Auditioned Infinity MTS. Disappointed. Questions..

I am somewhat in agreement with Kchahoc's sentiments, although I think his comments are somewhat harsh.

It is possible for even the best equipment in the world to sound lackluster if connected to substandard associated gear in a questionable acoustic environment, with little or no attention paid to proper setup procedures. This is what I suspect happened. Plus, you were listening to an unfamiliar system as a whole, so it would be impossible to pin the fault on any particular component, but I'd have to suspect the Runco amplification too, since it is not known in audiophile circles.

Your experience is essentially meaningless because there are too many unknown variables in your equation. If you'd auditioned the Infinity speakers in your own home and system, then you'd have the basis for a fair comparison. As it is, you do not have a basis for drawing any conclusions. And I don't own Merlin or Infinity speakers, so I have no axe to grind.

On the other hand, it's unfortunate that some retail establishments cannot take the time or do not care enough to set up their products to perform near their potential. That doesn't do anyone any good.

I'm using the MTS with an arc vt100mk1 & am far from "disappointed" Spearit sound has "refurbs" if the $$$ are too high @ retail

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.

Just a couple of points Drcio: First, there is likely a "voicing" difference between the audiophile-quality Audio Research tube gear you use and the middle-of-the-road ss electronics that were used to demonstrate the Infinitys.

Secondly, bass is very room-dependent and tweakable to a large degree. As to the imaging, that is room dependent and I suspect, in this case, electronics-dependent, too.

You did a smart thing by using your own reference recordings, but the fact that you are judging a complete system in an unfamiliar acoustic environment effectively negates any serious comparison.

If you are really interested in how the Infinitys compare to your speakers why not see if the store will agree to an in-home trial? If not that, then perhaps they would agree to let you bring your amp and preamp to their store to swap into the system.

Then there's always the possibility that the Infinity's just aren't your cup of tea or that the Merlins have some particular character trait(s) that you really like.

But if you are really serious about doing a fair comparison, as I said before, you need to make some changes in your methodology...

And remember, there are a lot more full-range speakers out there than just the Infinitys. However, if you're really hooked on the character of the Merlins, maybe the best thing for you to do would be to think about adding a good dedicated subwoofer system.

Heard the Prelude MTS with Krell and the sound was nothing like what you mention. Unfortunately, the dealer had hastily set-up the speakers in, of all things, a square room! The bass was impressive, but too much so. I think that properly set-up that issue would probably disappear as very few speakers are designed to integrate the bass properly within a room like these Infinitys are. Insofar as the midrange, I found it to be quite good, open and coherent. The treble seemed to be smooth. The imaging was good, considering the less than ideal placement. Dispersion was god, to the extent that can be judged by moving one's head one side to the other. They were very dynamic. Aside from the very deep bass which should be properly tamed in each individual room, the sound was coherent and quite musical. I did not much care for the sound of the Krell CD player used in the demo, as I found the sound too etched and somewhat tilted up as compared to my Arcam FMJ CD 23. Will not have good resale value because the true blue audiophiles crapped all over this product because it was designed by a no nonsense objective (aka "scientific") person and does not rely on allusion to emotions or references to great long dead composers and such. The Rodney Dangerfield of big chested speakers, a good product that can't get no respect. Did not beat the better speakers I have heard: Vandersteen Fives and JM Labs Utopia, but they are way less money.