Infinity RS152 Review (Surround Speaker)

[Sancus]

What I see is that the drivers sum nicely in a smooth response down to the room transition frequency range below around 350 Hz here. I am not seeing the massive suckout centered on 600-700 Hz as measured by the Klippel and I am not seeing the uneven tweeter response.

What can we conclude from this?

I see at least 10-15dB down from 200hz to 600hz, depending on how you account for what looks like pretty nasty comb filtering, and ignoring the 100-200hz null(?!). So not sure you can conclude it's not there. The midrange is broadly lower in level than the highs, and there are deviations of nearly 8dB above 1khz, where room effects should be minimal. The 5dB dip above 10khz does seem to be missing, however, looking at the horizontal contour map, the treble response is so uneven based on small axis changes it's hard to conclude anything.

This to me is not what a good in-room response looks like, though it's somewhat hidden by the aspect ratio of the graph, which is much wider than Amir's. That is also ignoring directivity issues which won't show up in a single measurement like this.

Regardless, still fine for $70 imo, but nothing to write home about.

 

[richard12511]

I'll throw in my 2 cents, for science

I just set up one against the wall and did a moving mic average to see how the response looks in-room. The average was about 10-15 seconds long over the listening area (my recliner).

Pink periodic noise, full range.

No smoothing
View attachment 124686

About the room:

• Everything under 33 Hz is room gain
• 60-90 Hz is boosted by room modes (constructive)
• 120 and 180 Hz also get wrecked by said room modes (destructive)
• The pattern repeats through the 200-300 Hz range
• Basically, ignore that range, we cannot see results there unaltered by my room

What I see is that the drivers sum nicely in a smooth response down to the room transition frequency range below around 350 Hz here where the room starts to interfere with the long wavelengths. I am not seeing the massive suckout centered on 600-700 Hz as measured by the Klippel and I am not seeing the uneven tweeter response.

What can we conclude from this?

Maybe I missed it, but what distance is that at? Given the positive slope, I think we can say these speakers are likely too bright. NFS measurements do kinda show that, too.

100-200 is really hard to tell, as I find that most systems seem to have a suckout there. That said, that's one of the worst suckouts I've seen. Could be entirely the room's fault, though.

 

[AverageJoeAudiophile]

Wow, some really ill-informed postings about the Klippel here.

Of course it doesn’t model the room response: but now you have to show me where I said it does. Good luck.

But it does model near and far fields, in free space.

And doing so is not a failing, just because the speaker is meant for wall placement. Like Toole says, the direct-arrival sound from the speaker needs to have a FR that is level, smooth, and extended. And the ear will separate it and respond to it independently of room reflection contributions, so the summmed room response of a speaker cannot be argued to compensate for failings in the first-arrival sound. It’s a litmus test for all speakers. The Klippel will tell us this for any speaker of any design. It’s valuable information.

Also, Klippel provides a way to measure in-wall speakers with NFS, so don’t tell us “Klippel is not meant for it”. Whether Amir used it is another matter, but don’t brush off the Klippel as unsuited to that task.

Also, @AverageJoeAudiophile I didn’t miss the point, because the point was made wrt this speaker and the LRS, both. We know the LRS is not intended for wall mounting, so the point being made was that Klippel is only suited to front-firing monopoles. That was the point that was made, in exact words, “you'd need to limit testing to forward-firing box speakers that attempt to emulate a point source”, so maybe you missed it?

cheers

Yes you've unequivocally missed the point. We all understand such.

 

[Chromatischism]

Maybe I missed it, but what distance is that at? Given the positive slope, I think we can say these speakers are likely too bright. NFS measurements do kinda show that, too.

They do have a sparkly sound. I recommend using EQ to boost the bass to level them out.

The distance is about 9 feet. I tried various distances but some resulted in more comb filtering of the bass due to the room so were junked.

