My new RS II and experimenting with a 4 lb amp

Rex81

Well-Known Member
I figured I’d start my own thread for this one. As stated in a previous thread, I mentioned I was on the lookout for some RS II’s, and sure enough Goodolpg alerted me to a pair for sale an hour away. Thanks again, bud!

I picked them up from Misfitz Audio in Grand Rapids, Michigan. If you ever have a chance to stop by there, I encourage you to do so. Great people, great space, and lots of great vintage gear for sale. In fact, they have a pair of QLS-1 there currently and were happy to demo them for me. Wow! That’s an amazing speaker. The punch, fullness, and clarity from the entire audible spectrum is just jaw dropping. Unfortunately they’re both out of my price range and far too large for my listening room. I was happy to “settle” for the RS II.

I’ve been a long time Infinity fan, owning various models like Reference Five, Reference Six, RS 6000, Kappa 5.1, 6.1, RS5, WTLC and Column II. I still own the WTLC because they’re freakin’ cool, but I think the Column II edged it out sound-wise. So I wanted to break into the “big” Infinities. An audio acquaintance of mine acquired some RS II and let me stop over for a listen. He was powering them with a Krell KSA-100 and they sounded very, very good. They had the full, dynamic Infinity sound with the ultra clear, smooth sound of the EMITs, but that midrange and big presentation is what sets them apart from “lesser” Infinities, in my opinion. I told myself I’d pick up the next pair that came along. Luckily I didn’t have to wait that long.

I got them home and did a quick once-over. All the drivers appear to work as they should and they have newer foam on the woofers. Best of all, they’ve recently been fully recapped, so that’s one less thing I have to do to them. I was happy to see they came with completely unbroken grills, front and rear, and the foam in the back around the mids is completely intact and pliable. Rear feet are good too.

Issues:
1. Good amount of veneer peel on the bottom front of each cabinet – I filled in with a stain pen which helps hide it, but I may eventually just glue on a matte black trim piece to hide it altogether. It’ll look like it’s always been there.

2. A slight buzzing out of the top woofer on the right speaker at certain frequencies when pushed beyond moderate volume. It seems to be coming around the dust cap. It appears the gold glue has deteriorated a little bit and that might be causing it. Anyone else have this problem? Did you simply add more glue around it? That’s my first thought.

3. Air leakage around back plastic control panel. I’ll probably just run a bead of Loctite Powergrab glue around the edge. It dries clear so should be pretty much invisible.

4. Dried out finish. I’m not a huge fan of the medium oak that comes on these. I much prefer walnut. Oh well. To compromise, I applied a liberal amount of Howard’s Restore-a-Finish in Mahogany, followed by a coat of Howard’s Feed-N-Wax. This darkened up the oak nicely and gave a nice warm red undertone. Huge improvement if you ask me. I love Howard’s.

So now I’m on to amplification. And this is where it gets interesting. I’ve been reading about how these are right on the cusp of being classic Infinity amp-killers. Sure, they’re no Kappa 9 or QLS 1, but they drop to right above 2 ohm here and there and are about 85db sensitive. That certainly warrants caution. But I have a collection of amps that don’t care too much about difficult loads and I’ve never had issues driving anything, including my Ohm Fs, which are 84db, and 3 ohm nominal. Another purported “amp killer”.

First off, I’m a Class D guy. I like the efficiency, I like the flexibility, and I like the damping factor (absolutely essential to control the Ohm Fs). I started off with my Class D Audio CDA-120c. 60 wpc into 8, 120 into 4. Big toroidal on board. It did a fine job. No issues whatsoever. Plenty of power to get the RS IIs singing. (I can’t stand overly loud music, so 75-85db with peaks up to 90 is my zone). Then I put on my trusty Crown XLS-1502. 550 wpc into 4. Rated down to 2 ohm. Soundstage opened up with greater clarity and smoothness in the mids and highs. Maybe slightly less control of the bass (that’s one thing the CDA is great at), but overall a preferable sound.

