Please Post your Infinity speakers

[tubed]

These are my first really good set of speakers I got through a girlfriends brother who worked at Infinity. They were 2nd's but were ridiculously cheap. I would have gone large but her brother said the Q4's were what I wanted because of space and amplification concerns at the time.

 

[bdgregory]

I'm surprised I've never come across this thread before. I have a pair of Monitor IIa's - bought them new in 1975 while in college. Still play them and love them. They are pristine and I'll never sell them.

I drove them until 2000 with a Phase Linear 400. I've used multiple amps since, the best by far was a Bedini 100.100 - amazingly tight bass which is the forte of the Monitor IIa's.

I'm playing them now in a vintage system using rebuilt Thordarson 6V6 based tube amps (~12 w/c) and they sound wonderful.

 

[phaedrus]

bdgregory,

Beautiful Monitor IIas! Don't see a lot of those, and those look to be in fantastic shape. Very nice.

David

 

[SuperKris]

A friend of mine that i was helping with the search for a few nice speakers found monitor 2a speakers for only 150, but by the time he called they were already sold

 

[bdgregory]

bdgregory,

Beautiful Monitor IIas! Don't see a lot of those, and those look to be in fantastic shape. Very nice.

David

thanks David. I have pampered them over the years. I still have the original shipping cartons. The only blemish is a water stain on the top plate of one, which resulted from my wife putting a plant on it. I explained (while gritting my teeth) that they are speakers, not plant stands.

The only other pair I've seen in near this good of condition are listed on ebay for $1000 (those are the Monitor II's, not IIA's).

I had to replace the foam surrounds on the woofers about 6 years ago. Otherwise they are all original. Still sound wonderful though I'm considering recapping the crossovers. I also need to re-foam the Walsh drivers.

 

[bdgregory]

A friend of mine that i was helping with the search for a few nice speakers found monitor 2a speakers for only 150, but by the time he called they were already sold

I have seen some sell on ebay in avgerage condition for local pickup only in the $300-$350 range. I've seen them parted out too. A pair of rough Walsh tweeters sold for $125 recently as I recall.

 

[tubed]

Another pair I lucked into and am impressed by the wall of sound these produce.

 

[bobrown14]

whoa...

+1 on that... Whoa

 

[progger7]

More fun with the new camera... the Qb cabinets started falling apart so I moved the drivers and x-over to a nice cabinet, making sure to mirror the upper drivers.

they look VERY nice indeed. well-done! Did you find mirroring the upper drivers made much of a difference?

 

[Coastsider]

I have a pair of Monitor IIa's purchased new in L.A. in 1976 which have been in service ever since. All of the drivers are currently in excellent condition and the crossovers were recapped about a year and a half ago. They were my Living Room HT primaries but got displaced last year by a pair of RS 2.5's and now reside in my office with three other pair of speakers and a bunch of Sony ES gear and they still sound really good. And yes, that is a JBL 4310 sitting on top in the photo. Sorry about that but there is just too much stuff and not enough room. The Watkins woofers in the RS 2.5's were refoamed by the Watkins shop in Kingsport, TN and I recapped the crossovers. Finally I have two pair of Infinitesimals - 0.1's and 0.2's. The 0.2's are mounted on the wall behind and above the RS 2.5's and are used as L/R for normal 5.1 television viewing. For music, DVD, and Blu-ray I fire up the Soundcraftsmen amps along with the RS 2.5/4.5 active crossover to drive the 2.5's and switch off the Infinitesimals. The Infinitesimal 0.1's are in my office and can be driven by any of the Sony gear. They currently have a pair of black coned replacement Watkins woofers installed while the original grey coned woofers are being repaired at Watkins. When they get back next week they will be reinstalled to restore the 0.1's to original condition.

The attached photos are not very comprehensive but do show at least one of each pair of speakers along with some of the other hardware. Most of the speakers are such a pain to move I don't have any pics of the pairs together.

 

[rdp91356]

I the RS 2.5's were refoamed by the Watkins shop in Kingsport, TN and I recapped the crossovers.

Did you replace all the caps in your 2.5s? I had thought those big caps were impossible to find.

Did you notice any problems with them or did you just do it because they were old?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Coastsider]

Did you replace all the caps in your 2.5s? I had thought those big caps were impossible to find.

Did you notice any problems with them or did you just do it because they were old?

Thanks in advance.

I looked for the big cans but was unable to find them anywhere so I just replaced the small caps on the EMIT's and EMIM's. No problems - I just wanted new and better quality caps and the 2.5 crossover's are so easy to work on.

I'm using an original RS2.5/4.5 active crossover now and am not really sure how much of the passive circuitry is still used with that toggle switch on the top panel in the active position. Of course that gets into the whole issue of the caps in a 30 year old active crossover which I have not replaced. Because they are much smaller having to deal only with input levels, I wonder if the same issues affect them as with larger passive crossover caps and whether I could even source the values I would need if I decided to do so.

 

[rroobbcc]

Here is a shot of my RS 9 Kappas as the once stood in my home office. You can see that the Polygraph mid-basses have been replaced with the mid-bass from the Ren90s as one was damaged in a move. One of these days I am going to pick up a replacement on Ebay or elsewhere and return them to their original state.

