Infinity Beta Owners - Page 66

how much are you looking to get for the sw-12 and 20's?

Your the first person that has accused the C360 of being too small.
What the hell do you have now?
FWIW I've changed all mine out and now have an Infinity Cascade 5.1 setup - including the 15 sub. Sound is very VERY good. I thought my IL40s were good - these are awesome. I bought them from Harman's ebay store. The whole batch was only just over $1200. I don't think you could walk into a retail store and get this kind of sound.

Well, I don't have packing material for the SW-12, so shipping cheaply without getting damaged will be next to impossible. Does that make a difference?

I actually hadn't thought of prices for individual pieces. I just know my L/R's I want are $1280 for the kit and I'd like to sell everything for that price, which would still be a pretty killer 7.1 setup for the money. I just don't know if I can get that much since 98% of folks use horizontal centers.

If I can't sell everything as a whole, I'll start piecing stuff out.

I don't have anything right now, everything's too small!

The center I am going to get is a kit and I can modify the enclosure size in order to fit my setup. The TV base is 16.5" deep and the stand is 48" wide. The c360 isn't deep enough by 4.5" and my wife doesn't want our TV sitting on a speaker that stair steps smaller in size from the stand and then out again for the TV.


Since then our design has changed a little. I'm not going to put the tv on the speaker, but will hang it on the wall. So now the center is going to be deeper (to about 18") and wider (to 50.5" to match the TV), with the cabinet shaped like the Paradigm Studio v.5 series speakers...assuming I can use my wife's friend's CNC machine.

Is that a parts express design?

That is a whale of a center channel.

I took a good look at the Monitor Audio RX/RS8s for the front L/R when I decided to replace my Emotiva and Interludes speakers - but had heard the Cascades at a friend's house last year. I went back several times to listen again. His setup is the Cascade 9s front L/R - 3C center and the 7s for surrounds and Cascade 12 sub. I went with three 3Vs for the fronts and a pair of the 5s for surrounds - and the 15 for a sub. It sounds incredibly good to me.

DIY is certainly the best bang for the buck if you have the room for wood working. I have a one car garage and hate to have to blow down the sawdust before I can get the motorcycle or car out.

Good luck with the project.

Nope, it's a Clearwave Loudspeaker Design


Yeah it is! The crazy thing is, I was perfectly content with the smaller version using only 2 woofers, but my wife said nuh-uh, bigger!


After buying my first pair of Beta-20's, I sold my Monitor Audio RS-1's. They didn't look near as nice, but I sure liked the sound of them more.


Did you ever have a fully Beta setup, or did you have a mix of Beta and Emotiva?


Thanks, I'll need it!

Anyone know where I can buy a C250 center channel speaker in black?

Keep an eye on eBay. A new C250 sold three days ago for $75. One will come up again. Also check craigslist. A C250 is listed is listed in DC.

I missed you question - guess it slid by without me seeing it.

I did use the Beta 360 with the ERTs until I was able to buy a 6.3 for the center. The 360 is every bit as good as the 6.3 - don't let anyone tell you different. In the bedroom I had my interlude IL40s with the beta C360 and 20s for surrounds. I dismantled that because they just took up too much room. I'm down to the IL40s and an HK 3390 - sounds sweet like 2 channel should. As you probably know the Beta and Interludes are a perfect timbre match with the CMMD 1" tweeter.

At any rate I now have all Infinity speakers again - Cascades. WOW! These are nice. I got enough from the Emotiva speakers to finance the lot - including the outstanding Cascade 15 sub.

I remember seeing a picture of that center....you're the guy who's wife wanted you to upgrade to a larger center!

Hehe, yup. And because of her, I have to upgrade all of my speakers. My wife is so mean!

The downside is I still don't have a CNC machine to use. The one I want to use, the owner is having software issues and I'm not sure when it's going to be resolved. Then, in a few months I will be leaving for a year or so for the military...I probably won't have anything built for a long time.

