My dream speaker - RS1b

[dcmaster]

In general, to say the RS1, that they should always be operated with the original SCU. The SCU has really meaningless! There are people who run other electronics with the RS1. It remains questionable if that was so good sounds like the original. I personally doubt it.

I myself have tried to operate the RS1 without the SCU. It was a real disaster sound!

Klaus

[Ken Boyd]

I have operated my pair without the servo controll unit for years and I think it sounds great. But maybe I should give it another try! Next time I go to Florida I will snag it and retry it just to see if it gives me better results. I know for a few weeks I ran a Soundcraftsman eq in the mix and with the lower frequency's boasted a bit and to me the bass was much more abundant and seemed to be deeper in the lower regions, but it kind of made me a bit worried that I might be asking to much from the amp that was driving my bass towers. Now if I had a big Krell, or Threshold I wouldn't have sweated it. But right now in the house that they are in bass is the least of my problems as far as abundance the larger room with hardwood floors and high ceilings with plaster walls seem to make the bass a bit overly present, I have more problems with to much boomy sounding bass. I have put a almost full room oriental rug, and have drapes on the windows and plenty of furniture but the wood floors which have nothing underneath them but a crawl space just seems to over emphasize the bass.

[rs1b]

Originally Posted by dcmaster

In general, to say the RS1, that they should always be operated with the original SCU. The SCU has really meaningless! There are people who run other electronics with the RS1. It remains questionable if that was so good sounds like the original. I personally doubt it.

I myself have tried to operate the RS1 without the SCU. It was a real disaster sound!

Klaus

I must agree withe Klaus. Without the box you are missing out on the true bottom end potential of these speakers. When i first got my RS1B's I didn't have a non bridgeable amp so i could not use the box. I did use a high quality digital EQ thinking I could make it sound as good. Nope! Once I got an amp that worked with the box it was very apparent what I was missing.It also removed some of the boom that some complain of ,although speaker placement makes a big difference there. I must say though that you need to be able to control the output of the amp to the Mid/Tweet towers or it may seem that the bass is light. I don't have that issue anymore as I use a seperate crossover for this ( 24DB per octave-Sony Tad-88B) with output controls, but I have heard others mention that. On my other pair I use additional woofers ( Watkins woofers) and the special crossover that goes with that for my home theatre but that is a whole different discussion.

[waudio]

Finally all things are set - and just about ready to go.

Got the extra terminals and finished the 2nd crossovers. Also, I got the fuses from Parts Express - Thank you to Bill for advise to get the 1A and 2A fuses.

While I may believe the seller that the modified SCU improves the sonic performance, I have some hesitation to plug that SCU into the wall. Coincidentally, about three weeks ago - I got an email from a previous acquaintance who owned a set of RS1b. He had all the emims and emits parted out already and was selling the woofer towers and the active crossover - he gave me the first right to purchase it. I ended up purchasing the towers, active crossover, and he threw in the mid/hi panels with the modified passive crossover at no additional cost. The seller is such a gentleman and pleasant to deal with - giving me an unbelievable great deal, much lower than what he was originally asking at the craiglist ad. The total price is just a tad higher than what I have seen in ebay or audiogon for just the active crossover alone. One hour after I paid, he got much higher offers but declined all of them, then took the ad of craiglist. I have enough spare emits and just enough spare emims for this 2nd panel set. This is for much later project.

See attached pictures. I am still arranging for shipping on the woofer towers and the panels.

The active crossover and the passive crossovers came today. Seller had modified the original caps with wonder caps. The active crossover is in great shape - still has its box.

I have some house chores to do tonight before I can play - it has been 4 months since I purchased these speakers, so I guess I can wait till tomorrow.

[waudio]

Finally, all things are up and running.

I am currently using the modified active crossover from the seller, not the one that I recently purchased. It all went fine.

My initial impression, the sound stage - is at a different class than the RS-2b. I am happy with the 2b - but am a lot happier with the 1b. The bass is not lacking at all - in my opinion - it goes to my stomach.

Using the same amps, I was playing a benchmark song (Kenny G - The moon represents my heart). With the 2b I can hear a somewhat strain saxophone for couple second when it got into the high notes in the first 20 sec of the song (not quite a distortion yet - but clearly audible), but the 1b handles it with ease.

So, I did one more experimentation - I connected the 2b at the same time - but only the bass drivers. So, it kinds of function as a sub - and ... Voila ...
what a music it plays. The placements are not in any way optimized yet - so it can still get better.

The next project that I am planning to do - during the time that I can find between work and finishing the house, is to build an absorption at the wall behind. Currently, it goes as:
ground - 2" rigid insulation - 10" concrete - 2" rigid insulation - 3.5" space - drywall

First thing first, I will try to hang a large thick and fluffy area rug behind - before going with more extensive method. Got this idea from other AK postings. Any thought of the above.

