Infinity Renaissance 90 or Apogee Scintilla ?

I have a pair of Ren 90's....an outstanding speaker. Never listened to the Apogees before.

Rademaker,
your question is a loaded one! ;-)
The Apogee Scintilla comes in 2 flavours - one, a 1-Ohm only version & two, in a dual/user settable 4-Ohm & 1-Ohm version.
The 1-Ohm version sounds much better than the 4/1-Ohm version but is incredibly hard to drive! The 1-Ohm version Scintilla drops to 0.93-Ohms in the bass region (can't remember if it the bass or mid-bass region). So, you WILL NEED an amp that is stable down to 0.5-Ohms. AND, you will need an amp that is ATLEAST 1000W/ch into 1-Ohm. There are very few such amps (count on 1 hand) & these amps are going to cost you BIG MONEY! Further, you will be restricted to s.s. only amps. This you might or might not like - I don't know your preferences.
So, the getting an 1-Ohm Scintilla has a large cost when it comes to TOTAL cost of ownership.
The 4/1-Ohm Scintilla is much easier to drive & you can use tube amps as well. Of course, not any tube amp but several of the "fortified" power supply ones (I'm thinking atleast 100W/ch with a large power supply). You will need a large output wattage tube amp to bring the best out of this speaker as they are quite power-hungry. They are also terribly inefficient: 79dB SPL at 3m per the user manual.

Over & above all of this, you are likely to find an used speaker that will need refurbishing (not cheap!) unless you are lucky to find one that has already been refurbished (which is likely to have a fairly high selling price).

I hope that someone w/ a 4/1-Ohm Scintilla comes forward to share his/her experience re. to these speakers. I personally have the 1-Ohm Scintilla (& I like it very much).
Never heard an Infinity Renaissance 90, so no comments.

both of you thank you for your inputs, I know the story about the two different Scintilla already, hope someone will react responding this subject between Infinity Renaissance 90 or Apogee Scintilla

Hi Rademaker,

I have heard them both, the Renaissance 90 are good and nice design by the Infinity Team since I was brought up via the Arnie Nudell error (too bad it changed) but the Apogees are one of the best speaker designs ever made in my opinion. I still have one in storage, my current reference are Wilsons but I do miss "that" sound that only the Apogees can contribute to the pinnacle of music.

The presence is like no other speakers ever built.
The only problem with the Apogees….I can list a hundred reasons why you should NOT buy it and that’s the same reason why I am still keeping one in storage.

There is no support, Grez in Australia is there but its just difficult and expansive being here on this end of the continent to deal with issues.
You need the proper gear as what “Bombaywalla” has mentioned.
I am a Krell buff and had no worries with control, they worked very well with the Apogees. I had the FPB 300’s with Audio Research VT200 on the top bi amplified.
Pre was the Krell Reference and my front end was very good Analog and top flying cables including the recommended Symo’s. So they will cost you much $$$$$$ to squeeze all the potential of the Apogees. You could use a receiver to drive them but you will never experience what the Apogees can truly provide, like it would be night and day difference.

It is finicky, expansive, difficult to set-up and everything else you don’t want to deal with and not forgetting FRAGILE that means NO SHIPPING!
But if you don’t mind dealing with all those issues (to me they were very small issues looking at what you get in return) you will have a system like NO OTHER even in today’s market I assure you. Good luck!

P/S make sure you do all your homework on the condition of the speaker before buying if you do proceed with the Apogees!!!! Buzzzing? Factory Pair? and so on.....

Rapogee

Rapogee,

I am glad to report that you will not need to ship your apogees to Australia for support. There's an outfit in Arizona that will handle the repairs. I saw/heard their work at RMAF and they are charging very reasonable fees to resurrect any existing Apogee speakers.

FrankC

Are you talking about True Sound Works?
Rich is the one that I know off who is doing it.

Thx

I have never heard the Apogee Scintilla but I have the Renaissance 90. I hear mostly classical music and a bit of jazz. I recently changed all my system, the only thing I kept were the R.90.

Same kind of problem as with the apogee, you need something quite strong to lock the best out of these sepeakers. I was driving them in the past with a Treshold Fet nine E + OCM 200. Now that I have the Jeff Rowland monos 501 (500 at 8 ohms / 1000 at 4 ohms) the world has completely changed, I can say that it's the first time that I hear them properly.

The monos 501 of Jeff Rowland are not expensive, could they also be the solution for the Apogee?

Good luck

thx all guys