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Newbie and IRS Sigmas Don't Mix Well

The Acurus and Aragon amps, I referenced earlier, were designed by Krell. Maybe not built to Krell standards, but very nice sounding, just the same. The Aragon amps have a reputation of being able to drive just about any load, being high current, and high power amps. AK member magicmarsky often suggests Aragon amps as good Infinity amps. He often sells Aragon amps for Infinity speakers too! :biggrin:

If buying new, consider a Monoprice Monolith amp. They're available in 2 channel, and up to 7 channel, configurations. They're designed and built by ATI, and are getting very good reviews. Each channel is 200 watts. You could get the 5 or 7 channel amp, and bi-amp. It would work well, since these versions have dual transformers, and could handle the load. Monoprice just had a 20% off sale yesterday, so sign up for their email blog, in order to be notified of sales.
 
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Silentnet said:
What Levenson amp can you get for $500? Much less one good for 200+ wpc at 8 ohms?
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The Proceed home theater brand of amps were designed by Levinson/Madrigal. They went dirt-cheap for a while. Now, prices have crept back up, as people realize how good these amps really are.
 
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I have to agree, you've stepped into a very exclusive area with anything IRS from Infinity. Really congrats on what awaits you. I found my Krell KSA 80 at a very good price for one reason....shipping. The fella didn't want to ship it because of the weight & was afraid it would get damaged. I was the only one willing to drive and that gave me huge price break.

I'll say this for Krell, as soon as I got mine home I emailed them, the following morning I had an email from them and they were happy to look up my amp, history etc. Patrick from the service dept basically said if it's working no need to send it in, the KSA series were built to be bullet proof, and are the least of their amps they see come in for service.

When that day comes he assured me it would be no problem. Awesome service from Krell IMHO. The KSA 80 powers my 90's I would say effortlessly, and it's glorious. I'm really happy I went with the smaller version. I'm not a numbers guy but I just can't help but think a KSA-250 would really, really be a perfect match for your Sigma's.

From that standpoint I'd just kick it and keep looking for something used and it will happen :thumbsup:
 
Krell sounds nice to deal with. I have similar experience with audio research Corp. When I’d call with a question I’d get the service guy Lenard (he has since retired or went on to bigger things, I think the man you get on the phone now is Steward) and he would walk me through trouble shooting a problem on a 30 year old preamp. They also service every piece of gear they have ever made. McIntosh also a great company that will service just about everything except some of their CD players as parts are no longer made. These companies (I think Mac and arc are now owned by the same company but don’t quote me) have expensive gear but it holds up for years and if and when it does finally break it can be fixed.
I hope they stay around for a long time as many great companies have come and gone. I think of Melos audio from New Jersey. Fine sounding tube gear, what a shame they couldn’t keep it together. Try and get one of their huge tube amps serviced. Forget it.
 
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“McIntosh Group is an American holding company specializing in high-end audio equipment and owns the brands McIntosh Laboratory, Audio Research, Sonus Faber, Wadia Digital, Sumiko and Fine Sounds Asia.”​
 
So I've been tuning and tinkering with the advice that people gave me here and also from the books I got and I think I finally got them where they need to be.

They're magical.

As soon as I positioned them where they wanted to be, even on my lowly adcom setup playing MP3s out of my phone they came alive. I've never heard anything like them. They are a solid 10 feet apart and yet each intrument and voice is hovering between them in the middle of the room.

I've got a specific plan to improve the setup now when money allows, again thanks to you all that advised.

Am in the process of taking pictures to dump here currently. Will add soon.
 
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Don't judge the cables and general state of the room, I've needed to move stuff around a few times to get these things to where they need to be. I'm sure I'll get around to cleaning it up again eventually.

They are a bit dinged up but are fully functional. I plan on having them cleaned up when money allows to bring them back to their original splendor, and unfortunately one of the previous owners lost the crossover cover plates that have the serial numbers on them.
 
I had the sigmas and still would have them if I didn't get a deal on my epsilons, the first thing that hit me when I got the sigmas and epsilons was how they can make vocalist appear in front of you like a hologram, the person is there, it's spooky at first, they just don't make an image like other speakers, the image is 3d, it's amazing, my other infinity's that I have and had k9's k8's Ren 90's 80's preludes couldn't do that,they image well but not like what the IRS does, although the other speakers still sound very good.
 
Thats a wonderful way to explain it, I just listened to Queen for the first time on them, it felt like Freddie was standing in the room right in front of me. The vocals are absolutely magical on these things.
 
Brunt said:
Thats a wonderful way to explain it, I just listened to Queen for the first time on them, it felt like Freddie was standing in the room right in front of me. The vocals are absolutely magical on these things.
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It is hard to explain but you know what I mean, probably would sound even better with tubes on top.
 
^ it's kinda funny when we say that, the hard to explain thing. It took me about 5 years to get it but man when you do.....you really do.

Brunt, I think your the first person I can remember posting up some really nice pics of anything IRS since I've been here and I can't thank you enough for sharing, looking at the rest your obviously an Infinity guy !

I do have a question, the HE emit & emim stick out like the 90 and it looks like they have the same tape around the cutouts. The 90 is the same way, so is it recommend that they be played with the grills on ?

And they look awesome, those cabinets don't have anything that I can see but a little touch up here and there, must be pretty cool to wake up and be greeted by those.
 
7.62 said:
The 90 is the same way, so is it recommend that they be played with the grills on ?
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Infinity's Sales brochure on the Renaissance series states, "The acoustically transparent cloth and special shape of the grille has been specifically designed to present a totally smooth transition of sound from the midrange and high frequency drivers to the listening area". Listening to them, it would certainly be a minute difference though. However, loudspeakers (for some) is the all holy search for the perfection they will never achieve.
 
The grilles on these things definitely do make a noticeable difference in the way the sound is directed. In one of the pictures you can see that they are almost half an inch thick on these. All of the openings have odd bezels and shapes and when you have them off it feels like the speakers are projecting sound more in every direction. When they are on, the best listening position become very precise, but they also do a better job of imaging. If you look at the picture of the bare EMIT on top, you can see that it has what looks like felt around it. From what I can tell, that is there to seal the emit to grille when its on so its sound can only project straight out front. I think the HE EMIT on the back is supposed to have a similar arrangement but the previous owners like to take things off of these and lose them so who know what happened to that.

Also, no problem on the pictures. If anyone has any specific part they want to see more of I can get them in better light and take more focused pictures later. I just took them where they were and as many as I could think to last night to get something up. :)
 
WoW . Have to chuckle when I see that photo of 6.1 next to Sigmas :rflmao:
I bought my 6.1s based only on lineage having not heard them prior . ( They replaced my infinity Es 200s that were lost in a fire ..) When I removed them from shipping boxes I thought " Oh No Theres no way those little woofers are going to provide enough bass " .( Those 8 " Imgs look teensie next to the Sigmas ) . Was amazed to find I was very wrong . In my smallish space they produce very impressive bass . Maybe not perfect , but on many bass heavy recordings I have to keep volume down so as not to bother my downstairs neighbor .
And Vocals . Particularly beautifully sung females and the lead singer from the "Stylistics " are breathtakingly beautiful .
Cant even imagine what those Sigmas sound like . Super Congrats :banana:
 
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