Infinity IRSV
The 280-pound-per-cabinet statement that Infinity built for the listener with no ceiling.
Overview
Each IRSV cabinet weighs 280 pounds and stands 47.25 inches tall. The footprint takes more floor space than most dedicated listening rooms have. This is not a speaker you audition on a whim. You plan a room around it.
The IRSV comes from the Infinity Reference Standard series, which, according to Stereophile, "was designed to be the ultimate statement in loudspeaker design." Sensitivity is rated at 96 dB, so the IRSV doesn't need a nuclear power plant to drive it. A decent high-current amplifier will get them moving with authority. Frequency response runs from 24Hz to 45kHz. That covers the bottom octave of a pipe organ and goes past the limits of human hearing on the top end.
Nominal impedance is 4 ohms, which is worth knowing before you pair these with a receiver that struggles below 8. The crossover network splits the signal at 60Hz, 150Hz, and 10kHz. It's a four-way design, so each driver only handles the range it does best.
Key Features
Four 12-Inch Side-Firing Woofers Per Cabinet
The bass section of each IRSV cabinet uses four 12-inch woofers in a sealed enclosure. They are side-firing, so the low frequencies radiate perpendicular to the listener and rely on room boundaries to reinforce and spread the energy. In practice, this produces bass that pressurizes a room rather than just pointing at it. The sealed loading keeps the woofers tight and controlled. There is no port noise and no boom, just deep extension down to that 24Hz figure.
Separate Midrange and Tweeter Sub-Enclosure
Infinity housed the midrange and tweeter in their own sealed sub-enclosure inside the main cabinet. This keeps the bass drivers' back-pressure from modulating the upper frequencies, a problem that plagues lesser single-cabinet designs. The midrange stays clear and articulate even when the woofers are working hard.
EMIT Tweeter
The top end is handled by a single EMIT - Electromagnetic Induction Tweeter - per cabinet. The EMIT's low mass gives it exceptional transient response, and its output extends to the 45kHz upper limit of the system's frequency response. It still sounds modern decades later, and it's one of the reasons these speakers fetch serious money on the used market.
The Watkins Woofer Question
A persistent claim online says the IRSV used a Watkins woofer with dual voice coils. Audio (December 1992, p.83) described the IRSV as "the 7½ foot, $60,000 Infinity Reference Standard V" in an advertisement, but the Watkins woofer claim does not appear in any of the documentation we've verified. The fact sheet lists four 12-inch woofers per cabinet with no mention of dual voice coils or Watkins branding. Take the internet lore with a grain of salt.
Historical Context
The IRSV is a floorstanding loudspeaker from the Infinity IRS series, the company's flagship line. According to Stereophile, the series was conceived as "the ultimate statement in loudspeaker design." The system was voiced by the late Carry Christie, a name that comes up repeatedly in discussions of Infinity's best work from this period.
Infinity's own advertising pitched the IRSV squarely at "music purists with an unlimited budget," as Audio (December 1992, p.83) reported. The price was $60,000 in 1992 dollars.
The sources disagree on the driver count. Audio Database lists nine drivers per cabinet: four 12-inch woofers, two 12-inch midbass drivers, two 6-inch midrange drivers, and one EMIT tweeter. Hi-Fi Classic, however, describes the IRSV as "a 4-way, 5-driver loudspeaker system." The difference likely depends on whether you count individual drivers or driver groups. Collectors should be aware that published figures vary.
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