I need to say that I am new to audio and I have never heard to other people's systems yet - so any seasoned AK visitor to listen to my setup is quite welcomed. So may be those of you who are close by: Randy (kappanut) & Paul (beemer) would be much welcomed to give me a visit and help me tweak it and learn further.

Thank you all for helping me - the postings at AK are very helpful. Hardly a day that I have without checking AK at least once.

I will post pictures later on - now must go back to work, got presentations to do this week.

[StimpyWan]

Yours has been a long journey, and I'm very happy to hear that it has come to a positive outcome!

The Infinity RS-1/B has been one of my dream speakers too! I had one chance once, to get a pair. Found them on eBay, fairly close too, with a BIN
PRICE OF ONLY $800.00!!!! When I saw the price, I thought it must have been a mistake. But, in the brief few minutes while I asked my wife what she thought, they were gone. Someone had beat me to them...

Now, RS-1/B's go for a small fortune. That's why I moved on to Monsoons.
And maybe one day, a pair of VMPS speakers. They seem the next best thing
currently available to classic Ininity's.

Again, Awesome!

[waudio]

@stimpywan & all - Thanks so much for the encouraging words.

Don't give up - they occasionally show up on Craiglist at reasonable prices - not at all at the level asked by some ebay/agon sellers. I got my pairs at very very reasonable price - but I did check craiglist everyday. The first one (shown in this posting) - is just couple hundred more than my first pair of the RS2b. There was one set in Canada about a year go - for a little more than a grand. This is how I did it:

Go to google and type: craiglist 2012 infinity rs1b ... or rs 1b

If you have an ipad - there is an app that you can download to search through all craiglist automatically. I don't think I need more speakers now - I will keep watching the craiglist and will let you know if I come across one at a good price.

Comparing the rs2.5, rs2b, and rs1b - it is true that the sound stage gets wider as the speaker size increases. I like the 2.5 bass but the sound stage is limited. As kurtgo mentioned, it makes a great home theater speaker.

[waudio]

I got a chance to listen more this evening.

I was curious about the SCU, and I swapped out the modded SCU with a stock SCU. I found that with the stock SCU, I need to turn the right most dial - all the way to the max in order for the bass to be reasonable. I have not looked at the manual yet as to understand the functions of each dial. I just played them and listened to compare.

The bass using the 1st SCU has more slams - cannot describe it well with words - but it is more like what I heard in RS 2.5. I tend to like it more but it is too early to make conclusion.

I also experimented with locations. The bass tower on the left side is too close to the wall - but that is a physical constraint. If I remove the RS-2b then I can move it more to the right. The mid/hi panel is about 7' away from the rear wall.

I am doing vertical biamping - instead of horizontal biamping. The Carver tfm-45, in my opinion, sounds very sweet. The last picture shows a DIY speaker cable that I tried. It is basically a shielded 10awg oxygen free with each conductor wrapped by aluminum foil and then twisted together. When I tried it on the RS-2b only with the amp connected to it, it is dead quiet. I also put a tile at the base of the RS-2b. It reduces a lot of the boominess.

[waudio]

This past week - got a chance to experiment more with placement and spacing. I took the RS-2b's out from the setup so as to allow the system to be shifted to the right and increases the distance of the left woofer tower from the left wall. See attached pics. So far, this is the best arrangement that gives the best sound stage and bass for my room.

I also made a change in the amps. For each side, I am using tfm-45 for the mid/hi and tfm-42 for the bass. For each amp, I am using only 1 channel - for a total of 4 from the 4 amps. It is like having 4 monoblocks. I use the tfm-4's5 for the mid/hi as these have been totally refreshed & upgraded.

For whatever it is worth, I also gave some twist on the speaker cables. The cable is 10 awg OFC. I am sure that my ears are not trained enough to discern differences in speaker wires.

The more that I listened, the more that I am really happy with this speaker. The sound stage is just amazing - the music does not seem to come from the speakers but from somewhere at the center. It blends in with the surroundings.

I agree with Ken that the RS-2b's are very fine speakers - sound similar to the RS-1b's - but the 1b's have lots more depth, bass, clarify, and especially more WAF. I took my friend - who helped me to pack and ship these speakers from Seattle - for a listen this evening. His comment is - it is surely worth all the troubles and scare that we put at the Redmond freight shipping company 5 months back.

Thank you again for all AKers for the helpful advices and help.