This is a shot of my home office as it exists today with a pair of original Modulus satellites and a SSW-212 servo-controlled sub.

Rob

 

[Matt34]

Here is a shot of my RS 9 Kappas as the once stood in my home office. You can see that the Polygraph mid-basses have been replaced with the mid-bass from the Ren90s as one was damaged in a move. One of these days I am going to pick up a replacement on Ebay or elsewhere and return them to their original state.

This is a shot of my home office as it exists today with a pair of original Modulus satellites and a SSW-212 servo-controlled sub.

Rob

Wow!! Very nice setup, both of them!

 

[Tedrick]

Whoa, Rob, the Modulus' are looking awesome. Did they displace the Forte II's?? What are you driving them with?

 

[cdfac]

I looked for the big cans but was unable to find them anywhere so I just replaced the small caps on the EMIT's and EMIM's.

you can find non-polar electrolytics up to 1000uF on madisound:

http://www.madisound.com/manufacturers/bennic/bennic-caps-electro.php

and up to 400uF on partsexpress.com. i used a combination of both in my QLS1s.

 

[Coastsider]

you can find non-polar electrolytics up to 1000uF on madisound and up to 400uF on partsexpress.com. i used a combination of both in my QLS1s.

I didn't want to get into replacing the large radial lead cans with axial lead equivilants as that would have required a bit more reworking of the 2.5 crossovers than I was prepared to do and since there were no visible issues with the original caps, I just stopped searching.

 

[cdfac]

ok. i guess i can't remember how much space you have on your crossovers, but the axials are only about 2-2.5" long and maybe 1" in diameter. strapping them all together with zip ties and glueing them down, they barely took up more space than one of the can caps on my QLS1s but they took the place of two can caps. in the end, though, you're right that you're probably fine - i later measured the can caps i removed and they were pretty darn close to spec.

 

[rroobbcc]

Whoa, Rob, the Modulus' are looking awesome. Did they displace the Forte II's?? What are you driving them with?

Yep, in my home office I went from the 9 Kappas, to a pair of B&W DM602 S3s (not the 601 S3s in the first pic), to the Forte II's (thanks again for those), to the Modulus/SSW-212 combo. At the end of the day, I am a hardcore Infinity fan, and I should have realized that nothing else was going to make me truly happy.

The B&Ws were sold and the Forte IIs were moved to the livingroom. Surprisingly my wife has tolerated them for a while now. My son absolutely LOVES them. He is a guitar player and they are really a great speakers for rock-n-roll.

The past week or so I have been driving the Modulus with my Adcom GFA-5802 as it is my best amp and I wanted to hear how good the Modulus can be. However, a GFA-555II is the regular amp for this system. Long-term I will probably look for something else. While I like the GFA-555II, it is probably the weakest link in this system. The only problem is that I would probably have to pay $750+ to find a significant improvement. Amps that I have been thinking about are the Aragon 4004 II, Forte Audio Model??? (Tedrick, yours made and impression on me), McIntosh MC162 (would love to try an MC252 or MC352, but...$$$), PS Audio HCA-2, PS Audio 200CX, PS Audio Delta-series, or maybe even a Krell KAV-400ix integrated. I don't really need a lot of power in this system because the room is not very large. Watt-quality is definitely more important than watt-quantity as long as the amp can deliver at least 100w/ch.

Rob

 

[Tedrick]

Yep, in my home office I went from the 9 Kappas, to a pair of B&W DM602 S3s (not the 601 S3s in the first pic), to the Forte II's (thanks again for those), to the Modulus/SSW-212 combo. At the end of the day, I am a hardcore Infinity fan, and I should have realized that nothing else was going to make me truly happy.

The B&Ws were sold and the Forte IIs were moved to the livingroom. Surprisingly my wife has tolerated them for a while now. My son absolutely LOVES them. He is a guitar player and they are really a great speakers for rock-n-roll.

The past week or so I have been driving the Modulus with my Adcom GFA-5802 as it is my best amp and I wanted to hear how good the Modulus can be. However, a GFA-555II is the regular amp for this system. Long-term I will probably look for something else. While I like the GFA-555II, it is probably the weakest link in this system. The only problem is that I would probably have to pay $750+ to find a significant improvement. Amps that I have been thinking about are the Aragon 4004 II, Forte Audio Model??? (Tedrick, yours made and impression on me), McIntosh MC162 (would love to try an MC252 or MC352, but...$$$), PS Audio HCA-2, PS Audio 200CX, PS Audio Delta-series, or maybe even a Krell KAV-400ix integrated. I don't really need a lot of power in this system because the room is not very large. Watt-quality is definitely more important than watt-quantity as long as the amp can deliver at least 100w/ch.

Rob

I'm with you on being a vintage Infinity fan. It's kind of funny how we come full circle on some things in life, but hey, half the fun is in the journey. You've given me even more reason to get to Atlanta sometime and stop by for a listen. Since reading about the Modulus speakers in Stereophile all those years ago, I've always wanted to hear some. If you haven't upgraded your amp situation before then, I'll bring along one of my Forte Model 3's to audition with the Modulus'.

BTW, the new avatar is pretty darn cool. Nice pic!