 

[richard12511]

The NFS sells a baffle for driver & in-wall speakers and I believe it only does measurements on the front hemisphere, so no Spin, but you would get +/-90° horizontal and +/-9° vertical off-axis measurements:

I don’t believe Klippel has on-wall testing, though it shouldn’t be much different.

Interesting. Knowing Klippel, though I'm guessing it's like $10,000 or something for that board? Seems like you could southern engineer something similar for pretty cheap.

 

[Chromatischism]

I see at least 10-15dB down from 200hz to 600hz

I am not seeing what you are seeing. Are you looking at my measurement or Amir's?

depending on how you account for what looks like pretty nasty comb filtering, and ignoring the 100-200hz null(?!). So not sure you can conclude it's not there. The midrange is broadly lower in level than the highs, and there are deviations of nearly 8dB above 1khz, where room effects should be minimal. The 5dB dip above 10khz does seem to be missing, however, looking at the horizontal contour map, the treble response is so uneven based on small axis changes it's hard to conclude anything.

This to me is not what a good in-room response looks like, though it's somewhat hidden by the aspect ratio of the graph, which is much wider than Amir's. That is also ignoring directivity issues which won't show up in a single measurement like this.

Regardless, still fine for $70 imo, but nothing to write home about.

The in-room measurement has limitations and I noted that. But my goal was to see if these huge cancellations appear in actual use (mainly the one centered on 600-700 Hz) and it appears they do not. Both of our measurements show a dip at the ~1300 Hz range so that is real.

This is actually really good for such an inexpensive speaker.

 

[richard12511]

They do have a sparkly sound. I recommend using EQ to boost the bass to level them out.

The distance is about 9 feet. I tried various distances but some resulted in more comb filtering of the bass due to the room so were junked.

Gotcha. "Sparkly" definitely matches with what those measurements show, imo.

 

[Sancus]

I am not seeing what you are seeing. Are you looking at my measurement or Amir's?

In your graph, the level at 200hz is 85dB. At 600hz, it is ~72.5dB. The slope is not as sharp as Amir's because your graph aspect ratio is super wide, and your y-axis is also larger. Now, there is at least 5dB of comb filtering noise in that frequency range if not more, so it's hard to tell just how bad the dip is, but the fact that the level goes broadly down from 100-200hz, then broadly up from 1000hz up is not good, those very low-Q deviations are extremely audible.

Just to be clear, this is what I would consider a good in-room response without any EQ, at 2m(blue line obv... not red lol):

And no, I'm NOT trying to say it's fair to compare these to KH80s, or that you should expect anything that nice for $70 lol, just pointing out that this speaker's response is not good. It's not AS HORRIBLE as the anechoic measurement, because you obviously do get the big low-bass hole fixed by the wall, but that also seems to cause comb filtering issues, which are bad as well.

People are defending this speaker as if it sounds good. I don't see any evidence of that. I see something that is gonna produce acceptable sound for a cheap surround, though, sure.

 

[Chromatischism]

In your graph, the level at 200hz is 85dB.

That is room mode territory. You can not base anything on that. You can only draw conclusions from my measurement from about ~350 Hz and up.

There may be a boost there at 200 hz from the speaker but I can not be sure.

 

[Sancus]

That is room mode territory. You can not base anything on that. You can only draw conclusions from my measurement from about ~350 Hz and up.

There may be a boost there at 200 hz from the speaker but I can not be sure.

There is a clear dip here, yes the room modes(and comb filtering, which is this speaker's fault) are hiding how bad it is, but they are not hiding its presence. This sort of extremely broad dip simply does not happen due to room modes alone.

Not sure why you think it isn't there. It 100% is.

P.S. The other in-room measurement shows exactly the same pattern, in a completely different room, with less 100-200hz null. These aren't room modes, they're the speaker's anechoic response proving correct.

These two measurements showing the exact same slopes are case closed for me.

 

[Chromatischism]

You're right that the output from REW and Klippel are different. I also wonder if Amir is compressing the width of the image to fit the page better which makes the vertical deviations look more exaggerated.

