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Infinity RSb reincarnated

I worked on 2 pairs RSiiia's in the last couple -got the woofers refoamed, and recapped the crossover.
I didn't tough the bass caps-no need IMHO.
For the first pair I used Jantzen Superior z's in the Emit and mid section.
Huge difference over stock-especially with the poly dome mid.
Big/wide deep sound stage with zero compression. Very Natural sounding.
The second set I used Audyn Caps Plus.
I certainly wasn't impressed at first.
Flat and hard sounding.
After about 50 plus hours of use/with on's and off's they totally blossomed-huge wide and deep soundstage. Highly detailed, but no grain.
Very musical-but slightly less natural sounding then the Jantzen. Again zero compression on the mids.
But very close.
IMHO the real improvement is in the mids-they use a electrolytic that seems to get saturated easy.
I was so impressed with this speaker I picked up a pair, with a ESS AMT5 trade.
And I'm a total Heil freak.
Looking at going with the Jantzen Aluminum Z, or Mundorf Supremes.
 
idadude said:
I had two pairs of RS2's, but sold one pair about a year ago for $500. I have about $350 worth of new caps I took out of the pair I sold (the crossovers were returned to stock) and they will go into the remaining RS 2's that I picked up in Moscow Idaho last year. The RS 2's are a very nice speaker. I may sell a pair of Quantum 2's a little later this spring. I have too many speakers (12 or 13 pairs). Too many projects and not enough time to get to them.
Click to expand...
Yes it’s easy to get too many speakers but harder to get rid of them.
 
I saw a very interesting and clean crossover design for a remake of a British LS3. He used the jantzen foil inductors and smaller value jantzen caps lined up in parallel to reach the higher values. Jantzen resistors as well. Bypassed the in signals with .001 oils. Probably had $2 grand in each crossover. Also I have seen prototype PS audio ribbon tweeters and mids - don’t have any idea how they could be acquired. You could probably get there as well mixing in some of the top end Dayton’s without any audible impact and significantly reduce your costs. I used jantzen with Dayton in parallel and bypassed with the Russian oil military and wow... might want to go with a higher pedigree oil bypass if I do it again.
 
Jeffrey, I just read through this thread.
Amazing and creative work my friend.
Look forward to see your next project.
Regards,
Cory
 
CDELON said:
Jeffrey, I just read through this thread.
Amazing and creative work my friend.
Look forward to see your next project.
Regards,
Cory
Click to expand...
Cory, I have restored two vintage Luxman receivers since the RSb project- an R-3055 and an R-1040. Equally as interesting and the R-1040 came seriously damaged as it wasn’t packaged appropriately. The front was smashed in and all the knobs were askew so I had to completely disassemble down to the frame parts and pound and straighten. I need to do a bit more as it’s almost like straightening a frame on a vintage wrecked Porsche so the tires align and track correctly. Also trying to figure out how to cut a new glass panel as it was shattered as well. I have it playing and it sounds great. Also doing some noodling on building an amp from scratch where I can design and pick the parts. The next speaker project will probably be a prototype design using all new parts and cabinets. However, you never know what life may present you with. The sound of these Luxman’s matched up with a proper speaker and dac and all new parts are amazing.
 
Jeffery,
I believe you are a the foundation for a up and coming High End Audio equipment company.
You seem to have the skillset to do it all.
If you start building from Scratch? You will want to private label what you produce.
Your passion and your willingness to explore ways to make what was already great and make it better is inspiring.
I enjoy switching things out and exploring different configurations that may make improvement. That is about the end of my electronics skills. Lol

Thats where you are shining. You actually add speakers to improve them. Then change the crossovers for efficiency.

I'm sure that you do your research. So I am confident that your pick of product to use will be top notch in your builds.

I have read many article from AK and others concerning old and new speakers.
Most feel something has been lost over the decades.
Many have said from articles that its hard to believe they cant produce the quality of sound today as they did decades ago.
They do today, but the costs are out of reach for the majority of people.
I would consider that with a new build. New speakers may not be better. Restored old ones may be better for your build. Just something to evaluate.

I wish you luck in your endeavours. Keep posting, so we can see what your creating.

Best Regards,
Cory
 
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There are many good quality speaker brands. But, there is just something special (to me) about 1970’s era infinity’s. Unless one is just dumb lucky, finding decent units to start from locally is near impossible. That is what led me to recreate a better than new reincarnated set of RSb’s. Maybe that’s the answer, recreate a line of better than new iconic 1970’s reincarnated speakers. Need to pursue the legalities of that. At one time I wanted to recreate the 1970 BMW 2002 and 2800 as new. Btw, I have all the templates and parts lists for these reincarnated RSb’s. I thought they would sound good considering the design concepts but they turned out way beyond expectations. The original products were the result of multiple cut corners and parts compromises. With modern and much higher quality parts these designs hit way above their weight.
 
