Infinity RS 1B - How does the 'old dream speaker' compare to today's speakers?

bdp24

... Infinity's were not built to high end standards.

Hmmmm, I bought my IRS Beta system around 1990 and it has been in use since then. I've refoamed the woofers a few times and repaired the servo/xover controller once. I have some spare NOS EMIMs as well as some upgraded diaphragms from Apogee Acoustics but I've never installed them.

Since trading a set of RS-1Bs on the IRS Betas, almost my entire system has been upgraded - some components more than once. The system has sounded better with each upgrade.

Demos I hear at my local dealer always sound excellent, but they don't outclass the IRS Beta.

There are good reasons that so many people keep these old Infinity systems running.

mark200mph

Have several irs infinity have rebuilt some of the ribbons rewired and changed to electronic crossovers.they are tri amped.that is one amp for woofers ...

The planar drivers in the Infinity IRS systems (IRS 1-V, Beta, Delta, Gamma) were not ribbons. All of the IRS systems were intended to be biamplified and were shipped with electronic crossovers that included an active servo system for the bass. Maintaining the servo is essential to get the bass performance for which these speakers are famous.

The speakers in your pic aren’t RS-1Bs. It’s the big IRS system.

I owned the RS-1Bs for years, then traded them in for a set of IRS Betas, which I still enjoy and think is a much better speaker overall.