[Ken Boyd]

I would think that this placement with just the RS-1b's would be a much better overall arrangement than having both the RS-1b's and the RSIIb's in the system. Sometimes I have pics of multiple pairs of speakers standing together, but I certianly don't play two pairs together, to me it just doesn't make sense. Your placement, your room size seems like a pretty good arrangement in my mind. I bet they sound pretty good. I really like mine when playing arrangements that have a big sound, much more than simple arrangments with a solo instrumental or vocal passages where there are a lot of quite passages. Not that they are bad on those play list, but they just really show their true strength when you get the full Orchestra playing dramatic pieces. I really like a lot of different genres of music, classical is one, but I also like a lot of pop, rock, folk, and even some heavy metal. The heavy metal I like is that Finnish, Denmark, stuff with soprano's like the Gathering, Within Temptation, Serina, Nightwish, Leaving Eyes, and the RS-1b's really will present that with the impact that makes it very exciting to listen to. One a side note, they really sound great as a front pair in a Home theather setup, you hardly need any surrounds, and no Sub needed, they will handle action audio on your HT effortlessly!

I like to watch DVD's of good concerts, Within Temptations, Black Symphony is just great on the RS-1b's playing the audio with a big screen playing the Video. Another great one that I really like is LoreenA McKennitt's " Night from the Alhambra" if you ever get a chance get those two DVD's and watch them with the RS-1b's doing audio duty.

[Ken Boyd]

Originally Posted by waudio

Finally, all things are up and running.

The next project that I am planning to do - during the time that I can find between work and finishing the house, is to build an absorption at the wall behind. Currently, it goes as:
ground - 2" rigid insulation - 10" concrete - 2" rigid insulation - 3.5" space - drywall

First thing first, I will try to hang a large thick and fluffy area rug behind - before going with more extensive method. Got this idea from other AK postings. Any thought of the above.

I will post pictures later on - now must go back to work, got presentations to do this week.

I am not an interior decorator by any means but if that were my listening room, I would put full wall drapes on both sides, and put a projection screen on that back wall. I don't see any windows on the sides maybe you have some in the back but put some blinds on them, big drapes from ceiling to floor with the projection screen right in the center. Hang the project from the back of the room, remove the smaller flat screen and put a nice sofa facing the wall near the rear of the room. and then maybe divided the room with some drapes that can be pulled back when not using the room to seperate the room from the other room, just a thought. And I don't know what that thing is on the wall, looks like a porch light, I would remove that, its kind of distracting.

Or you could make big panels using wood frames hang them on the wall, put insolation behind them use some canvas which you can buy in rolls, they are what artist use to make big oil paintings paint those to match the wall, and then place some painting or art work on the face of them, unless you are an artist and can paint some nice paintings on the canvas itself. Purchasing those sound deading panels commercially are pretty expensive but its not hard to make your own, just make a big frame from either two by fours or two by twos, stretch the canves tight stape gun it to the frame and than stuff the backs with fiberglass insolation, and then hang them on the wall. Heck even if your not an artist get some paint splatter it one like those artist do and presto you have not only your sound deading on the back wall but you also have an art display. Something like this. Just stuff the backs with figerglass insolation.

[kurtgo]

Ken - that is a great idea for sound deadening (word?) on the back wall! Have to have my wife come up with something.

I have had a pair of Carver TFM-45's drive my Infinities - 2.5s, IIbs and 4.5s. After hooking them up in both single, horizontal and vertical biamp modes, they are great for what you are using them as now - mid/hi amplification. But, once I "moved up" the amplifier chain to higher current and higher dampening factor amps I noticed a great difference in robustness and control of the woofers. Way better than any Carver amp I have had before. Parasound, Aragon, Adcom to name a few. FWIW

[Ken Boyd]

I do know an AK member that runs two sets of Phase Linear Andromeda's panels together and he states they are just great, so maybe I am wrong on running to pairs together. Maybe just depends on how well you postion them.

[Ken Boyd]

Originally Posted by kurtgo

Ken - that is a great idea for sound deadening (word?) on the back wall! Have to have my wife come up with something.

I have had a pair of Carver TFM-45's drive my Infinities - 2.5s, IIbs and 4.5s. After hooking them up in both single, horizontal and vertical biamp modes, they are great for what you are using them as now - mid/hi amplification. But, once I "moved up" the amplifier chain to higher current and higher dampening factor amps I noticed a great difference in robustness and control of the woofers. Way better than any Carver amp I have had before. Parasound, Aragon, Adcom to name a few. FWIW

Well deadening is better than deading, it was late and I was trying to fire that off quick!

[StimpyWan]

One observation, and one general question?

First, if I read correctly, you're running the four Carver stereo amps, as stereo amps, but only utilizing a single channel from each? That's smart! You avoid impedance issues (drops) by running them as mono-blocks, but increase their current capabilities, since the amps are only seeing a single channel each! Nice!

Also, on many of the pictures that I've seen, on most set-ups of RS-1A/B's and Beta's, the mid-high wings are to the inside of the bass towers. Why? Wouldn't you get better stereo separation and imaging, with the high towers to the outside of the bass columns? While I know you'd need a fairly large room, to do this, in order to reduce side wall reflections, it just seems to me that the mid-high towers should be placed further apart than the bass towers. Please enlighten me!?!