 The Infinity Alpha series features advanced technology found on Infinity's finest speakers. |
The Alpha Challenge
Last week, I took home a complete 5.1-channel Infinity Alpha speaker system for a test listen. The Alpha series is not new — it's been around for more than a year. But I had never heard these speakers before, and I wanted to find out if Infinity's heralded C.M.M.D. drivers were all they're cracked up to be. Infinity makes a big deal about the fact that these are the exact same drivers used on their premier speakers, the Prelude™ series. It's part of their "trickle-down theory" of speaker manufacturing — that is, trickling down premium technologies from their highest-end speakers to their more affordable models.
C.M.M.D. stands for Ceramic Metal Matrix Diaphragm. According to Infinity, it's a driver material that sandwiches a layer of aluminum between two layers of ceramic, providing both stiffness to avoid resonance and flexibility for optimum responsiveness. It sounds great in theory, but hearing is believing.
I brought home a pair of Alpha 50 towers for the front left and right channels, the Alpha 37C for the center channel, and a pair of Alpha 20 bookshelf speakers for the surrounds. I considered bringing home the 500-watt Alpha 1200s sub, too, but my listening room is relatively small (and neighbors live close by), so I figured an older model 100-watt Infinity sub would be plenty of bass for my needs. Cost-wise, the Alphas fall in the upper end of the typical consumer speaker market, but they're much cheaper than Infinity's premium Prelude series speakers, which use the same C.M.M.D. drivers. A pair of Prelude MTS towers costs around $8,000 per pair, while you can get a pair of Alpha 50 towers for around $700. To drive the system, I used the 100-watts-per-channel Sony ES STR-1000ES home theater receiver.
 Cross-section of Infinity's C.M.M.D. driver — a layer of aluminum sandwiched between two layers of ceramic. |
The triple feature
I brought home three DVDs to test out the system. For a hot, high-impact soundtrack with a lot of "wow-factor" special effects, I went with Gladiator. This came on a recommendation from my friend Leigh, who said the audio special effects were pretty spectacular, and went on and on about how Russell Crowe looked incredible in a baby blue tunic. Anyway, she was right about the sound, and I guess Russell looked just fine.
To test how the Alpha system would handle a subtler soundtrack, I picked up Lost in Translation. Although the movie is mostly dialogue, director Sofia Coppola pulls off some very interesting and unique sonic effects, especially during the montage scenes where Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson wander around Tokyo to the musical strains of sometime My Bloody Valentine front man Kevin Shields.
And finally, I tested out Stop Making Sense, the 1984 concert film by the Talking Heads. Newly re-mastered, the concert contains some dense, challenging arrangements (as well as David Byrne's neurotic yelping), and I was wondering how the Alpha speakers would hold up under the pressure.
 The Alpha 37C center channel speaker features a three-way design — a rarity for center speakers in this price range. |
Gladiator
By far, the most impressive surround sound moments of the film occur in the film's opening twenty minutes, where Russell Crowe (as Rome's greatest general — Maximus!) leads the Roman army against the barbarians of Germania. As the battle is about to commence, Maximus utters the immortal words, "At my signal, unleash hell!" And that's exactly what happens — arrows whiz through the air, swords clash against swords, catapults … well … catapult. And the Alpha speakers handled this sonic smorgasbord with incredible clarity and dynamics. The front soundstage was enormous — I could pinpoint many of the peripheral effects far outside the location of the front left and right speakers.
But it was with directional special effects that the Alpha speakers really excelled. Arrows traveled seamlessly from the front to rear speakers. At one point, a dozen Roman archers take aim and fire in rapid succession. The only thing I can compare it to would be standing on the median of a major highway and listening to the cars whiz by. Truly spectacular.
Another scene where the Alpha speakers stood out was during Maximus' first battle in the Roman Coliseum. Maximus and his ragtag group of inexperienced gladiators (sounds a little like Lee Marvin and the Dirty Dozen!) are made to do battle with a fleet of rollicking chariots of death.
These horse-drawn killing machines roar across the front soundstage and from the front speakers to the surrounds with incredible realism. Even using the older 100-watt Infinity sub, the impact of the clomping horse hooves still rattled my ribcage. I shudder to think what would have happened to me (and my neighbors) had I hooked up the 500-watt Alpha 1200s sub! The Alpha 20 bookshelf surrounds did a terrific job with the ambient crowd noise. Individual comments were sometimes audible within the general din of the cheering throngs, and they didn't sound distracting or fake. I was amazed at how the speakers were able to handle so much sound without sacrificing detail. I guess Infinity's C.M.M.D. drivers are all they're cracked up to be!
