Carv-it-up

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Price Paid:  $0.00

Summary:
All of the other reviewers are pretty much dead-on about these speakers.
They are revealing, but that is good thing. You’ll find out about some recordings that you previously may have thought were good, aren’t really that well recorded...and vice versa.
When it comes to Power… I’m on the side that says these things respond well to a lot of it. I have vertically bi-amped my 90’s with two modified Carver M-500t’s (AKA M-500t MkII). When I listen at a loud level, these speaks will eat up most of the available 400+ rms wattage I’m feeding them with ease…and mind you, that there’s 400 + watts solely for each mid/high sections and 400+ for the lower sections :-0 Note: when bi-amping this 4-way speaker, the top three drivers are feed by the top post on the back of the speaker and the bottom 10” driver is driven by the bottom post, crossing-over at 200 Hz.
I found that the Bass in these fine speakers are tight and can play very low, but as stated by others, these speakers do lack a little punch. Again, they play low (27 Hz) and are accurate as hell, but there’s just not enough oomph in some music genres. Hence me adding the Rane 3-way crossover and the SSW-212 (thanks Larry) to help out the “punch” more so, than to add bottom end. The SSW-212 has a built-in 300 rms watt amp w/servo control and two 12” woofers in a sealed enclosure , that play down to 25 Hz. Note: I had the Rane crossed-over to the SSW-212’s at 70 Hz, but after many listening sessions I found that the best adjustment was at 100 Hz. Now I fought myself against the 100 Hz crossover point mainly because that left the 10” Watkins/woofer on the Ren.’s covering only one octave 200 Hz – 100 Hz. That seemed like a waste, but after repeated listening that’s what sounded best in my listening room. My room is approx. 20x15, not that large of a room.
If you don’t mind a little lack of punch in the lower register (again they do play low), these are one the best speakers I’ve heard. If you are looking for a party speaker you will be disappointed. For imaging and accuracy they are extremely hard to beat.

Nailzgun

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.50 of 5, 12.00 votes

Price Paid:  $950.00 from Audigon Member

Summary:
I drove 26 hours round trip to pick up these speakers. All the way home in the rain excited to hook them up and listen to them. And wow, I was not disappointed. They are a tremendous improvement from my Infinity RS Kappa 7's.

The sound is unbelievable. Open detailed highs, great staging. The clarity of the sound is remarkable. Bass is tight and detailed and goes very deep. As some have mentioned though while the bass is outstanding for its quality I was a little disappointed in the quantity of bass initially. I listen to a wide range of music and noted this on all types of recordings. Overall these were the best speakers I have heard under $25k.

My quest to make them better sounding began with bigger speaker cables. I figured the Audioquest wires I had been using were likely to small a guage to fully exploit the cuurent capability my Threshold Amp was capable of providing, and that these speakers need. This helped some with the bass. So then I thought more power. I swapped the 100w/ch class A Threshold for a 150w/ch class A/AB Threshold but the staging receeded, not what I wanted. Bi-Amp with the class A running the Emims and Emits and the class A/AB the woofers. Better but still room for Improvemnt. Swapped these 2 for a Threshold S/500 II that has tremendous continuous current capability. Ok now we were getting somewhere as the bass gained some strength. The staging moved forward and grew, and the imiging was unreal. Next I put a set of PS Audio Extreme Statement Bi-Wire cables between amp and speakers.

All of a sudden the speakers seemed to come to life. (not like they were poor prior) Bass is as good as I've ever heard. Fast detailed and exactly the correct amount in all types of music. The midrange is smooth detailed rich. And the highs are simply unbelievable. Lightning fast detailed open and unfatigueing.

But the creation of the stage is what now is so pleasing. Not only being able to place instruments and vocals front to back and side to side. But knowing how high the mic is set, and how far from the mic is the vocalist. What is the size of the room where the recording took place. Nuance and background details I've never heard from my recordings before, on any system. These speakers can reproduce everything that was going on when the recording was made. WOW

If you can find these speakers and are willing to drive them with appropriate equipment, buy them. If they are not the gretest speaker value ever I'll buy them from you as I need another pair or 2 for my Home Theater.

Strengths:
Rich unbelievably detailed sound
Staging recreation is 3 demensional
Deep powerfull bass that is very very fast and detailed.
Can reveal everything on a recording.

Weaknesses:
As these speakers are reasonably inexpensive today it is tempting to hook them up to your home theater reciever. bad plan.
These speakers need alot of really clean power and big fat cables to make them sing. Plan on spending twice what the spaekers cost on an amplifier to bring out their best.

