Infinity Primus Owner's Thread - Page 118

Wow, very well done!!
This should be a sticky since the Primus line is very popular.
Do you have the link to the writeup for this mod ?

hello everyone, I have searched the thread but what is the general consensus of the primus line compared to the polk new monitor series?

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm builder a house and will have a dedicated theater room. I'm going to have a 18x23x9 room so ~3700 cu. sq/ft and was wonder what type of setup I should be looking at. I like the price point of the Prius line especially since I can piece it together over the next 6 months as it goes on sale at frys. Should I be looking at 5.1, 5.2, 7.1, 7.2? Receiver is still up in the air since I'm not set on a surround system yet. Budget wise I'm open to what will give me the best sound. Sub(s) and receiver should stay under $1000ish. Trying to keep whole setup under $2500.

Any advice or suggestions? Receiver will be powering HTPC and epson 5020 plus primus system.

Thanks in advance.

1 is your best option. We're talking 20Hz difference here. Not a lot but meaningful at the low end. Yes movie sound designers do put low bass into the surrounds. Your fronts will still contribute a meaningful and significant amount of bass because crossovers aren't brick walls. You really need to go online ASAP to some ID subwoofer makers and upgrade that Sony. That will be by far the biggest improvement to your system.

I'm not really a Toyota fan myself. Pretty good sized room for the Primus though. I'd go 5.1 at first and spend more money on a receiver and subwoofer. 1 grand for both isn't much for the room you want to fill with quality sound.

Hi all, I have a 15x16x9 room and just installed my first surround system. I bought 3 163's for my center and fronts and 153's for my rears. I listened to them set up as a 5.0 system for a couple days before my Outlaw LFM1 Plus arrived and I honestly would've been happy with them alone. Of course the sub fills a void, but they are awesome speakers.

Fry's had the 153 and 163's on sale for $100 a pair (limit one pair) and I feel I got a hell of a deal!!! I thought I might have to upgrade later to bigger towers for the fronts or a bigger center, but there is no need. I have never experienced such great sound!

I'm putting plans together for my theater room in my new house which is 20'x18'4"x8'. I have a 6' platform in the back with a 7" rise to allow a loveseat and then a sectional on the floor for more seating. I have been researching my system that I want to install this fall and this is what I have come up with. I just joined the forum and would like thoughts and ideas from those of you with more experience than myself. I have wired my room for 7.2 surround with projector mount HDMI in the ceiling. I also have my rec room next door wired for 2 more speakers to allow me to play music from my receiver for when we have parties and are playing pool, etc. Here is the system as I have it layed out so far:

Panasonic AE8000
Vutec 147" 1.3 gain HDTV format screen
Yamaha RX-A3010BL 9.2 Channel Network AV Receiver
Infinity Primus PC351 (center)
Infinity Primus P363 (L/R)
Infinity Primus P163BK (Surround L/R and BL/BR)
Infinity Primus PS312 (SubL / SubR)

For the rec room I plan to purchase two more P163BK's.


I've been researching this for nearly 6 mos. but I would like to know if anyone has a similar setup and if so how the AE8000 performs along with the surround sound. I have heard lots of good things about the A3010 receiver, and I think that instead of going with the A3020 which only buys me 4K capability I figured it was worth the $500 savings. These speakers are really priced very well and being able to get the entire system for around $7000 I was pretty happy. Hopefully the prices stay the same or go lower by the time I'm ready to buy it in October. Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated as I think this over during the summer.

On Amazon the P163BK price has gone up to 129.99. Anyone know where else to buy?

Fry's Electronics has it for sale for ~$110 a pair quite often if you live near one. I'm not sure if they will ship them at that price though. Sometimes that's the in store price only.

I checked the store locator and there is no store close to me. If I got 4 P153 will there be a huge drop off in sound quality? I plan on going for a 5.1 setup.

Well you're talking about a 5.25" driver vs a 6.5" driver.. So there will be a little loss I would assume, albeit not much especially if you plan on getting a sub..

My 3 163's and 2 153's rocked the house without the sub I bought, I was impressed with the infinitys all by themselves! You should get the 163's though.

It is my speaker, but not my work (minus some modifications to the active crossover). I know it reasonably intimately; but will have to see if I can find a write-up.

In the end: I think it was over-kill... or at least an unbalanced result (like putting 22" tires on a Corolla... you gotta upgrade all the parts to a similar level); but the results make an impression.

