Hi Jgwilson, thanks for your response. I definitely agree with your comment about how the Ren's compare to what is around today. I estimate you would have to spend atleast $8-10K US to equal them, and goodness knows what to better them, so they are a no brainer. The seller also had left over (brand new) spare High Energy Emits, Emims & Ren 90 grilles which i'm snapping up, so these really should be my speakers for life.
I think the Classe's high current, stable 235watts/4ohm drive should do a "very good" job of driving the Ren's, whilst obviously upgrading to a CA-2200 & tube pre would take them to another level, but on a budget, I feel like i'm doing really well. I agree with your comments about upstream components too; I have a very nice transport, suspended on high end iso feet & running a Nordost Silver Shadow digital cable connected to a Vimak DS-1800mk2 dac (one of the best sounding dacs ever made). And I connect my source (via the dac) fully balanced via an Audioquest Sky XLR cable. The signal then runs through Acoustic Zen Holograph 2 'Custom Shotgun' cables to the speakers. I'm also upgrading soon to a Shunyata Hydra 6 filter & high end Shunyata pc, so system synergy should be excellent. Incidentally, I recently read the Technical White Paper for the Ren's & have to agree; Infinity put an incredible amount of R&D into the x-over network & internal wiring, so i've decided i'm not going to touch it. I'm happy with my current digital source & will wait to see if Bluray Audio takes over SACD.
Cheers! |
Hi Okeeteekid, thanks for sharing your views and experience with your Renaissance 90's. It's great to hear you like the black ash finish as well! I have also heard many accounts of the Ren 90's not sounding boxy at all & having excellent coherancy. That is testimony too to the successful collaberation between Charlie Watkins & Infinity in developing the 10" Watkins woofer for the Rens.
I currently own Infinity Reference 60's which had twin 8" IMG bass drivers & an IMG midrange, so I can certainly appreciate the timbral accuracy and warmth the IMG drivers seem to produce; wonderful with accoustic and jazz (eg: Diana Krall). I agree with your statement about Infinity (aka Harmon)'s "hifi" offerings such as the Preludes!...Arnie Nudel must have smashed a hole in his apartment wall after he saw 25 years of his hard work turned into a flea market!
Ah you saw the ad for my black Rens! Yeah, I think that member is known to AG members here. Larry is a Doctor with his own practice & an absolutely terrific guy. He is also an Infinity nut as you would have read & owns IRS-V's, two pair of IRS-Betas, 3 pairs (now 1) of Ren 90's & a pair of Ren 80's. The pair I bought were late-manufacture & used less than a dozen times in 11 years, so are virtually mint which is unheard of for these speakers, so i'm wrapped :)
I'm anxious to see how my Classe Cap-2100 handles the demanding load of the Rens. Obviously the Cap doesn't have anything like as many watts per channel as your big Pass block, however surprisingly it has a lot more current, so on balance it should do a good job, but of course being an Audiophile - I plan on upgrading to it's bigger brother (CA-2200) & a tube preamp next year which, apart from a future upgrade of my current transport (JVC XL-Z1050), will be the final iteration of my high end system :) And yes, I am going to trust Nudel & Christie and leave the Ren's x-over well alone.. |
Hi Olp88, thanks for sharing your experiences with your Renaissance 90's. I always find it interesting to hear the excitement and genuine enthusiasm owners have for these gems. You're certainly feeding your Rens plenty of juice! I agree, I believe they need lots of good, high quality power. I am kind of starting out in a similar vain to yourself with a high current Classe Integrated. I am passionate about the ultimate fidelity of my system, hence buying new Classe gear; very clean, smooth tube-like warmth & very high current. I did weight up the bi-amping option, but that adds considerable cost & I would have had to have sourced earlier model gear on A'gon to achieve that within my budget. I am getting all the weak links in my system sorted out before I upgrade amps & am planning to upgrade 6 power cords to reference pc's & a new high end filter - your system is only as good as the juice you feed it! The more vs fidelity battle on amps was easily resolved for me (pardon the pun) Fidelity one! So I plan to upgrade next year to a big Classe CA2200 & Audio Research tube pre-amp :) I thought that will sound stunning & always leaves me room to bi-amp the system with an AR tube PA one rainy day :) |
Hi Timpani, I was really interested to read that earlier run Renaissance 90's had a 2.5db peak at 2.3Khz. Interesting! That does support Infinity's motivation to introduce later revs of the crossover. That also put a smile on my face as the pair I bought were late-manufacture/late sale examples which would have had the later x-over, thus not requiring mods for (hopefully) a long time to come. It would take a very skilled audio engineer to do in a couple of weeks what Infinity spend hundreds of hours to perfect, so on reflection, i'm happy to laave it well alone. |
That's an interesting set up on your Rens Timpani. Speaking the obvious, but smooth watts are very important for the Emits! I can certainly understand the popularity of running a ss amp on the Watkins & tube power for the highs, but I feel that running separate amps for lows/highs creates phase issues and (personally) I feel using tube amps introduces microphonics which muddy the sound of highly revealing speakers like Rens.
