Nice detail, dynamic yet smooth sounding, impressive value (bang for your buck!)

I picked these up to use as surround speakers for a 5.1 home theater setup. I'm currently using 15 year old Infinity RS2000's and couldn't pass up the great deal on Mercata on these ($139 shipped after $50 promotion).

They exceeded my expectations with regards to the smoothness and fullness of their sound. I have Paradigm 11SE MKII's as my front channels and I was doing a primitive A/B comparasion between the two. While the Paradigms did sound better (but they are $1000 full size speakers), the Infinitys stacked up surprisingly well. Speakers were being driven by a Harmon Kardon AVR75 receiver. I'm currently using them with a 40w/ch old Yamaha receiver, but will probalby use them as my surrounds later.

I'd like to compare them directly with the Paradigm Mini-Monitors that my roommate owns (when I get a chance). The other speakers I own, but haven't compared these to, are Acarian Systems Alon II's.

I love music and am quite picky about sound. These speakers, regardless of price, put out very impressive sound. For the price (esp if you can get them for $150-$200), they're a great bargain. Highly recommended.

I believe the overall rating should be w/o price taken into consideration - thus they get 4 stars on an absolute scale, but 5+ with value taken into consideration.

Similar Products Used:

Paradigm Mini-monitors

Very good bass. Open sound. Small size. Very, very good value for money.

Very bright at first listening, and requires l-o-n-g break-in time. Bass also benefits from a shorter break-in time.

For the price I paid for these gems ($99 a pair, brand new in box!), they have virtually no equal. They are excruciatingly bright at first, and the bass is weak. After about 5 hours or so, the bass started to fill in, and became very good after a couple days listening. The highs were another matter, and required 1-2 weeks of playing 4-8 hours a day with a break-in CD to tame this. Though they became listenable in about a week, it took several weeks to reduce the listener fatique I would get after an hour or two. After a couple months, I was no longer instantly cognizant of the problem, and started to enjoy them immensely.

These speakers produce startinlgly amounts of bass, and project a good, open soundfield. They should be used with decent stands, Target or the like, and the tweeters should be close to ear height. For maximum enjoyment, take off the grills (only after the speakers are broken in, or you'll be sorry) and enjoy.

To sum up: No, these are not "audiophile" speakers; I have a separate system for music listening. For someone with a middle-of-the-road receiver-based system, they will work beautifully. I use mine for Home Theater/casual listening (they work well for either the fronts, on good stands, or as the rear channels) along with a pair of Infinity 2000.5 speakers and a CC-3 center channel. Not a bad system considering I paid about $650.00 for all the above. Considering that I had to run through the same break-in with the 2000.5's and the CC-3, I think all recent Infinity speakers of this caliber need a good break-in period to make them really sound their best, which I feel is pretty darn good.

Similar Products Used:

Polks, Advents, JBLs

Originally I was looking for small set of bookshelf speakers for my dorm room and stumbled upon these beauties. I decided to check out how other consumers viewed these speakers and saw all positive reviews. However I had never heard them myself and was skeptical, but for $200 @ Netmarket, how could I resist. As soon as they came I disconnected my large floor speakers and plugged them into my Denon AVR 2700 receiver and was suddenly amazed at the sound quality. Never in my life have I heard such great sounding music coming from such small speakers. The tweeter and woofer on the unit are just amazing. The RS-3's definitely rival my larger floor speakers on sound quality by at least 2 fold. I would highly recommend the RS-3's to anyone who is looking for great pair of speakers but has limited floor space, because when you have great small speakers like these, why do you need large bulky ones on the floor?

Great speakers! Especially when it is compared with other speakers of its bookshelf class such as the polkaudio and Bose bookshelf speakers. The RS3 are the clear winner. They work really well as the main speakers in my home theatre system with my Aiwa 480 watt reciever at the heart. These speaker seems to be at their best while playing DVD, really great with my 10 inch KLH subwoofer.

clear, detailed sound
great for rear speakers

none known

After reading many reviews on these and similar products, and considering the good price, I decided to go with RS series all around. I use the RS-3's for home theater surrounds.

These speakers have good clarity throughout the frequency range. With a good amp, the RS3's can really shine. They are much better suited as rear theater speakers than as mains. The RS5's make much better mains because of the extra drivers and the tower design. If you are using these as mains, be sure to get a sub if you want to have decent low frequency response from your system.

Got these for $200 at crutchfield.

Infinity RS5,RS3,CC3
AR S112PS sub
Sony STR-DA777ES
Sony DVP-S360
Sony CDP-CE545
Panasonic CT-27D10
Hoontech NX-DB1 (digital computer connection)
Acoustic Research Cables

Similar Products Used:

Infinity RS-5

current pricing, decent bass and very clear sound for it's price

none really for this category

I'm currently using these as rears in my home set-up along with RS4s in front and the CC3 center. These all have matched drivers and work very well together. The RS3 is virtually identical to the RS4 but w/o the tower cabinet. Has very good frequency response for a bookshelf and the silk dome tweeter is very smooth. Since the Reference(RS) line is discontinued, if you can find them, the RS5, RS4, and RS3 are selling for great prices which makes them an even better buy. Unfortuantely, or not, they are going bye-bye along with all my other Infinitys. I had 2 Denon AVR-3300 receivers that were both defective. I upgraded to the AVR-4800 which is THX and thus I decided to get some THX speakers from M&K. But without hesitation, I would heartily recommend these speakers. They are great speakers, but for the prices they are selling at now, the quality and sound is unbeatable.

System:
Denon AVR-4800
Denon DVM-3700 DVD
RCA DTC100 HDTV set top box
RCA MM36100 HDTV ready digital monitor
M&K 750THX select speaker system
M&K MX125 MarkII sub

Similar Products Used:

RS4