These speakers now weigh 115lbs... each.

While the P363 is a great speaker for the price, I would have to agree with this. The bass driver alone cost more than the original complete P363. The money spent on the upgrades, could go to a better speaker to begin with or another option would be to just build a set of speakers from the ground up rather than modifying the cabinet, replacing the tweeters and most likely modifying the crossovers. Might have been easier AND possibly less expensive.

I do plan on getting a Dayton Sub. For now I think I'll get the P153 then later on if the prices drop back to down to 85 I'll go for the P163 and move the p153 to the rears.
Ultimately I want a 5.1 setup, so I am slowing building up.

Rear speakers aren't important as the fronts right?

I'm not sure you and I agree on where the issue lies. The crossover was removed. The tweeter was replaced. The mid and bass drivers far better than they have any right to be at that price range; and I'm not sure what you think is wrong with the cabinet that would be improved starting from scratch (rather than upgrading existing).

No. I think that overkill was going to an active 4-way design and the $2k cost that created. As well, I think that the bracing was extreme given the overall speaker. I think there's a 80% function for 20% effort trade-off that would have been better.

I actually would instead chose a 10W7 given the opportunity to get flat to 20Hz (without losing SPL, which is signifigant), used a passive crossover (or perhaps a mixture), and perhaps gone a little lighter on the bracing.

I actually didn't mean to imply that there was an issue with your upgrades. I was just agreeing with you that it was way overkill for this speaker. Essentially, all you kept was the mid and bass drivers and the cabinet. You had significantly modified the cabinet to boot. Had you started from scratch, it might have been less costly and/or less labor intensive.

Right now I am using 3 163's up front (one for my center) and 2 153's for my surrounds, would I get a incremental sound quality if I swapped the center 163 for a pc351?

PLHart, designer of the Infinity Beta series of speakers , has waxed on this topic here:

http://www.avsforum.com/t/647998/inifinty-speakers-and-bang-for-your-buck

This thread is a great read for any Harman era Infinity owners.

He recommends 3 Beta 20s across the front. Your 163s are the modern Infinity equivalent of those speakers. 3 identical speakers is ideal. Going to the dedicated center will probably not improve the sound except in the bass because of having two woofers.

glb

Well, you know what they say about hindsight

It looks to be done with a lot of detail (Inert cabinet!) and best part is you don't need to match a sub to this setup.

The ribbon tweeter alone should have been a significant improvement.

Some room correction settings and movies rock on it, right ? (music might be a bit harder to get right with the crossover).

What's missing when you say unbalanced ?

"unbalanced" is not a claim regarding the sound. It is a claim regarding the amount of effort/spending in one area vs another.

The stock P360 cabinet needs bracing, and the shared enclosure (the midrange is in a little plastic cup) needs improving. There's no doubt that bracing and re-spec-ing the volume was needed.
By going completely active, the speaker incurred a +1800 cost. I think that the advantage of 4-way active over passive or an active/passive crossover is not sufficient for that cost-add given the overall price of this setup.

Similarly: the bracing is phenominal (the builder was obsessed with cabinet resonance); but I believe that focus diverted from that into another area (perhaps building adjustable stands) would have resulted in a better overall experience.

Mind you: the "rap test" is a humbling experience. They hurt your hand.

Yes, first time I have seen an enclosure braced with concrete. Even the mighty Magico Q7 does not use concrete. Kudos to the builder and thanks for sharing!

All in all how do t hese Infinity Primus speakers sound? I am interested in using them as main front tower speakers for a theater room/living room setup. I am also looking at a set of Yamaha NS-AP7800 and use them with my Pinnacle digital sub 100 that I currently own. What are your thoughts guys? I have setup several sets of the Yamahas and really like how they sound but I keep hearing good things about the Infinitys also. There isn't any place that I can go hear they before buying them.

Thanks,
Paul Kepner
Home Theaters Plus
www.home-theaters-plus.webs.com

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/605infinity/

http://www.stereophile.com/standloudspeakers/1007inf/

http://seanolive.blogspot.com/2012/05/more-evidence-that-kids-even-japanese.html

Thanks for the links but I didn't see anything about the Yamaha speakers. Do you know anything about them?

Thanks,
Paul

Hi,

I am a novice home theater user and had a couple of questions related to the speakers installation and set up.