What interested me about your hand-made tweeter amp was how similar in concept it sounds to Classe amps which employ Jfets in the input stage, Mosfets in the driver stage & Bipolars in the output stages. It's certainly rewarding and exciting to invest in that level of amp, but more fun if you can design and build your own!
Incidentally, I have a friend who is an Infinity sceptic. He actually sold a smattering of Infinitys back in the 90's (eg: IRS Epsilon), but he never heard Renaissance 90s. His common line is that Infinitys "lack coherancy". His favorite speakers are ML's, and in fact he tried to persuade me to buy a pair of CLS 2z's off him recently. I felt they had inherent weaknesses in that they are absolutely reliant on an add on subwoofer & good room acoustics. My response to him was "just wait till you hear the Rens!" |
Timpany, thanks for sharing your technical experience with the Ren 90's. As most fans of these speakers would know, there are basically no reputable critical reviews to be found online, and therefore no lab reports etc..you're relying on Infinity's semi-technical white paper; so I and i'm sure many other Ren 90 owners would appreciate your comments.
I was interested in your comment that planar driver impedance remains constant with varying input & your point that this is otherwise a source of non-linearity with cones as one of the technical achievements of the Infinity/Watkins woofer was how the secondary motor was only allowed to operate in the low bass region where the impedance was much to high anyway, thus flattening the impedance peak at resonance and lowering it to a correct level (which provided a less reactive load with less phase shift, thus largely eliminating non-linearity in a cone design).
Also picking up on your comment about the difficulty of achieving coherancy in a 4 way speaker design, Infinity appear to have gone to great lengths to design a unique cabinet and grille which virtually eliminated resonance and diffraction and provided unimpeded and ideal dispersion of the musical signal. If Infinity didn't achieve quite the level of coherency as ML's CLS2, then in a single, conveniently placeable tower, they got bloody close!
Yeah, I was telling Mum the Rens sold for $8000 here way back when & I should land my pair for about $4100 with shipping/fees included, so still a good deal.
Melbguy1
ps: I'll keep a note of your your request to hear the Rens once my system is finally complete. By the end of next year, I plan to add to my existing JVC/Vimak front end with a Reference 3 pre-amp, Ca-2200, AR/Jorma cables, Running Springs filter, SRA platforms & new maple cabinet.. "Phew!" |
Thanks Timpani, am not contemplating any refurb of my crossover as mentioned at this stage, but your comments are interesting. Also, which version of the Ren 90 crossover is that, as there were obviously several revisions throughout the production run for the Rens?
Cheers |
Hmmm Okeeteekid, Clavil's comments make me think you mod on your K9's may have cured an efficiency problem. Those monsters Clavil is driving his Rens with, and the similarly superb results owners report from similar set ups makes me think that if you can overcome the Ren's efficiency issue, you can really see what they're capable of. I know the Kappas are preferred for those wanting a "big" sound and more bass slam, but I can't believe that, given sufficient high quality amplification, the Kappa's tweeters could be more revealing than the High Energy Emit which Cary Christie described as Infinity's best tweeter to date. The thing is though, the Rens MUST be connected with upstream components purer than holy water & MUST be driven with a LOT of very smooth, clean power. Plug in the wrong amp, and the Rens sound just "ok". But your experience is interesting. I just wonder if with a given set up, the Rens wouldn't outstrip the Kappas..to me, save for the above caviat, they should sound more revealing...
With the above said, if you have hit the jackpot with your current set up, fantastic! It's just a shame you're not in Timpani's neck of the woods, otherwise I might have been able to come over for a listen one day :( |
Hi Timpani,
I was wondering in your response: "These emits are the same as used in the Epsilon but in the Epsilon they are used with a specially designed dispersion membrane which increases their horizontal and vertical dispersion and eliminates the hot on axis response, making them more accurate over a wider listening window." were you referring to the silk membrane which is described in the breakdown of the High Energy Emit in the Ren's technical white paper?
I was also curious about your comments about the dispersion of the Emit in the Rens as Infinity state in their White Paper - "The new High Energy Emit is operated with a relatively narrow frequency band which assures maximum dispersion within its operating range" & this..
"The High Energy Emit's new mechanical structure permits also permits the driver to be used at lower frequencies than previous Emit drivers enabling it's speed and transient capabilities to become even more meaningful to the overall balance of the system. Crossing over the High Energy Emit lower also results in better dispersion because the Emim midrange driver is removed from the system before it can acoustically beam from the shorter wavelengths generated at higher frequencies. The High Energy Emit also features newly designed vertical apertures that provide wide dispersion and permit high frequencies to spread evenly and broadly throughout the listening area."