Anyway, I didn't say there wasn't a dip in the lower treble – I agree there is a broad bowl there and a broad hump in the 1-6 kHz range that makes the speaker sound brighter. What I am saying is that it's hard to pinpoint the level due to room modes around 200 Hz. You measured the tip of the peak at 200 Hz at 85 dB but I doubt that's accurate.

What I am also saying is that the sharp suckout shown in the Klippel is largely filled in to appear as more of a bowl rather than a sharp cancellation. Studying both graphs I could see 5-10 dB from 200 Hz (76-80 dB) to 650 Hz (71.5 dB). The level is lower there, I'm just not completely confident in those numbers around 200 Hz.

 

[Chromatischism]

This is closer to Amir's dimensions of 1000 pixels in width.

 

[richard12511]

There is a clear dip here, yes the room modes(and comb filtering, which is this speaker's fault) are hiding how bad it is, but they are not hiding its presence. This sort of extremely broad dip simply does not happen due to room modes alone.

Not sure why you think it isn't there. It 100% is.
View attachment 124691

P.S. The other in-room measurement shows exactly the same pattern, in a completely different room, with less 100-200hz null. These aren't room modes, they're the speaker's anechoic response proving correct.

These two measurements showing the exact same slopes are case closed for me.

Wow! I didn't notice that at first, but you're completely right about that 200-600Hz dip that is also shown by the NFS.

Good catch.

 

[jhaider]

The difference from wishful marketing thinking and reality of 2 so far from each other located tweeters becomes obvious, not a 180 degree listening window is realised but an interference nightmare. If that doesn't get a broken panther I don't what should...

Harman uses is also on some JBL Pro loudspeakers where they show some plots which are clever chosen (showing the beamwidth instead of the polars) to hide its problems. https://www.audiopro.de/medias/item/16483/jbl_ctrlhst_v4.pdf

A while back JBL's marketing literature for their version purported to how this speaker design worked in the intended application as well as free space. See @Vladimir Filevski at post 96. Maybe someone here could line up JBL's published free space graph with Amir's measurements to see if they're similar. I know it's a different speaker but I suspect it's not that different aside from finish.

I gave serious thought to buying the JBL version as Auro/Atmos heights. (Black woodgrain vinyl wrap has no place in my home, so never considered the Infinities. I would have gotten the white JBLs and painted them to match the walls.) I decided against it because none of my Harman contacts seemed to know anything about them (that they would discuss at least) and I wasn't ready for a thousand dollar experiment when I had small speakers on hand I could deploy for the cost of 4 wall mounts.

That would be my guess as well but I'm not totally sure. FWIW, I've always thought the "make the surrounds extra wide dispersion" idea was kind of silly...

FWIW, I've always found narrow dispersion surrounds problematic in terms of localization. I have also never had a room where surrounds were as far away as mains. Pre Atmos my SOP was literally to fire my surrounds (Tannoy NFM8II, then KEF Q100) at the ceiling to get envelopment without localization.

I own these - they have a metal bracket that mounts them a few inches from the wall and work fine - I have measurements, sec will post.

Delete that Audyssey midrange notch!

 

[amirm]

Interesting. Knowing Klippel, though I'm guessing it's like $10,000 or something for that board?

It is indeed thousands of dollars.

 

[Chromatischism]

FWIW, I've always found narrow dispersion surrounds problematic in terms of localization. I have also never had a room where surrounds were as far away as mains. Pre Atmos my SOP was literally to fire my surrounds (Tannoy NFM8II, then KEF Q100) at the ceiling to get envelopment without localization.

Right – these are designed for homes where they will be somewhat close to your seats.

Delete that Audyssey midrange notch!

Try it, but don't automatically assume it will be better. The MRC was designed to prevent Audyssey from equalizing a natural crossover dip to flat, which in their testing they found to result in harsher sound. It looks like the MRC falls right in the natural crossover of this speaker so it might be better to leave it on.

