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Why did Infinity stop using Watkins woofers? if they are so much better?

Harvestor

Harvestor

Addicted Member
After reading a little bit about the superiority of the Watkins woofers I have to wonder why infinity would use inferior Woofer's after dropping the Watkins woofers.....?

And why tarnish your name and brand by going to something generic?

It's akin to Ferrari going to Walmart brand rims and tires..... Am I right or wrong?
 
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My understanding of the purpose behind the Watkins woofer was smooth out the output around the resonant frequency. I have Quatum 5s, RS5Bs and Kappa 6s which to me seem to be the progression of development for their "bookshelf" size speakers. They are all within an inch or so of each other in dimension and are three way with woofer, dome mid-range and EMIT. After listening to all three for a while. I can clearly hear the "evolution" of the line. The Quantum 5s can go very low almost to the point of being boomy. The RS5Bs don't have quite the same depth but are much tighter and transition better into the mid-range. The Kappa 6s are clearly the best of the three from my experience. Good, tight, clean bass, deep enough for what I typically listen to and the transition between the three drivers is seamless. I wouldn't characterize the IMG woofers in the Kappas as "walmart" quality. Again, my personal experience, YMMV.
 
Nor would I consider the woofers in the IRS V "walmart" quality. Infinity also made a great car sub, the Beta Twelve. Possibly they felt they come up with what they thought were better things. Could also be not working out a profitable deal with Watkins, and deciding to engineer their own. I guess only Infinity knows the real reasons.
 
I am lucky to have 4 WSC-1As, all of which I bought direct from Mr Watkins. Kinda nice being only 30 miles away. I think they sound absotively great, can't think of any reason to get any more or any brand. Never talked to Mr Watkins or his son, Bill, on why they, or Infinity kiboshed the deal ....
 
Sandy G said:
I am lucky to have 4 WSC-1As, all of which I bought direct from Mr Watkins. Kinda nice being only 30 miles away. I think they sound absotively great, can't think of any reason to get any more or any brand. Never talked to Mr Watkins or his son, Bill, on why they, or Infinity kiboshed the deal ....
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You ought to stop by there sometime if they're still in business and alive and try to talk to either one of the guys, it might lead to good things for you personally?..
If nothing else maybe you can develop a friendship, or just gain some more knowledge from the inside
 
goodolpg said:
Mr. Watkins passed away a year ago.
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Man, it's just this sort of thing that makes me think about mortality. Much like when Arnie died. Men who I thought of as living legends.

I wrote Bill Watkins an email some years back asking if he knew why Infinity dropped the small Watkins woofer after the Infinitesimal 0.2. He didn't reply. I've long had an impression that his relationship with Arnie wasn't particularly friendly. Arnie kept using Bill's woofers off Bill's spec to get what he wanted from his speakers. I imagine Bill resented it to some degree.
 
Back then, Infinity started producing its own woofers through its newly acquired affiliate KLH.
Evidently Infinity felt there was no lacking in its new low frequency driver and its configurations after the Watkins dual voice coil was dropped.
I'm one who thinks there was some improvement and hardly consider "inferior" to be used as a descriptor of the non Watkins woofers.
It's all about design implementation.
 
uvafan420 said:
Nor would I consider the woofers in the IRS V "walmart" quality. Infinity also made a great car sub, the Beta Twelve. Possibly they felt they come up with what they thought were better things. Could also be not working out a profitable deal with Watkins, and deciding to engineer their own. I guess only Infinity knows the real reasons.
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Bill Watkins was a member of the Infinity Yahoo group, and he said there that he was also involved in the design of the 12" woofer used in the IRS and Kappa series. My suspicion is that due to improved technology and materials, the complex Watkins design was no longer needed.
 
swechsler said:
Bill Watkins was a member of the Infinity Yahoo group, and he said there that he was also involved in the design of the 12" woofer used in the IRS and Kappa series. My suspicion is that due to improved technology and materials, the complex Watkins design was no longer needed.
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It sure works great in my original Modulus subwoofer.
 
The Watkins woofer was originally designed to avoid impedance dips at the resonant frequency of the cabinet. If a woofer produces a tone at which its box resonates, then the woofer motor is not doing any work since the whole box vibrates at that frequency and the amp reacts like it is a dead short. Now we have Thiel Small parameters so the complex woofer and crossover are no longer necessary.

I have had a few conversations with Bill and Bill Jr. over the years and they told me that Arnie did not use the crossover design that Bill Sr. designed for the QLS-1. Arnie wanted that "18 Hz" spec so he changed the crossover and it ended up with a couple of < 1 ohm dips which put lesser amps into protection mode. Bill Jr. said they started getting call from people who were saying "Your woofers are killing our amps!" It really hurt Watkins' reputation, Bill Jr. told me that he "wanted to punch Arnie right in the nose."
 
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chef free said:
The Watkins woofer was originally designed to avoid impedance dips at the resonant frequency of the cabinet. If a woofer produces a tone at which its box resonates, then the woofer motor is not doing any work since the whole box vibrates at that frequency and the amp reacts like it is a dead short. Now we have Thiel Small parameters so the complex woofer and crossover are no longer necessary.

I have had a few conversations with Bill and Bill Jr. over the years and they told me that Arnie did not use the crossover design that Bill Sr. designed for the QLS-1. Arnie wanted that "18 Hz" spec so he changed the crossover and it ended up with a couple of < 1 ohm dips which put lesser amps into protection mode. Bill Jr. said they started getting call from people who were saying "Your woofers are killing our amps!" It really hurt Watkins' reputation, Bill Jr. told me that he "wanted to punch Arnie right in the nose."
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I do believe that was an issue in the very beginning.
Overzealous desire for the lowest of frequency(18Hz?) pushed it a bit;)
The QLS-1 white paper does suggest the circuit employed does smooth out the ohm readings to around 5 ohms. I know my QLS-1s do not go down to 18Hz and do not even come close to killing my humble amps.
I think perhaps the problem ended up being resolved:dunno:
 
tubed said:
I do believe that was an issue in the very beginning.
Overzealous desire for the lowest of frequency(18Hz?) pushed it a bit;)
The QLS-1 white paper does suggest the circuit employed does smooth out the ohm readings to around 5 ohms. I know my QLS-1s do not go down to 18Hz and do not even come close to killing my humble amps.
I think perhaps the problem ended up being resolved:dunno:
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You are right, the second version of the QLS-1 (with the veneer baffle) have a re-designed woofer crossover. The original would bottom out the Watkins on stuff like the heartbeat intro to Dark Side.
 
Being an Infinity noob, I'm clueless on this topic. When did the change from Watkins occur?
For my part, did the 7 Kappa and the Kappa 8.1 models have the Watkins or had they already changed.
 
None of the Kappas had Watkins woofers.

The QLS did, and some other Quantum series, the Renassaince series did as well.

Infinity made much use of the phrase 'Watkins technology', but that almost always was two woofers crossed over at different frequencies to emulate what the Watkins dual voice coil woofer did.
 
I always felt the Quantum2 had a better bass output then the QLS-1, much tighter and faster, ran them side by side for about 30 years :)
 
InAp said:
I always felt the Quantum2 had a better bass output then the QLS-1, much tighter and faster, ran them side by side for about 30 years :)
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I've heard that Bill Watkins thought that the Q3 box was Infinity's best use of his woofers (up to that point)... I use a sub with my QLS-1, without it my system (speakers+room) have a noticeable null at 40 Hz.
 
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