Similar Products Used:
Infinity RS Kappa 7's
Kef 107's and 103.2's
B&W 801's
Martin Login Prodigy's

Platinum Ear

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
4.27 of 5, 11.00 votes

Price Paid:  $0.00 from Audio Excellence, Sy

Summary:
I've had these speakers for 10 years now and still love them. The reason for this posting is to alert other owners of a potential and dramatic improvent in performance that's possible by upgrading the tweeter crossover elements. In my case it was more accidental than intentional. I wanted to biamp the tweeter individually rather than tweeter + mids which is the way the crossover inputs are configured. To achieve what I wanted, I opened the speaker up and re wired the input terminals so that the mids + woofer were connected on the lower terminals and the tweeter was connected directly to the top terminals without going through the crossover's high pass filter. I hence constructed my own high pass filter, and to do the EMITs justice I used copper foil inductors and ICW polypropylene caps (all same values as original). These are really state of the art components and are used in the worlds most expensive speakers. The caps however were not too expensive and the entire crossover cost about $100. Due to the size of the inductors, the crossover is built into a box that sits just behind the speaker. I was very surprised when the first sounds eminated from the new configuration. The tweeter was considerably higher in level than previous and I had to insert a 2dB L pad betwen the crossover and the tweeter to match the sensitivity. After this mod I sat down and enjoyed the finest audition ever. The most notable improvement was in the transient response which was now quite unbelievable and the benefits extend down through the mids and even to the upper bass, which is always the case when the treble is improved. As well as the transient response improvements, the response also seems a little flatter than before and the mid to treble transition even more seamless. The really high treble does sparkle far more than before and it's very obvious that the bandwidth has increased, which is obviously related to the transient performance. The speaker's fine characters are now displayed in even finer glory than before and I'm now hearing air and space around instruments in an even vaster soundstage. If I had to be critical of these speakers before the mods, I would say that they lacked the space and air of the best 'domed' speakers but were always able to out resolve them. Post mods, now they can at least match them for air and the resolving powers are beyond anything a dome can give you. My next step will be to cross the tweeter over with an active design, and I should have something knocked up for testing in the next few weeks. If you read this and are interested in doing similar and require aditional information then feel free to contact me with questions. I'm ultimately going to design and build a class A tweeter amp + active crossover (without op-amps), and I'm sure the results will be spectacular. I now also have my sights on the EMIM crossover componenents, which I will eventually upgrade on the internal crossover board.

Price Paid:  $1200.00

Summary:
The more I listen to these speakers the more I can't believe how good they sound. They are truly the best I've ever heard. They excell in their openness, 3D soundstaging and pinpoint imaging. These speakers incorporate not only the famous(and improved)emit tweeter but the emim mid range that significantly contributes to the incredible sound. The emim is what seperates this speaker from other speakers not using planar midrange drivers. The bass reaches very low frequencies, very tight and musical, but is not very loud, booming or overpowering. The bass demonstrates quality not quantity. They are very well built not allowing unwanted resonance from flexing. The speakers have that audiophile look and sound at a relatively affordable used price.

Strengths:
sound (accuracy, soundstage, imaging, quality bass) build looks

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
Infinity rs 8 kappa, Interludes, B&W nautilus, martin logans

Price Paid:  $3000.00 from second hand

Summary:
Not very good if you are a rock/pop music fan, but perfect if you are into jazz and more laid back kind of music.Fantastic details and depth with both mail and femail voices. With good recordings some vocals really give me goosebumps! Strings (violins etc)are also superb with the EMIM and EMIT drivers. Bass is fantastic clean and deep, but lacks the punch when playing rock music. I guess the real deep bass is one of the best I have heard. But the level they can produce in low frequensies are not enough to satisfy you if you enjoy playing loud, this because of the small volume of the cabinet and also because its a closed cabinet. Its also only one 10" woofer. The mid bass punch is what I missed most, and after six months of testing I bought back a pair of my favourite speakers, Infinity Kappa 9.2i. They dont give me the goosebumps like the Renaissance 90s gave me on some recordings, but on 95% of the music I play they make me a happier person. Read my review if you want. The design of the Ren 90 are fantastic, I had a pair of the LE version, with black piano laquer finish. The build quality is also superb! I choose to rate them a 5 even if they have their weaknesses. What they do good is just awesome, I think about buying a pair again for a second stereo set up mainly for jazz and James Taylor :-)

Strengths:
The sound with the right kind of music. Super clean deep bass, very open mids and highs. The design, beautiful and easy to find space in small rooms. The low price second hand (I payed too much)

Weaknesses:
Not so good with rock music. (It can be better with a good subwoofer, but you can`t get rid of the very open mid that really is too much with most rock recordings.) Bass performance is limited in quantity. Almost impossible to get parts and drivers if the EMIMs or EMITs break, and they do sometimes break.

Similar Products Used:
Infinity Kappa 9A Infinity Kappa 8A Infinity Kappa 9.2i B&W 801 Matrix series 2 Legacy Signature Kef Reference Four