I've read so much good stuff here about the Infinity Beta 40 floorstanders, C360 center, ES250 surrounds, and CSW-10 subwoofer that I'd really like to get these for my first non-HTIB 5.1 setup, hopefully for under $1000 used - but I've had a heck of a time trying to find them for sale! Craigslist and eBay listings sure are few and far between, and Harman hasn't sold these as refurbished items in a while. Seems no one who has them wants to let them go! Can any of you please give me some tips on finding these elusive speakers or just sell me yours? Thanks a lot!

Cheers,
Lincoln

I know this is a bit out of your price range, but this may be as close as you are going to get for a complete set.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Infinity-Beta-50...#ht_584wt_1137

I wonder if that seller will come down enough to reflect the current going price. The Beta 50s can be had for $400-500 on ebay - the C360 is worth about $180-220 - and the surrounds go for $250-350. $800 would be a good price for those - I doubt that seller would accept that low of an offer.

Try looking for some Infinity Cascades - great sounding speaker with an excellent mid-range driver and has the same CMMD tweeter as the Betas - get the Model 15 sub to accompany them.

Too bad you weren't closer to me.

Dang, I just missed a C360 for $100 in Seattle, as well as a pair of Beta 50's for $225 and a CSW-10 for $200 in CA! Can you believe the CA guy listed those for so cheap?!? (He told me he had accepted them as trade-ins from a customer for a system he installed, so he probably didn't realize their value.) Anyway, I'm probably going to just continue to look on craigslist and eBay for the Beta 40's, C360, ES250's and the CSW-10 and pay to ship them to me up in Spokane, WA. If I can find any other deals even close to the ones above then it'll still be some of the best bang for buck out there it seems!

@Looneybomber: I'll be in KC in a month! Still got your 50's? I wonder how much it would cost to could bring them back with me on the plane....

@zryder: Yes, that's a nice set, and he's got it on sale here too, but I'm still hoping to find all these pieces for cheaper.

@Knucklehead90: Cascades would be cool, and they certainly get marks for the wife factor, but they would probably be a bit over-budget and less bang for buck. I'm trying to avoid current models to hopefully save more money. I'm starting to think the cheapest way to get a nice set of Infinity CMMD drivers is going to be the Beta 10's or 20's....

BTW, does Infinity's RABOS act like Audyssey speaker balancing, or at least minimize the 5.1 vs 2.1 advantage that Audyssey 2EQ has over MultEQ? I'm trying to decide on a receiver too. I was going to go for the Onkyo HT-RC260 (with 2EQ) unless MultEQ can improve the surround experience that much more. Then again, it sounds like a lot of you have HK's....

RABOS is an EQ that is only applied to the sub - and only if the sub has it installed as it isn't external to the sub - it's built in. The RABOS kit consists of a sound meter and a test DVD and a plotting graph to set the parametric equalizer on the back of the sub. This works very well - I've owned RABOS subs before in the Infinity Interlude IL50 towers with a built in in each tower.

As for the price of the Cascades I paid just under $1300 for 5 speakers and the model 15 sub. Retail a year or two ago would have been around $4000+. These are very clear sounding speakers. I have three of the 3V speakers on the front stage and two of the 5 bookshelfs for surrounds.

For your budget range look into the Denon lineup - the 590/1610 and 790/1910. Those AVRs have Audyssey MultEQ vs Onkyo SR508 - SR607 and SR608 with 2EQ - you have to get into the SR7xx lineup to get the better Audyssey program.

Yup, still have them, my four Beta-20s (actually have six, but I want to keep a pair for myself), and my SW-12.

The Beta-50's will probably be very easy to bring with you on the plane. Just tuck them under your jacket and place them under your seat as a foot rest. No one will ever know

You can also check places with classifieds sections.
Audiogon.com
Hometheatershack.com
HTguide.com

LOL! Yeah, great how portable those 50's are! Should go over really well!

I'll ditto Knucklehead about how helpful RABOS can be. It can tame a single room-induced bass hump, and IMO, is well worth it. Mine was severe enough to rattle all my framed pictures (very annoying), but RABOS smoothed it out.