Now onto something that will likely surprise you. Just for giggles, I put the big amps aside and plugged the RS II directly into my Bluesound Powernode 2. If you’re not familiar, it’s a streamer/DAC/preamp/amp in one. It weighs 4 lbs. It’s the size of a paperback book. It runs off of NAD’s HybridDigital amp technology which is based on a class D Hypex core. It delivers 60 wpc into 8 and 4 ohms. According to NAD’s white paper on it, it doesn’t “see” a load like traditional amps. Your guess is as good as mine. All I know is this unit does some amazing things. And it has some sophisticated protection onboard so I’m comfortable experimenting with it.

It powered the RS II beautifully. Volume got uncomfortably loud at about 45% and it seemed to keep fine control over everything throughout. Bass was a little bit looser than with the previous amps, but nothing bad by any means. It just seemed to blossom a little more. Mids and highs were forward and crisp. After an hour of play time, not a single glitch, and the amp was cool to the touch. Although I’ve never known it to heat up past room temperature, regardless of how long I run it or what speakers I’m running. It runs the Ohm Fs just as well. I wanted to know how the Powernode 2 would stack up against the Krell KSA-100, so we listened to the Krell, then switched over to the Powernode. The Krell was better obviously, but the difference was remarkably small.

I might bring some class A/B back into the house again for some more experimentation. But I was very impressed with what that 4 lb Powernode does for these, and in the short term, I’m keeping it in the system because it’s so easy to live with. In fact, this system is in the living room and is the main family home theater at the moment. My wife and daughter only need a single remote to control everything (the TV, Amazon Firestick, and Xbox all run into the Powernode like a receiver) and it uses a half watt of power when it automatically goes into standby when not in use.

Sorry for the long story. The short of it: I love the sound of these RS II, and they may blow up monster vintage receivers, but my Powernode 2 is very happy with them. For now, 4lbs and 60 wpc are doing just fine. :thumbsup:

RS II.JPG
 
Were those from the Grand Rapids CL list ad last week?
I saw the CL ad and assumed it was a private seller ad.
Little surprised if so as Misfitz usually lists as a dealer.
And if so, that's might be third set of RS II from there in the last two years. I bought one pair, another pair (that Brian had recapped) sold shortly before my pair, maybe they were traded in and are the ones you just bought?)
Also, around 3 or 4 years ago there was another pair of RS II over by the lake shore that were up for sale. Sure Infinity sold plenty but they weren't cheap when new so 4 pair "nearby" in the past few years just strikes me as interesting.
Ad I saw also showed the rear crossover plate already had what appeared to be silicone run all around the edge (to seal it I'd guess).
Yours are a bit unique as they have the rear foam, that doesn't seem to be real common. Also unbroken grille frames are the exception rather than the norm it seems.
I'm a little surprised your small-ish class d amp is running them easily, but I am using a bigger class d with mine and when playing "kinda loud" it really is only around 12 to 15 wpc output.
You might be limited by your room or wife (my room limits me) but getting the speakers farther from the walls might let them "breath" more and allow the rear waves to really bloom. Or not.
 
Yes, they're the one's from the GR CL ad. It was actually a private sale from a gentleman who works at Misfitz. He said his wife recently got a dog that barks anytime it hears music coming from a speaker, so he just moved his gear over to Misfitz and listens to the stuff there whenever he has a chance. :D

This pair was recapped by Brian, so they may be one in the same. I have never personally seen another pair of RS II for sale in these parts, but obviously I wasn't looking hard enough, since you had to point them out for me, haha.

Yes, one crossover plate is sealed with silicone, the other is not. That's the one that will need a quick seal.

Good point about power output. 85 db is a good amount of volume, so it just takes a few watts at the listening position to get these speakers singing. Of course headroom is a different matter, but in general I think people forget that most speakers at normal listening volume barely draw a single watt (or even a fraction of a watt) of power from the amp most of the time. What's really more important is current availability and power supply design. That doesn't always mean beer can capacitors and 20 lbs of heat sinks. Whatever NAD did with this Powernode is working wonders.

