Infinity alpha 50

 

Bronze Member
Username: Rh1

Post Number: 18
Registered: Jun-04
Any comments on this speaker?
 

jks
Unregistered guest
I ordered a pair of Infinity Alpha 50s from Crutchfield a few weeks ago to replace a 3D Acoustics satellite system that was 20 years old and the acoustic suspension was deteriorating.

After powering the Infinities up for the first time I can't remember being so underwhelmed by a pair of speakers! They just sounded awful! I was convinced there was a problem with them. I checked and rechecked my wiring to make sure there wasn't a phasing problem. I used a battery to make sure the phasing was OK internally with the bass drivers. I even reversed my leads to one of the speakers but the bass was so indistinct and muddy I couldn't tell which way sounded better or worse. Finally, I got a #20 torx bit and removed the drivers to see if there was some sort of internal wiring problem but could find none.

What I did find was that the gaskets used to seal the (plastic) speaker frames to the enclosure couln't do their job because of poor design and bad placement. I saw that the enclosure was made mostly out of cheap paperboard and that glue lines inside the enclosures had completely missed the structures they were supposed to bond. I saw great big globs of thermal glue that had oozed out of other joints. I was really dismayed at the poor quality of materials and construction.

I realize that it takes time to get used to a new pair of speakers and I gave the Infinities 3 weeks, but I liked them less and less the more I listened and finally boxed them up and sent them back to Crutchfield. As I was packing them up I noticed that the spikes on the bottom had sunk into the soft paperboard bottoms.

Crutchfield, to their credit, took the speakers back without a problem and paid shipping both ways. I hated to do that, but I wasn't enjoying the Infinity Alpha 50s one bit.
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