Lost in Translation
If you've seen Lost in Translation, then you know this isn't a film that will test the limits of your home theater system — there are no explosions, no catapults, not even a single car chase. Instead, there's a lot of talking, and the Alpha 37C center channel speaker handled the voices with impressive clarity and accuracy. But there's more to the film's sound than just dialogue. For such a quiet movie, Lost in Translation poses some interesting challenges for a home theater speaker system.
Early in the movie, Bill Murray's character Bob is shown swimming in the indoor pool of his Tokyo hotel, and the camera skims across the water, following him from one end of the pool to the other. The camera sometimes dips below the water and then emerges again, and the audio matches it, quickly transitioning from a muffled, underwater sound to the echoing, cavernous sound above water. The Alpha 50 towers handled the quick transitions with amazing skill, and the system as a whole was able to reproduce the underwater sounds with suffocating accuracy.
Later in the film, Bob and Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) spend an evening out on the streets of Tokyo. It plays out like an impressionistic music video. Much of the dialogue is woven through new music by Kevin Shields and an old My Bloody Valentine song. The characters visit a few bars and end up at a party where they perform drunken karaoke. Sonically, there are a lot of different things going on at the same time, and low-end speakers would probably end up transforming the soundtrack into a pile of mush. But the Alpha system did a great job maintaining detail and balance, giving different textures to the layers of sound.
A cool touch — at the end of their night out on the town, Bob is carrying a passed-out Charlotte back to her hotel room, and in the near-silent halls of the hotel, you can just make out the My Bloody Valentine song that played earlier in the evening, as if it's still ringing in their ears.
 The Alpha 50 towers help create an expansive front soundstage for home theater, and deliver impressive, bass-rich stereo sound. |
Even if you haven't seen Stop Making Sense, I'm sure you've seen footage of David Byrne in his big suit. It's an entertaining concert movie (as far as these things go), incorporating performance art, some really hot songs, and Byrne's neurotic on-stage antics. A few years ago they re-mastered the sound, and they did a nice job.
Stop Making Sense does not have a severe 5.1 mix. The rear channels are mostly limited to crowd noise, and the music that is sent to the rear is subtle. But I was shocked by the size and depth of the front soundstage that the Alphas created. During songs like "Burning Down the House" and "Take Me to the River," where the entire band is really going at it, the Alpha towers and center speaker really shone. At times, there were at least seven musicians (plus back-up singers) on the stage, and even with all that sound, the Alphas maintained great separation of instruments and fabulous imaging. The Alphas did a terrific job on some of the quieter songs, too, like "Heaven" and "Na?ve Melody." They sounded clean and intimate even when I cranked up the volume.
The stereo music challenge
After watching Stop Making Sense and hearing how well the Alphas handled the music, I decided to test out the Alpha towers on some plain old stereo music. The first song I tested was Tom Waits' "Misery is the River of the World" from his 2002 album Blood Money. (Sounds uplifting, doesn't it? It's not nearly as gloomy as the title might suggest.) The song is typical Waits fare — Waits' three-packs-a-day vocals, odd instrumentation (marimba, bass clarinet, gongs, something called a "pod"), and a surreal orchestra-of-the-damned arrangement.
The Alpha 50s turned out plenty of bass (no sub required), and the highs were detailed and lifelike. But I was really impressed with the imaging. I could pinpoint the instruments (even the pod!) across the exceptionally wide and deep soundstage. And Waits' voice sounded as ragged and broken as ever.
Next, I checked out Rufus Wainright's "Oh What a World" from his 2003 Want One album. The song begins as a sparsely arranged pop show tune, and builds (in proper Broadway fashion) into an absolutely enormous musical extravaganza — full-blown orchestra, brass band, tympanis, harps, multilayered cascading vocals, the works! The Alpha 50s were able to handle all that sound with seeming ease. I felt guilty about it because of my neighbors, but I really cranked up the volume to see if the song would lose detail. But the Alphas came through without a hitch as it rattled the glass panes in my windows.
The Alpha experience
After hearing the Alpha speakers in action, I can say that they offer up impressive performance for both movies and music. The drivers are exceptionally accurate and produce very clean sound. But I think it's in the imaging department that the Alphas really strut their stuff. With challenging material like the Tom Waits song and the movie Gladiator, the Alpha speakers created a broad, deep soundstage, and it was easy to locate the different sounds and instruments as you panned across.
So, does the trickle-down theory really work? My answer is yes. By taking high-end technologies and putting them in more affordable models, Infinity lets you get pretty amazing sound for reasonably affordable prices. Check out the Alphas if you're in the market for some speakers — I think you'll be impressed, too.