Digital Trends

Infinity Alpha Series

July 7th, 2003 | by Doug MacLean

Continued...

Next let's take a look at the surround speakers. With discrete sources like DTS and Dolby 5.1 the rear surround speakers added to a full, crisp audio field. All frequencies where well reproduced. For these tests I went not only to the typical high end action flicks like The Matrix, Gladiator and ID4 but also films where the musical sound track employed the rear speakers. Here I choose Red Dragon and the up coming release of Chicago. In all cases the sound from the rear was full. With DTS titles the rear portion of the sound stage was very well blended. The only down side of these speakers was at low power. Because of a crazy work schedule I work at very odd hours and because I want to keep on good terms with the neighbors I have to keep the volume low. At these lower settings, the rear speakers almost disappeared. Although rated to go as low as 10 watts I had to push considerable higher to get the speakers to really work. This was also the case with matrixed surround sources like Prologic and the various emulation modes. Other rear speakers were loud enough to contribute to the overall sound field but here the rear speakers where all but mute.  Once again proper calibration was able to help but if you watch a lot of Prologic discs or television the gain will have to be pushed on the rear to really enjoy the set.

The sub woofer is a monster. You will realistically need a good size room to place this speaker properly. To test this I used sources like Pink Floyd's The Wall. The sub woofer is active almost throughout the film and pumps out very low frequency. Unlike some sub woofers this one did not distort at all. The lows where booming without causing the speaker to rattle at all. This CMMD idea of theirs really paid off here. The stiffer speaker was able to take all that I could dish out without any break up to the sound. The room shook during battle scenes like Star Wars and Gladiator. This sub woofer did its job and provided a visceral experience that pounded in the chest. Try the blast off from Apollo 13. I had a friend listen, one that actually watched a few lift offs and he said it was the closest to the real experience he ever felt. With a maximum power of 500 watts you will most likely never stress this speaker; objects will fly off the shelves before you even approach the max here. There is a downside, a price to pay for this perfect combination of sound and tactile experience. All the switches and dials have to be perfectly set to get the most out of this massive sub woofer. For those of you out there that just want to plug in the AC power, connect the audio cable and turn the speaker on, you might get a bit frustrated. It took me about an hour with a calibration DVD and the manual to get the unit to the point of being able to hear any realistic sound. Since some of the recommended settings for Dolby 5.1 and DTS where different I had to work at some compromises in order to avoid having to open the front panel of the speaker and changing the settings when I switched from one audio format to another.   

Conclusion

Except for the few noted points, the overall performance of these speakers was incredibly good. If your primary source of audio is from discrete DVDs then this is the way to go if you can afford the set. While the surround speakers where not great for Prologic sources these speakers more than did the job on DVDs. Get a calibration disc to make sure you have your speakers properly set for your room's acoustics. They look good with the black finish and will fit into any room's décor, a major point for some of our significant others.