Also, I didn't see this measurement. Looks like we have an agreement on the measurements, just varying degrees of the swings.

 

[Robbo99999]

Has this already been said, I think this speaker would have to be measured in actual farfield rather than how the Klippel does it.....or at least with the actual microphone further away than the current system.....just an intuition! I'm aware that Klippel measures close and then will predict the output at a greater listening distance, but I think this speaker is just "too far off traditional design" to measure that close for accurate predictions.

No, Klippel NFS nearfield measurements and farfield computations are just fine, the problem is that some loudspeakers are designed to be mounted on the wall (or in the wall). There is no computation substitution for a real wall.
Klippel NFS has module with bafle for half-space measuring in-wall loudspeakers, and maybe it can be modified for measuring on-wall loudspeakers.
Khm, donors, khm...?

Seriously, did you not read the rest of the thread? You have it totally wrong, and just about everything you claimed as incorrect is in fact correct. You would do well to take the time to understand just what the Klippel system is, how it works and what its limitations are. It is not a perfect system, there are specific limitations about how it works and in particular the assumptions the system makes in projecting the measured field into the room are limiting. Sadly it does not model the expansion of the hologrpahic field it measures into the room, it just makes some very basic calculations of rough aggregate values off the walls. It just expands the calculated polars into the room and applies some simple weightings. It does not model phase, and basically models the speaker in the room as monopole. Thus is only valid for a conventional box speaker in free space in the room. It gets in-room respose of panels and other di-pole speakers wrong in-room because of this.
A speaker that requires the loading of a wall and is intended to utilise that wall as part of the radiating system, one designed to radiate into a half space, is not modelled by Klippel's software. The RS152 measured here is designed to include a wall as an intrinsic part of the speaker's operation. Klippel's software has no way of understanding this, there is no mechanism for even telling it that there should be a wall. Without a wall, the measurements, whilst interesting do not, and cannot, reflect actual intended use case operation.

@Vladimir Filevski What Francis is saying there resonates with me and to me has some correlation with my "intuition" that I posted. But with that being neither here nor there, I do agree that the Klippel measurements aren't reflecting the true experience of this speaker.

 

[Juhazi]

My thinking about these bipoles go like this: They were invented during the early days of multichannel movies and Dolby ProLogic etc. matrix. They are said to produce wide and diffuse sound, so every seat has better listening balance. They actually do that, create a spacious and diffuse sound, but who knows if sound effects come as they were meant to ? But it is an easy start and not so picky about installation.

But now with Dolby 5.1, 7.1.2, Atmos etc. require point source radiators, that preserve 3D effects better specially on side channels. I have visited Genelec factory demo room that uses their 2-3-way speakers as surround/effect speakers and it works just fine! On-wall and near ceiling position makes boost for bass and interferences, but most of those can be handled with automatic EQ which is standard in AVRs.

 

[Chromatischism]

My thinking about these bipoles go like this: They were invented during the early days of multichannel movies and Dolby ProLogic etc. matrix. They are said to produce wide and diffuse sound, so every seat has better listening balance. They actually do that, create a spacious and diffuse sound, but who knows if sound effects come as they were meant to ? But it is an easy start and not so picky about installation.

But now with Dolby 5.1, 7.1.2, Atmos etc. require point source radiators, that preserve 3D effects better specially on side channels. I have visited Genelec factory demo room that uses their 2-3-way speakers as surround/effect speakers and it works just fine! On-wall and near ceiling position makes boost for bass and interferences, but most of those can be handled with automatic EQ which is standard in AVRs.

Dolby says bipoles are still fine if you are seated close to them, which is the case in many homes.

 

[Chromatischism]

100-200 is really hard to tell, as I find that most systems seem to have a suckout there. That said, that's one of the worst suckouts I've seen. Could be entirely the room's fault, though.

It looks worse due to the 60-90 Hz room mode mountain range. Interestingly, @Worth Davis has the same issue. I know my other speakers suffer from it, though. Even one of my subs does, until they are both summed and equalized.