Infinity Overture 1
A compact bookshelf with a hidden powered woofer and a price tag that put it firmly in serious-speaker territory.
Overview
The Overture 1 is the smallest member of Infinity's Compositions Overture line. Audio (February 1998, p.49) reported a list price of $1,349 per pair. That's a lot for a speaker this size, and the reason is inside. Like its bigger siblings, the Overture 1 is self-powered, with a built-in woofer amplifier driving an 8-inch cone woofer. The driver is mounted on one side of the cabinet - or on the top, if the speaker is laid over. The enclosure measures 12½ x 12½ x 5¾ inches. It's injection-molded plastic and, by the reviewer's account, very rigid.
The rest of the drivers follow the Overture 3's playbook. Two 4-inch cone midranges flank a 1-inch dome tweeter in a D'Appolito arrangement. The crossover points are 300 Hz from woofer to midrange and 3 kHz from midrange to tweeter. The built-in woofer amp reportedly delivers half the power of the one in the Overture 3. The rear panel has a bass level control, with a center detent on this model, plus a pair of binding posts, a fuse, an on/standby indicator and a permanently attached power cord. A perforated metal grille covers the woofer. The front grille is a cloth-covered plastic frame.
Measured performance is where the Overture 1 earns its keep. Audio (February 1998, p.49) ran response curves with the grille off and found the mid-position bass curve very flat and smooth — significantly smoother than the Overture 3's, staying within a tight 3-dB window from 50 Hz to 20 kHz. The same testing put the smaller speaker only 3 dB lower at 40 Hz than at 100 Hz and 10 dB down at 26 Hz, and averaged sensitivity from 250 Hz to 4 kHz came in at 89.6 dB, which the reviewer noted was 2.4 dB below Infinity's own rating. The bass control's adjustment range is symmetrical at ±6 dB.
For home theater, the Overture 1s were used as surround channels flanking the listening position and aimed at the wall behind. Audio (February 1998, p.51) reported that they blended very well with the larger Overture 3 mains and the CC-3 center, with closely matched spectral balance and tonality across the three models. Centered vocals came across as articulate, and effects carried the required dynamics. The reviewer's verdict was that the Overture 1 sounded and looked very good and merited serious consideration. The caveat was overload behavior. For the whole line, the limit was the internal amplifier reaching its limit and clipping, not the woofer giving up gracefully.
The Overture 1 is an unusual piece: a compact bookshelf with an active bass section and a molded-plastic cabinet built to a standard the reviewer felt showed real engineering investment. The permanently attached power cord and the on-board amp mean these are not passive drop-ins. They need AC at the listening position. On a used pair, check the rear-panel fuse and level controls first. At the original $1,349 a pair, the Overture 1 was never a budget speaker.
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