And good eye on the placement. The picture shows where they rest. I'm able to pull them out another 2 feet when listening. I totally expected to have to move these guys down to the basement due to their size, but my wife likes the sound so much she's willing to tolerate them staying in the living room!
 
Hopefully they will bring you lots of musical pleasure.
Having your wifes approval is a plus for sure!
Since they are recapped and refoamed they should be good to go for quite a while.
Sounds like they are the "other" pair Brian mentioned when I bought mine. He said the recap really made a difference and strongly recommended I recap mine. I finally did a couple months ago and it did make a big difference.
One other nice thing about the RS II is the individual drivers are pretty much readily available and not priced as unobtanium.
 
A couple days ago before I set up my RSIIs, I removed and found one of the lower woofers was not wired correctly making for an out a phase condition on one side.
Needless to say, the low frequencies are now more robust.
I've run the IIs for a while with a Yamaha CA-1000(70watts per) without any problems whatsoever, heat clipping etc.
Currently a Yamaha MX-800 powers them, even better.
upload_2018-4-11_15-40-19.jpeg
 
Glad you like them Rex. They look really nice. One of my woofers was buzzy and it turned out to be a small cut in the surround right where the roll meets the crease. They were only a few years old and still firm. Most of these speakers are on their 3rd pair of surrounds.

^^^whoa tubed, looks like we have a lot of the same speakers. Are those Time windows mixed in with those big Infinitys, (next to the qls2) maybe Mirage m1...?
 
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I seem to be getting very healthy doses of bass out of mine, but I'll pull the woofers this weekend and check wiring. It's amazing how many people have reported them being wired out of phase.

I'll also spend some more time troubleshooting the woofer buzz. Could very well be as simple as a loose surround. I've certainly come across that before.
 
I've run my RS IIs with a class D Cherry Megaschino for quite a while now and the sound is great. The Mega is made to easily handle a 2 ohm load, so the amp doesn't have a problem with the II's at all.
I never did check to see if my woofers were wired correctly. The surrounds have been replaced, so there is a chance that they could be wired wrong. I found that my RS2.5's were wired incorrectly, so it's a possibility with these too. I'll check.
Glad to see someone else here enjoying a pair of RS II's.

Larry D.
 
For anyone who intends to check their RS II woofer wiring, here is what I've found.
The woofers don't weigh nearly as much as I thought so don't be afraid to unscrew and remove them. I figured they must weigh a ton and would want to fall through the floor and into the basement. They don't. And won't. Do make sure they are supported though.
Unless a previous owner screwed things up the proper two wires should reach the proper woofer as the woofers are housed in their own section of the cabinet.
Each woofer has two terminals (duh) one should have a red mark next to it.
The solid color wires (pink/top woofer and black/bottom woofer) go to the "red" marked terminals.
The red wires with black stripes (both woofers) go to the non marked terminals.
Seems a little counter intuitive to me as I've always done red to red with pretty much all wiring.
But maybe that's how or why so many end up wired wrong.
 
What may be a bit confusing is the lack of color coding present on the technical page, but more so is perhaps most people may associate the black wire as being negative instead of positive as it's supposed to be on the RSII lower woofer.
 
Finally got around to checking the wiring on my woofers last night. Sure enough, the bottom ones were wired out of phase. But I'm with you, goodolpg, I can understand why so many of them are: black to me means negative, red means positive. And if you have solid black on one wire, then some red on another, well... doesn't matter. Swapped the leads and bass extension improved dramatically. Now they're sounding even better!

While the woofers were out I went ahead and put some Armacell insulation tape on the back to create a nice new gasket seal, although it seemed that the old gasket was doing a fine job. Only takes about a minute and 25 cents in material to do all 4, so figured I might as well. I also sealed the back plate of the one speaker with silicone to match the other one. No more air leaks.

