Finally put all my speakers back to back and compared (1 Viewer)

[Mike Up]

I have several pairs. The back to back competition was Infinity Entra Point 5, Infinity Primus p143, Polk TSI100, Polk Blackstone TL1, and the new Elacs Debut 2.0 B6.2 .

Just as I found without back to back but by memory, the Elacs B6.2s were best and the Polk Blackstone TL1s were second best. Then followed by the Infinity Primus P143, then the Polk TSI100s, and then by the Infinity Entra B6.2s.

Back to back gave these impressions:

Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2 = Great imaging. Very good tonally. Consistent sound quality at loud volumes. Realistic sounding ( acoustic guitar)

Polk Blackstone TL1 = Great imaging slightly below the Elac B6.2. Tonally good but higher in middle midrange. Consistent sound quality at loud levels, surprisingly! Realistic sounding (acoustic guitar). While these are great speakers, they are very inefficient (~84/85db [email protected]) being less loud than normal size speakers by many decibels and needs a subwoofer that has a frequency range into the higher bass of around 140Hz. They do sound good with my Klipsch R-120sw and R-100sw subwoofers so they go high enough.

Infinity Primus P143 = OK imaging (sweet spot very small where slightly left or right goes to the closest speaker). Tonally a bit brighter than the Elac B6.2 and Polk TL1 but good. Inconsistent sound quality at loud levels with shouty character to sound. Realistic sounding (acoustic guitar).

Polk TSI100 = Good imaging but breaks down off center to the closest speaker (not nearly as bad as the Infinity P143). Tonally the brightest speaker but I've heard much brighter. Inconsistent sound quality at loud levels with shouty character to sound. Not as realistic as the above speakers, acoustic guitar didn't sound like it was in the room as the above others did.

Infinity Entra Point Five = OK imaging (sweet spot very small where slightly left or right goes to the closest speaker). Tonally the darkest speaker by far as treble is very attenuated and can sound forward in the low midrange (boxy sounding?), not very good IMO but OK for a surround speaker. Inconsistent sound quality at loud levels with shouty character to sound. Not realistic sounding at all as acoustic guitar sounded the most reproduced out of all the speakers.

Obviously these are older speakers but many others still have them. The Infinity Entra Point Fives were bought as Back Surround speakers to go with my Denon AVR-3803 back in 2003. The Infinity Primus P143 were bought around 2013 as Side Surround speakers to to be put on the wall so my daughter and animals would not knock them over on the stands. The Polk Blackstone TL1 are still available today and were bought for my smaller media room system. The Polk TSI100 were bought 2 years ago to replace Infinity Reference 2000.4 Tower speakers. Infinity Reference RS1 old surround bookshelf speakers were used temporarily in-between the 2 for a few years. The Elacs were just bought to replace the Polk TSI100 speakers.

 

[Mike Up]

Thought I'd share this as well. When doing my comparisons I made a couple of mistakes. When I was comparing one set of speakers, I noticed the imaging was way OFF! The image, believe it or not, moved from the center to the rear left side of me. Just a bit in front of me and all the way to the left! What the hek! Turns out I swapped the (+) and (-) on the left speaker. Corrected and image back between the front speakers. Wow, I knew image would be off but that was just weird and unexpected!

The next problem was I always check the receiver settings as I do them manually, no Audyssey garbage for me. I must had accidentally bumped the distance of the right channel speaker by 1'. The 2 speakers should had the same distance setting. Doesn't seem like a big deal but it completely threw the imaging to left speaker. So these things, that maybe some would think were little things, actually are huge things that completely destroy the sound quality and imaging.

When I tried Audyssey several times, it had the crossover, distances, levels, equalizer and all that, all mucked up. This was Audyssey XT. So it just destroyed the sound quality of the speakers. That's why when a speaker review or hardware reviewer isn't taken seriously when they say they have done the review with room correction. They're not hearing the equipment, they're hearing the software.

On a side note, the Polk TSI100 and Infinity Primus P143 could be swapped in their rating as the TSI100 had better imaging and offered better loudness (speaker sensitivity of 89db) over the P143. I just put a higher priority on the realism as the P143 sounded more real with acoustic guitar. It's really a toss up as the better imaging of the TSI100s is important as well. If I remember right, I believe I paid $200 for the P143 but that was when they were introduced. The TSI100 were $150 and were introduced around the same time but continued to be manufactured. Back in the day, they were $230. Also the TSI100 are more the competitor of the larger Infinity Primus P153 which has a 5-1/4" woofer as the TSI100s do.

The Polk Blackstone TL1 has a 2-1/2" woofer and 1/2" tweeter and is ported
The Polk TSI100 has a 5-1/4" woofer and 1" tweeter and is ported
The Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2 has a 6-1/2" woofer and 1" tweeter and is ported
The Infinity Primus P143 has a 4" woofer and a 3/4" tweeter and is ported
The Infinity Entra Point Five has a 4" woofer and a 3/4" tweeter and is sealed

Goes to show that size doesn't mean much other than bass as the Polk TL1 sounded better than most of the larger speakers and sound didn't compress with loudness as much as the bigger speakers.

 

[Mike Up]

Just got my Bose Interaudio 4000 back from my parents. It's a bookshelf/tower speaker on a short stand that has a 10" woofer (big dust cap = big voice coil?), 3" tweeter and dual front ports. I remember this speaker having good bass but then that memory was 26 years ago.

What I found is that the bass doesn't go as low as my Elac Debut 2.0 B6.2s but has a harder punch. I expected the hard punch but bass extension is significantly worse than the Elacs. So this big Bose speaker likely has a 50Hz F3 point with a very steep slope cutoff below that. The Elacs measured from ASR and Erins Audio Corner to go to ~45 Hz at -6db.

Listening to the Bose, their imaging was centered away from speakers but went to the speakers at different points in the song. Also off center went to the speakers. Imaging was also smeared with just a center spot, with all sound kind of smeared together between the speakers.


Tonality of speakers was weird. Didn't sound bright as they were bass heavy, but lacked midrange which separated the sound pretty bad, there seemed to be a hole in the midrange. As you would expect with a cone tweeter, not many dynamics as treble sounded compressed and harsh at times. Didn't really sound bright but it didn't sound full either. Likely the midrange hole and the boosted bass.

Great condition for a vintage collector but not very good sound wise but better than most for that time period in the mid to late 90s.