So given the above statements, I had an impression of the Ren's Emit offering a wide sweet spot and a large, expansive soundstage, so I was surprised to read your observations :S I guess proof is always in the pudding as they say however. I found out today my Rens will be arriving in about 2 weeks :)) |
Hi Timpani, I completely agree with your comments on the quality of upstream components (particularly amps) & the need to feed the Watkins high current, that's why I like the Classe so much, it gives you enough watts in a single pa, but a truckload of current to boot. For me, the Classe combined with a Reference 3 pre-amp is a match made in Heaven for the Rens :)
Okeeteekid, it was great to read your comments on your K9s! What is exciting about your findings is that, taking me as an example, I purchased a superb example of Ren 90's with a long-term view. I would be happy for them to be my speakers for life, but of course at some point in the future age will catch up with them. The Watkins and midrange drivers will require re-foaming, the internal caps will degrade & the wiring will oxidize, so it's encouraging to see how much more potential there obviously is there. In my case, I plan to do quite an extreme, external crossover connected with something like Nordost Supreme Reference for the short run to the speakers, but will leave the drivers alone. The guru I would get to do the speaker re-design is a guy in Australia who Timpani would have heard of - Dallas Clarke. To say he knows his stuff is an understatement! My only question is, would there be more value in spending $4000AU on a RS filter & pc or investing something like $3000 on the speaker re-design, re-wire & external crossover & just plug my high end pc's directly into a kmart powerboard connected to the wall? Would like to hear your view on that.. |
Hi Timpani, You're right. Thanks for clarifying what you meant..I had that "Ah ha" moment!..Kudos to the IRS Epsilon & Carie Christie..what a genius (shakes his head with smile). Yup well I say if you spend $14000.00, you deserve a little extra sugar in your coffee (or an extra membrane in your Tweeter!) Damn straight Timpani, we are getting old aren't we! I can still vividly recall old Stereophile articles going back to the 80's (scary). Your comments on the Rens and Emit/Emims are very interesting!
I digress, thanks for the tip on the set up of the Rens. I'll start out at 90° and then work in small increments up to 1/4 of an inch as Okeeteekid suggested. I do agree with upstream electronics & the weakest link theory. Weighing up weather to plug all my high end pc's into a cheap powerboard, or invest in a high end filter, i've decided to snap up RS's new Jaco 'Elite' power filter. The new Elite incorporates much of the guts of the Dmitri filter & other design features and does look good. I also like the idea of being able to buy high-end US grade Oyaide plugs on my pcs (otherwise unavailable to the OZ market), alas I wont hijack a thread on the 90's..there is another chewing on that subject.
After upgrading all my cables, power supply & isolation this year, it will be fun saving for my big Classe & AR next year. Now that certainly is a Ferarri (with a pretty sexy body too). |
Timpani, what a difference a day makes in the life of an audiophile. After weighing up the benefits $4000.00(AU) was going to make to my system invested in either a line filter or in a high end re-design/re-wire & external x-over mod to my Rens, I realized ok, they're in great shape BUT they are 14 years old, and wiring and caps would have degraded to a certain extent...added to which, that's an opportunity to replace $8 per meter internal cable with $800.00 per internal wire & replace the 5% standard value caps with the best sounding sounding caps around. All the comments from IRS-Sigma owners I admit at first made no sense to me, but with your clarification, yeah obviously their superior crossover does make a noticeable difference. The re-design I am planning however is on a much higher order & results should be stunning. The new x-over will make the Rens more efficient as well. This is significant in itself in with this mod, I should be able to achieve the same stunning results as guys like Clavil running a single big iron amp & pre. I think that is a smarter solution to bi-amping, do you agree? And yes, I will proudly wear my gold medal for the backflip, thank you! |
Hi Olp88,
I have an update of my own! I sold my Renaissance 90's a couple of months ago. I thought to myself "Do I really want to stuff around extensively modding these things, getting them re-finished etc and worrying about spare parts?" & came to the conclusion no I don't. The other thing which became very obvious once they were set up is their need for a big iron amp, or bi-amping which I currently don't have the inclination to do. In their place, I bought a pair of Marten Coltrane Alto's (2004) which retailed then for $24kUS. They use the same Accuton drivers used by Kharma & Talon, extremely high order crossovers, Jorma #1 internal wiring (incl: Bybee quantum filters) & awesome piano black carbon fibre monoqoque cabinets with no parallel surfaces, bi-wired WBT binding posts etc & have similarly impressive frequency response & speed as the Rens.
That Luxman does look beautiful! (although these days, given I run fully balanced components, the Lux would be a bit old school for my needs). My Classe Cap-2100 is doing regular duties for now, but my dream set up would probably be a pair of class a Pass monoblocks & a Modwright tube pre-amp run fully balanced, but have too many other priorities upstream/downstream for now! |
