Enough already! I could spend an awful lot of time on a nuts and bolts description of every facility and input option that the Mozart Infinity offers. I could go into detail about how those various functions are executed. I could endlessly compare the relative merits of streamed as opposed to optical digital media. It’s easy (and safer) to simply look at the comprehensive specs on the Vienna Acoustics website (https://www.vienna-acoustics.com/speakers/mozart-infinity/). For me to simply trot out those specs would be tantamount to missing the whole point of this product. The Mozart Infinity sings. It doesn’t just play music; it plays great music! This is a genuinely engaging, sit back and be entertained, honest-to-God high-fidelity audio system – and I love it!
Cosi Fan Tutti? – no, they do it all!
The first and arguably the most significant thing about the Mozart Infinity is its naturally engaging and musically satisfying nature. It’s a quality that has been fully apparent throughout the review, but perhaps the most impressive demonstration dates back to the speakers’ launch at the Munich show. Set up in a(n improbably) large, airy and well-lit space, they delivered a relaxed and relaxing performance, whatever was played. Any show generates a small number of must hear products and as soon as I heard the Infinities they shot straight to the top of that short (and generally extremely expensive) list. As a result I found myself continually dragging friends and acquaintances round to the VA room where, reluctant or not, they were soon seduced. But in one sense that wasn’t what really impressed. With repeated visits, I got to follow a lot of people into that room and, without exception, as they stepped through the door you could SEE them visibly relax: their shoulders dropped as they let out a long breath and the hassles and irritations of a crowded and often sonically challenging show just fell away. That might seem like a strange observation, but not only was it so obvious that I started pointing it out to the people accompanying me, I’ve never, ever seen this happen before.
Living with the Mozart Infinities is as easy and pleasurable as that suggests. Easy to install, the speakers sound good from the get go, but a bit of attention paid to positioning and set up (and in difficult situations, their own DSP settings) will elevate the performance significantly. The review pair were fitted with VA’s excellent out-riggers and spikes, which made attitude adjustments simplicity itself. You can read more about those here – https://gy8.eu/blog/installation-notes-5/.
As a bare minimum, position the speakers, get them stable and vertical, play with toe-in and then re-check the level. The bottom end goes deep enough to make small fore and aft adjustments musically significant, but as with other VA speakers, it’s height off the floor that is the final deciding factor when it comes to really dialling them in: too low and the sound gets overly warm, the soundstage and individual instruments gaining weight and dimensionality at the expense of musical and rhythmic agility; too high and the speakers start to sound thin and colourless. Of course, these judgements are relative. It’s hard to imagine a VA speaker ever really sounding ‘thin’, but work through the height range – easy given the design of the hand-adjusted spikes – and you’ll hear exactly what I’m talking about. Get the height and attitude nailed (you’ll want to look at rake angle too, if your sofa is fashionably low) and the sound comes alive with a sense of vitality, musical and rhythmic coherence, presence and energy. Pace is never pushy – unless the piece demands it – but importantly, the speakers allow the music to slow when it chooses, without ever becoming sluggish. All of which leads to the key characteristic that allows the Infinities not just to perform, but to perform so far above both expectations and their price point.
