Infinity P162 Build Quality

The Infinity Primus P162 Bookshelf speakers have been selling like hotcakes at the Audioholics store - that's just a fact. They've got a lot of buzz right now and people on audio forums all over the net are excited about them. It doesn't hurt that they've also been on a bit of sale at just under $200 a pair. That's got a lot of people excited about value as well. The store guys (the editorial staff of Audioholics doesn't actually run the store contrary to popular belief) approached me about a review of these speakers. I'm thinking they don't actually read my reviews or they'd know that I'm a no-holds-barred kind of guy who is not easily swayed by public opinion or mass hysteria. I'm going to review these speakers as I would any other. That's what my readers expect and that's what I'm going to give them.

Build Quality

As you'd expect from a company like Infinity, the Primus P162s came well packed in custom boxes with cardboard tops and bottoms with foam edges glued to them. This is a very efficient method of packaging which provides the maximum protection with the least amount of foam. It also ensures that the foam doesn't move or slip during handling keeping the speaker very well isolated from outside damage.

The speakers themselves are rather large for this price point (around $320 a pair) at over a foot tall and nearly a foot deep. The black wood-grain vinyl wrap is on par with the quality of other offerings at this price point - which to say is that it is barely passable. The edges had a tendency to peel up at the slightest provocation. The front of the speaker sports a rounded baffle and a grey plastic faceplate. The drivers (one .75" tweeter and a 6.5" woofer) are also grey. The speaker is front ported just below and to the left of the woofer. The logo is on the lower right of the faceplate and at the bottom center of the grill.

The grill is interesting in that it wraps up around the rounded enclosure at the top. This gives the speaker a sort of "swept back" look though it is really just a rectangular box. With the grill off, the grey faceplate seems to float in the center of the enclosure. The grill attached VERY firmly on plastic posts. Unlike other grills I've experienced, this one feels sturdy and stable with plenty of molded plastic reinforcement. The posts, while plastic, are thick and strong so that even though you have to fight a bit to get the grill off (a good thing for all of us with kids), you don't feel like you are likely to break anything.

The back of the speaker shows a bit of overlap of the walls, top, and bottom of the speakers with the back panel. This is actually quite common and something I've seen in higher dollar speakers like the DALI LECTOR 8s and Krix Phoenix. It isn't my favorite design choice but it is on the back so it really doesn't matter. There is a single pair of 5-way binding posts with plastic caps in a black plastic housing on the back of the speaker as well.

The speakers arrived with a generalized manual for the entire Primus line, a paper specifying a limited 3/5 year warranty, and rubber feet to stick to the bottom for shelf mounting. If you have stands, I HIGHLY recommend you NOT place the rubber feet on the speaker and instead on the top of the stand (many stands come with rubber pads for the tops these days). This eliminates any problems you may have with placement on top of the stand in trying to make contact with the pads on the bottom of the speaker. Word of note, the warranty is transferable between owners which is nice for those that want to try the P162s out but think they may sell them later down the road.

Taking the speakers apart, I quickly noted that the woofers were shielded. A quick test of placing the speaker up to my ancient CRT monitor confirmed that the shielding was working effectively. The cabinet is about 5/8" thick MDF (it's a bit hard to tell with the plastic face plate - may be as thin as 1/2"). The port is very short but flared slightly on both ends. The cabinet has a bit of acoustical material around the top portion of the box (around the tweeter) but only on the side wall opposite the port on the bottom portion. There is one brace across the middle of the cabinet. The knock test doesn't sound so hot with these speakers with a bit of a ring everywhere including where the brace is located.

The woofers have stamped baskets and the tweeter is mounted to a plastic housing. Usually, tweeters and woofers are made out of different materials but with the P162s, they are both constructed out of Metal Matrix Diaphragm (MMD) material. This is essentially aluminum that has been anodized on both sides. Usually, we'd expect tweeters (at least) to be made out of something harder like titanium or aluminum but Infinity claims that MMD "…is 3 times as rigid as titanium, and 85 times more rigid than felted paper. This unique design is capable of eliminating unwanted tonal resonances in the signal path. The end result is a full, clear, tight reproduction of low and high frequencies." At the very least, if your feng shui is all about matching, you've found a speaker with drivers that finally do. For me, the sort of dull grey looks more like plastic than metal which inspires a feeling of cost cutting rather than cutting edge technology. If I were Infinity, I'd research some ways to make MMD look more like metal and less like an old iPod case. The crossover is a rather elaborate network consisting of one air core inductor, a few iron core ones and electrolytic caps as cost saving measures. Without seeing a schematic, I’d guesstimate Infinity employed 2nd order crossovers on the woofer and tweeter and based on the smooth impedance plot below, also incorporated a zobel network or two. It is obvious some good thought went into this crossover unlike most speakers in this price range that simply slap on a series cap on the tweeter and run the woofer full range.