I am using a Denon 3808CI receiver and plan to connect to Infinity speakers. I have two possible configurations:
6 P363 and PC351 for center channel.
or
2 P363 for front speakers, PC351 for center channel and P163BK for surround and rear speakers.

I intend to get a Hsu Subwoofer.

Can you please advice on any pros and cons of the above possible combinations?

Also,
Is it true that I should have the speaker cables having identical length (say for two front speakers) even though the speakers are not at the same distance from the receiver?
What kind of cable should I be using for these speakers?
I had a basic question about banana plugs (I've never used them before). What kind of banana plugs should I be using for the speakers and the receiver?

I would highly appreciate any response from the experts.

Thanks a lot.

You can do either. The P363's as surround sound speakers will have to be raised really high and not sit directly on the floor. Same thing with the P163's. Ideally, all P363's would be best because the drivers are exactly the same.

That should work.

Cost and raising the P363's while the P163 will probably have to be mounted into a stud in the wall.

No, who told you that?

I would suggest Monoprice 12 gauge cable.

Go to Monoprice.com and buy them there. There are two different types. The choice is yours. One tricky thing, not obvious, is that you will have to pull off the plastic red and black plugs so that you can directly plug in the banana plugs. You probably also need a subwoofer cable which can be bought from Monoprice.

hi all, been reading up in the thread & wondering if i can get some help.

I own a primus PS312 sub & pioneer VSK-820, got them a few yrs ago & was using some old logitech z680/z5500 & Monsoon MM-2000 planar speakers.
just picked up 4 p143's to match up with my PS312 & vsk-820.........will my AVR have power issues with these 143's? ?
& how much better would the p15x/p16x sound.My original thought was to replace the speakers on the logitech z5500 & game with the p143.
Picked these up for $55 each while cheapest p153 are going for $85 in canada.I can't find a canadian store selling the p163.
ATM i don't have spare change toward the p163 but will purchase them in the future or maybe a few of those p3xx.
I will most likely keep a 5.1, maybe add another sub in rear for 5.2 setup if that makes any sense.
I typically will use for gaming, music & some movie watching.
also, what speakr wire gauge should i use with these 143's?
THX for any suggestions/info.

I've heard a lot of people talk about having all your wire the same length. I think that was more for back in the day. Nowadays receivers are smart enough to know (or at least you can tell them) how far away each speaker is.

+1 on the mono price cable.

I'd skip the banana plugs unless for some reason you unplug your speakers a lot. they dont help the sound at all, if anything they degrade it.

hello, i guess this isn't as busy cause this is sorta old tech with new colored speaker exteriors.
well, i connected the 143's N like NO bass i can hear, i think my AVR is under powered or maybe move them to the front instead of back?
Any way i can add more juice to these 143's with my AVR >>vsk 820 pioneer.
THX, i have a feeling i wasted 250$ after taxes on the 2 pairs

LOL, Stupid me, didn't know there was a diff between what front & rear does, these 143's definitely have bass, not boomy as i am used to but with my 312 i am more then happy, just need to calibrate ...use the puck finally & set things up.
I am gonna try these with the z5500 sub, i have a VERY VERY GOOD feeling....i think these are the speakers for the gaming rig....now i want sale deals....cya

P.S. i LOVE those monsoon flat planar speakers, i personallly haven't heard clarity like that in any speaker since, i "was" thinking of frankenstiening the mm-2000 sats into these 143's some how.
LASTLY.......my main musical taste is metal, classical, jazz & experimental ambient...... so far from what i can tell, these little guys have a clean unadulterated quality, i think i could have wasted $$$ on something much worse......it's all bout the setup/positioning i guess....will enjoy it till i can make a move on sum of those better primes u guys have.....THX

I STILL LOVE the clarity of those DAMN monsoon mm-2000....any1 have a functional pair(S)wanna sell em ? ?
those planar are very directional & if paired with good bass sound amazing.
I switched the p143's to front & they sound decent,i can imagine the 163 must have that extra umphf these are lacking.
I think i'll eventually pair em with my z5500 sub, i think it will be a good match
Edited by OugaBooga - 2/26/13 at 5:41pm

Thanks. In that case, I will go with the P363s. So for mounting, are there specific mounts I can use, or would I need to build one from scratch using some brackets from home depot?