Yeoh chases Ziyi Zhang (the thief stole the sword and fled).
Staging and clarity of dialogue were very good. Voice delivered clearly without being buried in the sound effects. Tight bass was also a good point. But, very low frequency was not what I expected. It has some trouble in re-prod the very low freq of big drum. Very low freq almost sounded bright!
Allow me to repeat my first posting again, "I was disappointed of unclear image and rather dull sound quality."
Infinity was a good speaker, but its high and mid were ratehr dull, compared to good Monitor. As a full range with woofer, it is tightly patched at freq cross-over at low freq. But it had some problem at deep bass.
My judgement on this setup was "Infinity was rather dull for stereo music. And for HomeTheater, it misses deep bass, and may be too expensive."
My question is, after a long delineation, even with some insult from Kchahoc, is this an expected problem, or were there any mis-matches on equipments? If it is because of mis-matches, it may be because of power amp (I think Denon-2900 is a reasonable dvd choice). If I change power, will sound improve a lot?
Thank you advance for your comments.