Now to track down the woofer buzz. I have an app on my phone that generates any test tone I want from 20hz to 20khz. It's pretty handy for finding odd noises in a speaker. I just slowly do a frequency sweep, then hold the frequency that makes the noise most pronounced, then get to work. I'm sure it's either in the foam surround or the dust cap.
 
A couple days ago before I set up my RSIIs, I removed and found one of the lower woofers was not wired correctly making for an out a phase condition on one side.
Needless to say, the low frequencies are now more robust.
I've run the IIs for a while with a Yamaha CA-1000(70watts per) without any problems whatsoever, heat clipping etc.
Currently a Yamaha MX-800 powers them, even better.
View attachment 1160709

How were you able to ID the correct polarity? When I refoamed my woofers I forgot to mark the polarity -- my RS-II are out of my stereo rotation so they're sitting unused, but I'd like to verify that they're correctly wired before I rotate them back in


EDIT - Nevermind I read the other post in this thread that explains the solid wires go to the "red" marked terminals and the striped wires go to the other terminal

That still doesn't answer the question about which wire is positive and which is the negative but it helps to confirm they're wired up right if that info is correct.

UPDATE: they were out of phase! Fixed now, thanks goodolpg.
 
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The terminals marked with the red spot are positive.
So the solid color WOOFER wires are positive.

My mids have the white wires going to the red marked terminals, yellow wires to the unmarked terminals.
Not sure about the EMITs.
 
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If the terminals are not marked you can use a AA battery. Positive to positive, negative to negative come goes up. Reversed cone goes down. Get it to go up and get se some of your wife’s red nail polish and mark the one the positive is touching.
 
How were you able to ID the correct polarity? When I refoamed my woofers I forgot to mark the polarity -- my RS-II are out of my stereo rotation so they're sitting unused, but I'd like to verify that they're correctly wired before I rotate them back in


EDIT - Nevermind I read the other post in this thread that explains the solid wires go to the "red" marked terminals and the striped wires go to the other terminal

That still doesn't answer the question about which wire is positive and which is the negative but it helps to confirm they're wired up right if that info is correct.

UPDATE: they were out of phase! Fixed now, thanks goodolpg.
The woofers hadn't any markings.
Using the battery test identified pos/neg no problem.
Not sure which crossover wire was + or -, I used the "diode" function on my digital multimeter from the negative speaker terminal to locate which wire was negative.

(Of note, I've come across crossovers where the red speaker terminal is actually wired as negative on the X/O board which actually doesn't matter as long as both speakers are wired the same.)
 
I really like seeing people experiment with something new. I have my Kap 9s powered by 2 Tfm-25s. They are 29 pounds each. Most pictures of Kap 9s you see the monster amps next to them. I gave it a try as I think they are only rated at 4ohm but they sound great and will blow u out the room. I have the woofer switched on normal I’m not crazy.
 
I really like seeing people experiment with something new. I have my Kap 9s powered by 2 Tfm-25s. They are 29 pounds each. Most pictures of Kap 9s you see the monster amps next to them. I gave it a try as I think they are only rated at 4ohm but they sound great and will blow u out the room. I have the woofer switched on normal I’m not crazy.

I think one of the reasons your setup is successful is that Carver has a 2 ohm dynamic power rating for the TFM-25

8-ohm FTC rated power/ch 225 W
4-ohm FTC rated power/ch 350 W
2-ohm dynamic power/ch 750 W
 
I think one of the reasons your setup is successful is that Carver has a 2 ohm dynamic power rating for the TFM-25

8-ohm FTC rated power/ch 225 W
4-ohm FTC rated power/ch 350 W
2-ohm dynamic power/ch 750 W
I will have to look it up again. Someone else had posted that but I was only able to come up with the 4 ohm load. Thanks for letter me know makes more sense now.
 
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