That's an interesting question. The stereo store where I bought my 1.5 sold a few other brand's speakers that I don't remember because they didn't stand up to the Infinity. It was easy to be quick to eliminate the other candidates. I remember they sold a full line of Kenwood electronics because I was considering a few of the components for the system. They were a beginning Adcom dealer and I ended up buying their first amp and preamp to power the 1.5. It was a great, powerful combination.
I spent a lot of time in that store, sometimes with friends. We were a bunch of barely adults with new hopes, new jobs and no important responsibilities. The components I chose were on layaway with weekly payments. It was a lot of fun to go in there and play music through the stuff I was waiting to take home.
I remember a day back then in a nearby rival stereo store with a large variety of floor speakers made by a variety of familiar and slightly up scale brands. I can't recall the brands because of how unimpressive they were. I was spoiled and it seemed nothing measured up. I stood in the back of the room while a salesman demoed most of them to a young couple wanting a decent system in their new home. Nothing I heard that day was as impressive as the similar Infinity at the other store. It was like that, seemed everywhere we went to sample stereo hardware through much of the 1980s, including some of the more upscale stereo stores. Infinity was a high value presence wherever we saw them. I think they managed a jump on other manufacturers with superior speakers receiving very good exposure in relatively common stereo stores. The nearly unbeatable performance value was one of the big reasons they developed so great a reputation in the 1980s. They simply outperformed most of the similar speakers that sat next to them in the stores... and they were a better value when they cost more.
