Infinity Renaissance 90 questions


Hi fellow AG'ers, I have just pulled the trigger & purchased a pair of Ren 90's in black ash & had some newbie questions for more experienced members. Firstly as they are still shipping from the US, I'd love to know what finish (Black ash or blonde oak) you prefer? In my case, a micky mouse pair came up for sale at the right price in Black ash, so I grabbed them..

Also, I will be initially running my Rens with a Classe Cap-2100 integrated amp which has been bench tested at 235watts/4 ohms. I know most punters advocate giving them 400 watts per channel, so what do you think? (although the Classe has a truckload of current to compensate). I should mention I plan on upgrading to a Ca-2200 pa & AR Reference 3 in a few years, but for now, the Cap will doing regular duties.

Finally, I would be interested to hear from any members who have re-wired their Rens & had a high-end external crossover built & what results you got? I am planning a very high end x-over mod & re-wire of my Rens with Acoustic Zen wire next year and would appreciate any suggestions.

Cheers!
melbguy1
Hi Melbguy1,
Need to give you an update. Switched out amps to a Luxman M-05 Pure Class A 105 Watts per channel into 8 ohms. When I said wow before, double it! The bass extension has been the best I've heard through them. Seems that the best power combination I have found is a tube pre-amp with a hefty class A amp. Hope this helps.
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!
I just saw this discussion now, are any other Ren 90 owners/enthusiasts still here?