Velodyne has an add on room EQ, but I know nothing about it. Harmanaudio was clearing out a bunch of Cascade subs on Ebay recently. Those have RABOS. Otherwise, you'd pretty much have to find a used SW-12 or SW-10 (good luck). Or, you could buy a Revel sub!

If you get a sub without RABOS, you can get an EQ to add to any sub. For example the Reckhorn B-1, http://www.creativesound.ca/details.php?model=B-1


Elemental Designs eQ.2
http://www.edesignaudio.com/product_...roducts_id=657

I just got a flash of inspiration - or just a weird thought - don't know for sure. I have an EQ.2. I wonder what I'd get if I run the RABOS on my eD A5-350. I have a rather large 'hump' between 45-65hz with the A5. The EQ.2 is a also a parametric equalizer - same as what is on the Cascade 15 although the 15 only has a single band. Can't hurt I suppose. I might give it a try tomorrow.

Yes!!! I picked up a pair of Alpha 50's today off my local Spokane craigslist for $80! (Consolation for just missing a set of Beta 50's, ES250's, & C360 that sold for $550 in Houston.) Glad I don't have to deal with the shipping/flight hassle with the 50's now! The way our revered plhart talks here, the Beta is better in the tweeter department, but many have testified to their near equivalence, so I didn't think I could pass up this deal today, and hopefully I'll be happy with them for a long time!

Your Alpha's have the same CMMD drivers as the Betas. I have a pair of Interlude IL40s in the bedroom 2 channel setup - and Cascade 5 channel in the living room - all with the CMMD tweeter. That tweeter is about as good as it gets for me. I've owned many other speakers over the years and I keep coming back to Infinity for the tweeter. I remember the first time I heard a pair of Preludes - I was in love with everything but the price. I'd never heard such a smooth tweeter. As smooth and detailed in it's presentation as any tweeter I'd ever heard - and without being bright. The Interludes reminded me of the Preludes but without that huge price. I bought IL50s for mains and IL40s for surrounds in 2000-2001.

Other than the Beta 50s being a tad larger I doubt you'll hear much difference between them and the Alpha 50s.

It could work well. Having a mic and plotting the response really is all you need, but the eQ.2 has more PEQ's, thus giving you more abilities. You could knock one room mode down, then run it again using both PEQ's.

I have the SW-12, but never got the RABOS kit. I did the best I could tuning by ear, and it was a pain having only 1 EQ. I now have a much more powerful EQ; 31 band graphic, 10 adjustable parametrics and dynamics, real-time analyzer, mic, and a whole lot of other things I don't even know how to use.


That's a killer deal! It's the best deal I've seen yet, so long as they're in good condition.

Actually I had to glue together some cat scratches in some of the rubber surrounds, pop out a little dent in one of the tweeters with sticky tack, the drivers do have a couple small dents, and the grills were missing so I'm rebuilding some with $20 of materials, but hopefully they're still worth it.

So far they sound great with the few-minute test-listen I did. I just got an Onkyo HT-RC160 receiver for $200, and a Beta C360 center speaker for $90 is on its way, both off craigslist and both in perfect condition.

The final pieces will be a nice used sub and a couple cheap Beta 10/20/ES250 rear surrounds.

On that note, I'm not sure whether to match the 5" Alpha 50 mids with the Beta 10/ES250's or match the C360's 6.5" woofers with the Beta 20's.... I figure either way will sound good.

My vote goes towards the B-20's, not because of any special timbre matching but because,
1) They sound good.
2) Have a higher output capability than the B-10's
3) Will work fine with an 80hz crossover point, where-as the B-10 may not.

The ES250's I can't comment on because now you're also talking about di/bipole vs monopole.

But ultimately, get surrounds that you're able to get. If you're able to find one or the other at a good price, get it.

Those looking for Betas may want to check out ebay now.
Four 20s, a 360, a 250 and an SW-12 sub all in cherry are available.

Sweet! I just got a pair of Beta 20's off craigslist for $100! So far these Infinitys are sounding great! All I need now is to find a good deal on a decent sub....