Infinity Renaissance 90 questions

Hi Okeeteekid,

Thanks for the comments. Yes as indicated in an earlier post I made a dedicated EMIT crossover using Mundorf SIO and copper foil inductors. I have also tried Claricaps. My favourite are the Mundorfs but they need a special DC bias generator to sound their best. I'm sure there are quite a few caps that sound better than the Solens but IMO they are not too bad and if they do err it's on the polite side so they might be more listener friendly for most people. But then it's more about personal choice when it comes to caps and there always seems to be a diversity of opinions. Nice work on the K9's though. They are a great bang for buck speaker.
Cheers,
Timpani

Melbguy1, with the upgrade that i did on my k 9's, if i compare them to my ren 90's, it's not even close, with the k 9's you hear so much more detail that when i switch to the rens you don't even hear what the k 9's are revealing, it almost sounds like the rens tweeters are broken, the rens sound like you have cotton balls in your ears as compared to the modded k 9's, i think that it is the sound that the solen caps produce because when i put new solens in my k 9's they sounded much like the rens sound(dead) if you heard the difference you would not believe your ears.

Melbguy, you mentioned how sensitive the rens are to electronics. That is definitely the case and has enabled me to hear subtle changes in the preamps I've designed over the past 10 years. Although the power amp usually offers the biggest contributor to SQ I have also heard great power amps ruined by poor preamps and front ends. One power amp that was really outstanding was a ME1400. I had Trevor Wilson from Rage audio up here one day demo'ing one and I have really never heard any amp since to drive the Watkins woofers the way the ME1400 did. Unfortunately the ME1400 was going to set me back about $8000 so I resisted the purchase - just. That big ME amp could apparently output more than 60 amps so I think there's a message in there - that high current is the way to go to get the best out of the WWs.

Hi Timpani,

I was wondering in your response: "These emits are the same as used in the Epsilon but in the Epsilon they are used with a specially designed dispersion membrane which increases their horizontal and vertical dispersion and eliminates the hot on axis response, making them more accurate over a wider listening window." were you referring to the silk membrane which is described in the breakdown of the High Energy Emit in the Ren's technical white paper?

I was also curious about your comments about the dispersion of the Emit in the Rens as Infinity state in their White Paper - "The new High Energy Emit is operated with a relatively narrow frequency band which assures maximum dispersion within its operating range" & this..

"The High Energy Emit's new mechanical structure permits also permits the driver to be used at lower frequencies than previous Emit drivers enabling it's speed and transient capabilities to become even more meaningful to the overall balance of the system. Crossing over the High Energy Emit lower also results in better dispersion because the Emim midrange driver is removed from the system before it can acoustically beam from the shorter wavelengths generated at higher frequencies. The High Energy Emit also features newly designed vertical apertures that provide wide dispersion and permit high frequencies to spread evenly and broadly throughout the listening area."

So given the above statements, I had an impression of the Ren's Emit offering a wide sweet spot and a large, expansive soundstage, so I was surprised to read your observations :S I guess proof is always in the pudding as they say however. I found out today my Rens will be arriving in about 2 weeks :))

Hi Timpani, I completely agree with your comments on the quality of upstream components (particularly amps) & the need to feed the Watkins high current, that's why I like the Classe so much, it gives you enough watts in a single pa, but a truckload of current to boot. For me, the Classe combined with a Reference 3 pre-amp is a match made in Heaven for the Rens :)

Okeeteekid, it was great to read your comments on your K9s! What is exciting about your findings is that, taking me as an example, I purchased a superb example of Ren 90's with a long-term view. I would be happy for them to be my speakers for life, but of course at some point in the future age will catch up with them. The Watkins and midrange drivers will require re-foaming, the internal caps will degrade & the wiring will oxidize, so it's encouraging to see how much more potential there obviously is there. In my case, I plan to do quite an extreme, external crossover connected with something like Nordost Supreme Reference for the short run to the speakers, but will leave the drivers alone. The guru I would get to do the speaker re-design is a guy in Australia who Timpani would have heard of - Dallas Clarke. To say he knows his stuff is an understatement! My only question is, would there be more value in spending $4000AU on a RS filter & pc or investing something like $3000 on the speaker re-design, re-wire & external crossover & just plug my high end pc's directly into a kmart powerboard connected to the wall? Would like to hear your view on that..