Fortunately I'm dumb lucky at times
Lol
I just picked up today a set of RSbs with all original parts from original owner. Who obviously took care of them. Included was the original stands.
Woofers need reformed. Even the dials and pots are smooth flowing.
All for 100.00
I may look into your parts list.
I'm finished with my K7's. So a new endeavour is open to get on the table.
I'd like to keep them close to original. But internal upgrades I could justify.
 
Jeffery,
Are you serious concerning building from scratch, a speaker system using Vintage infinity speakers, cross overs etc?
That would be fun to be a part of.
That would be a butt kicker to many of the New High end speaker lines.
Build the cabinet from scratch and repurpose Speakers, Mids,Tweeters and crossovers. All with the upgrades you were talking about.
I, for one would be willing to contribute.
As for most of the AK community that love our Infinitys. We all have more than enough extra parts , speakers etc that we know we will really never need or use.
Example: I have spare woofers out of a RS425 for my 325s. What are the odds that I will ever really need them? Odds are ridiculously low.
It would be a challenge picking and choosing and testing everything contributed to identify what would be the perfect match up.
Even extra wiring lying around in a box in a closet would be helpful.

Not sure how to get the entire community involved?
You could:
Show progress of development. Bring attention to parts you may need that have not been contributed.
Set up a YouTube channel ?

When finished. You could audition them on AK and maybe go to audio shows, showcasing what can be done. As you win the awards! Lol
Only thing would be to have a list of names of contributors to the project displayed. Could be a long list.
Note: all that is contributed must be in good condition and in working order.

I dont know. Just a thought. It would put some excitement in the Infinity AK community.
Regards
Cory
 
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The pots have a clip that release and then you can open them up and clean physically. They need cleaning regardless of feel. You can also get an ohm meter and mark the increments from 0 - 5 as mine have never been linear. The original tweeter caps might be fine as they should be films but you should test for esr and capacitance? I replaced mine with the jantzen superior and bypassed with a 0.1uf pio’s.. The inductors are air cores which are also probably good - just look at location and orientation. I used the 1% tolerance Dayton polys for the mids and bass but also bypassed each in parallel with a 0.1uf pio. Since the original caps for the mids and bass were electrolytic’s, I assumed their ESR’s were considered in the original design. So in parallel, I used the highest quality electrolytic Dayton’s in with the polys in both the mid and bass sections adding up to the total required uf. If you are going to add new binding posts, you might as well split the bass out from the tweeters and mids so you can biamp. If you really want to do it right you can replace the iron wound 3.5 inductor with a jantzen aircore. You might also want to go all polys on the mids and bass but will need to mount them on a separate board as they will be too large to fit on the original plate and there is room internally for that. You can also spray the insides of the cabinets and mid enclosure tubes with clear rubber seal it’s about $15 per can at Home Depot or Lowe’s and will probably need 2 for multiple coats. Let the cabinets air out well for a couple days after spraying before replacing everything and re-stuffing. You will be shocked at how good they can sound.
 
Where in the cabinet did you install the 1 1/2 inch baffles? Was that for the additional rear Emit?
Regards
Cory
 
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I significantly redesigned the mid enclosures to extend from the front baffle to the rear dampened with a urethane adhesive on the back and a high density foam on the front and it’s sealed when the front is bolted down. This essentially eliminated any backwave harmonics. The rear emits are mounted exactly like the fronts, just rear facing. Since the laminated birch was thick enough I was able to make a cutout and seal off the cutouts with the round pieces that came out where I cut for the mids in the front baffle. The front baffle is bolted to 1 1/2 inch braces just like the Spendor’s. If you go back through the thread, you will see how it was done. You could do something similar, however need to consider the internal cabinet displacement left over for what ever bulk is added. The bass drivers depend on a specific cubic footage of air internally to operate properly. The front baffle sets into the cabinet with bolts that go clear through these braces you see here.
upload_2021-5-4_15-28-58.jpeg
 
I used the same template for the rear tweeters from the front cutouts, just flipped it over. This shows the inset front baffle and the bolt holes. They go clear through the inner frame. Rigid as one can get.upload_2021-5-4_16-7-36.jpeg
 
The rear emits mount just like in the front. You will also notice all the cuts were by hand. A CNC would make these precision obviously. I did that for two reasons, prototyping and show that anyone with basic tools could do it.
upload_2021-5-4_16-13-16.jpeg
 
This shows how the mid enclosures forms a front to back brace. There is also a side to side pvc brace which was probably not needed? When the front is bolted down, it’s tight front to back.upload_2021-5-4_16-28-34.jpeg
 
Inside the bottom of the mache cone I stacked circles of high density foam layered/sandwiched with latex adhesive. The reflection off the cone, if any, would zig zag into the dead zone of foam and latex. You can draw out how sound waves reflect off surfaces with the angle of the 6 x 6 inch cone and they are essentially reflected back into a larger and larger non-reflective surface. In other words, no reflected backwave to interference.
 
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