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have either the purest soprano or
the noblest baritone. In fact, you
have both. I think this metaphor
may be getting a bit perverse.

The point I’m meandering

my way around to is that Infinity’s
new Cascade line reimagines every
aspect of the loudspeaker. The
newest feature is a reshaped
woofer, a flat, rectangluar dia-
phragm that’s not cone shaped.
The woofer and the tweeter
are both made of a proprietary
ceramic/aluminum blend not
unfamiliar to Infinity fans. The
look is as distinctive as a finger-
print, and the sound is superlative

Flat and fit.

How would you feel if you

woke up one day in a perfect body?
You’d pull back the blanket and
look down on a perfectly flat
tummy (something I haven’t seen in
years, although heaven knows I’m
trying). Combination skin is a thing
of the past—you seem to have been
remade in some wonderful mate-
rial. Eager to check yourself out
in a mirror, you cross the room to
find yourself resculpted in new
and  slimmer proportions. And,
when you open your mouth,
depending on your gender, you

in ways that correct ailments
common to most speakers.

Oh MoMA

The Cascades could be in an
exhibit at the Museum of Modern
Art. Their newly designed, flat,
rectangular woofers share the front
with a conventional dome tweeter.
Although they’re trimmed in plas-
tic, the drivers actually attach to
the underlying wood. The Model
Seven floorstanding speaker pre-
sents an unbroken front surface;
the high-gloss black of the speaker
transitions to the stand’s gray
matte aluminum.

The top of the Model Seven

tapers back, making it appear
slightly smaller than it really is. This
tapering reappears on both ends of
the Model Five monitor, the Model
Three C center speaker, and the
Model Fifteen subwoofer. The sides
and the rear are constructed of
curved extruded aluminum in
matte black. When I knuckle-
rapped the enclosures, I heard var-
ious pitches in various places, but
they were all muted compared with
the pitches of my fiberboard-
enclosed reference speakers. These
speakers are solid.

Conspicuous in its absence is

the cone-shaped woofer that 99 per-
cent of speaker designs employ.
Round cones and sharp-cornered,
rectangular speaker enclosures are
easy to manufacture, but fitting
the former into the latter is a waste
of space. Boxy enclosures also

Cordero Studios 

BY MARK FLEISCHMANN

Infinity Cascade Speaker System

ELECTRONICALLY REPRINTED FROM SEPTEMBER 2006

Summary of Contents for Cascade Speaker System

Page 1: ...he Cascades could be in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art Their newly designed flat rectangular woofers share the front with a conventional dome tweeter Although they re trimmed in plas tic the drivers actually attach to the underlying wood The Model Seven floorstanding speaker pre sents an unbroken front surface the high gloss black of the speaker transitions to the stand s gray matte alumin...

Page 2: ...es at 3 3 kHz The Model Three C s listening window response measures 0 82 3 62 dB from 200 Hz to 10 kHz An average of axial and 15 degree horizontal responses measures 0 78 3 72 dB from 200 Hz to 10 kHz The 3 dB point is at 247 Hz and the 6 dB point is at 91 Hz Please note that while there is no boundary compensation switch the response appears to be intentionally tapered below 500 Hz to compensat...

Page 3: ...quency pretty much disappeared Eliminating this distraction freed me to focus more intently on story lines and musical moods I was rarely aware of the sub s existence except at peak bass moments and that s how it should be The handoff from sub to speakers at the crossover fre quency was seamless My reference gear as usual included a Rotel RSX 1065 A V receiver The Rotel combines dynamically potent...

Page 4: ... tone color came out monochromatic and lacking in spa tiality I wouldn t call these speak ers ruthlessly revealing code language for products that make a large percentage of recordings sound unpleasant nor did they add any sweetening of their own They were just finicky and truth ful as an audiophile should be In this case I think they were actually disappointed in the recording They cheered up whe...

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