This is a review and detailed measurements of the Infinity R162 bookshelf speaker. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $270 from Amazon including Prime shipping.
Despite its budget price, the R162 looks good and weighs a good bit:
The back side shows the typical, too close together binding posts:
If you care about country of manufacture and can't read it above, it is China.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
All measurements are reference to tweeter axis with the woofer grill left on as indicated Frequency resolution is 2.7 Hz.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Gosh, other than elevated level above 3 kHz, this is pretty good looking! Yes, there is a resonance at 700 Hz or so but you can dial that down with EQ.
The higher energy in treble region spells a bright sound which we see in our simulated room:
Directivity is good though so we should be able to apply a better target curve and tame that.
Blended early reflections (bold green) shows good response so no need to turn your room into a padded cell with absorbers:
Distortion graph shows some nastiness around (likely) crossover point:
Combination of that and tiled up response will probably give some "zing" to music.
Impedance graph is typical of these 2-way speakers with dip into 4 ohm category:
Both horizontal and vertical directivity is wide meaning you don't have to get your protractor out to set speaker angle:
CSD/waterfall graph shows the resonance we saw at 700 Hz:
As noted, this is at a both below tweeter. When measuring at tweeter axis, there was a pronounced dip around 1.7 to 2 kHz. This did not show up however in the spinorama. Not sure what explains it.
Grill or no Grill -- that is the question
Members have been asking about effect of grill on frequency response. Not a in mood to run the full spinorama so here is the in-room measurement difference:
The effect is simple: as wavelength get smaller (i.e. frequencies go higher), the grill is no longer transparent and reflects the sound back at the tweeter causing summation and subtraction (depending on phase). That causes the variation in frequency response.
There is some attenuation of high frequencies so maybe the overall effect is positive for this speaker.
For those of you who say to do this test all the time, it was a pain to re-align the speaker while installing the grill. The speaker shifts easily under the pressure, rotating and moving out of position.
Speaker Listening Tests
First impressions were very positive. Good bass performance and nice detail. Alas, it doesn't take long until that extra treble energy gets to you. I played with a few EQ settings and the one that worked best was aimed at reducing the distortion shown earlier:
I can't help but think how good this speaker would be with a simple in-line resistor with the tweeter to kill off some of that excess energy.
For comparison, I put in the Revel M20 in the same spot and it was a relief to hear a less elevated highs. However, the M20 could not remotely play as loud as the R162! Its woofer would break up at much lower levels than the Infinity. Indeed, no matter how much power I pumped into the R162, it handled it without bottoming out!
Overall, the woofer and bass performance is the start of the show.
Conclusions
The Infinity R162 definitely seems to have benefited from good design. Whether on purpose (to sell better in showroom) or not, the elevated highs are a bit of an issue but fortunately that cam be tamed with equalization. The rest of the performance both objectively and subjective is very good and not at all that of a cheap junk speaker.
So overall, if you like slight zing to your music or can EQ to remove that, then I am happy to recommend the Infinity R162. You can have a very enjoyable system with it despite the low cost.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
My wife has started to make masks so that we can wear them when we have to go out (e.g. shipping back audio gear). They are not expensive to make but you know me, any cent out of my pocket makes me depressed. Please help me stay happy by donated using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Despite its budget price, the R162 looks good and weighs a good bit:
The back side shows the typical, too close together binding posts:
If you care about country of manufacture and can't read it above, it is China.
Measurements that you are about to see were performed using the Klippel Near-field Scanner (NFS). This is a robotic measurement system that analyzes the speaker all around and is able (using advanced mathematics and dual scan) to subtract room reflections (so where I measure it doesn't matter). It also measures the speaker at close distance ("near-field") which sharply reduces the impact of room noise. Both of these factors enable testing in ordinary rooms yet results that can be more accurate than anechoic chamber. In a nutshell, the measurements show the actual sound coming out of the speaker independent of the room.
All measurements are reference to tweeter axis with the woofer grill left on as indicated Frequency resolution is 2.7 Hz.
Spinorama Audio Measurements
Acoustic measurements can be grouped in a way that can be perceptually analyzed to determine how good a speaker can be used. This so called spinorama shows us just about everything we need to know about the speaker with respect to tonality and some flaws:
Gosh, other than elevated level above 3 kHz, this is pretty good looking! Yes, there is a resonance at 700 Hz or so but you can dial that down with EQ.
The higher energy in treble region spells a bright sound which we see in our simulated room:
Directivity is good though so we should be able to apply a better target curve and tame that.
Blended early reflections (bold green) shows good response so no need to turn your room into a padded cell with absorbers:
Distortion graph shows some nastiness around (likely) crossover point:
Combination of that and tiled up response will probably give some "zing" to music.
Impedance graph is typical of these 2-way speakers with dip into 4 ohm category:
Both horizontal and vertical directivity is wide meaning you don't have to get your protractor out to set speaker angle:
CSD/waterfall graph shows the resonance we saw at 700 Hz:
As noted, this is at a both below tweeter. When measuring at tweeter axis, there was a pronounced dip around 1.7 to 2 kHz. This did not show up however in the spinorama. Not sure what explains it.
Grill or no Grill -- that is the question
Members have been asking about effect of grill on frequency response. Not a in mood to run the full spinorama so here is the in-room measurement difference:
The effect is simple: as wavelength get smaller (i.e. frequencies go higher), the grill is no longer transparent and reflects the sound back at the tweeter causing summation and subtraction (depending on phase). That causes the variation in frequency response.
There is some attenuation of high frequencies so maybe the overall effect is positive for this speaker.
For those of you who say to do this test all the time, it was a pain to re-align the speaker while installing the grill. The speaker shifts easily under the pressure, rotating and moving out of position.
Speaker Listening Tests
First impressions were very positive. Good bass performance and nice detail. Alas, it doesn't take long until that extra treble energy gets to you. I played with a few EQ settings and the one that worked best was aimed at reducing the distortion shown earlier:
I can't help but think how good this speaker would be with a simple in-line resistor with the tweeter to kill off some of that excess energy.
For comparison, I put in the Revel M20 in the same spot and it was a relief to hear a less elevated highs. However, the M20 could not remotely play as loud as the R162! Its woofer would break up at much lower levels than the Infinity. Indeed, no matter how much power I pumped into the R162, it handled it without bottoming out!
Overall, the woofer and bass performance is the start of the show.
Conclusions
The Infinity R162 definitely seems to have benefited from good design. Whether on purpose (to sell better in showroom) or not, the elevated highs are a bit of an issue but fortunately that cam be tamed with equalization. The rest of the performance both objectively and subjective is very good and not at all that of a cheap junk speaker.
So overall, if you like slight zing to your music or can EQ to remove that, then I am happy to recommend the Infinity R162. You can have a very enjoyable system with it despite the low cost.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
My wife has started to make masks so that we can wear them when we have to go out (e.g. shipping back audio gear). They are not expensive to make but you know me, any cent out of my pocket makes me depressed. Please help me stay happy by donated using : https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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