Infinity Kappa 9's sound terrible...HELP

The Kappa 8's are very good, but they are not in the same league with the Kappa 9....no contest. The Kappa 8's are much easier to drive. The bass, highs, midrange and dynamics of the Kappa 9 completely overwhelm the Kappa 8 if the rest of your system is up to it.

To get the best out of the Kappa 9's, you need to biamp them and have amps that are stable down to one ohm. I currently own the the Kappas 7,8 and 9, the Infinity Rennaisance 90 and the Infinity IRS Betas. I own four sets of of the Kappa 9 and will never sell them.

If you don't feed them lots of kickass power, they simply won't respond. Either something was already wrong with the speakers when you bought them or your amp doesn't have the testicular fortitude to get the job done.

I've biamped the Kappa 9 with two pair of Carver Silver 9t monoblocs (900 wpc @ 4 ohms) and they sounded great. I used a pair of Sunfire Signature amps (1200 wpc @4 ohms) to biamp them and they sounded great....and I've used two pair of Pass Labs X-600 monoblocs to power them and they sounded excellent. I used Audio Research LS-10, Reference 1, Ref 2 mk2 and Reference 3 preamps in front of them and the Kappa 9's sang like beautifully.

There is nothing wrong with the Kappa 9

Below are some links to Audiogon testimonials about how good the Kappa 9 sound to very satisfied owners.

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1171199763&read&keyw&zzkappa=9

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?aamps&1140795879&read&keyw&zzkappa=9

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1103047552&read&keyw&zzkappa=9

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1060960471&read&keyw&zzkappa=9

http://forum.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/fr.pl?cspkr&1142533363&read&keyw&zzkappa=9

Also.......you need a big room for Kappa 9. For small to medium rooms they are overkill.

Hello

Mitch4t is correct, I had a set of Kappa 8's and then 9's years ago. I ran the 8's with Bryston 3b's bi-amped and the sounded great. Then I upgraded to the Kappa 9's with thies amp's and the speakers did not preform at all, they sounded withheld and a harsh top end. I did not know what was wrong with them, I heard and read that they need lots of power so I bought a pair of Bryston 4bST's and the speakers came to life, I had a large living room at the time so I also had to play with the positioning as well. they where definitely a superior speaker over the Kappa 8's. Then I bought a pair of Infinity Reference RS1b's and found out the same way that I had to upgrade the power again.
Before I sold my Kappa 9's I tried my Conrad Johnson Preimer 5's(200/ch-85lbs each)mono block tube amp's on the top end and my Perreaux 5150b (500/ch@8ohms-1000@4ohms-140lbs) on the bottom end, their was a big difference again in the sound from the Bryston 4bST's. The bass was aw-some out of them, the mid was smooth and the top was clear and sweet. So of course i demoed the 9's with the big amps to sell them.

I have found with these big infinity speakers, that you have to have a big rooms, position them away from the corners and form the back walls. You have to spend money on high power big current amp's, other wise you will not get the benefit's out of them.

Good luck and have fun with them,
Darin
Darin

If the crossover netwok is in great condition you should notice that arnie designs all loudspeaker with tube eletronics. Most customers were satisfied when they used a tube amp

Hi All,

so so I have fallen almost all the way down the Infinity Kappa rabbit hole...  I am now the proud owner of Infinity Kappa 7's, 8's and 9's.  I started at 7, jumped to 9 and have kinda landed on 8.  7's do a bit better imaging as they are more simple 3-way, 8's are pretty close on the imaging but feel more effortless, airy, inviting. The Kappa 9's suck!  Honest.  I am using a Carver Sunfire Signature which I believe is 625watts x 2 into 8ohms and should be more than enough but I've also have used in bi-amp configuration a Behringer Europower Ep4000 which I believe is 2000watts x 2 into 2ohms (class H) and a Crown XLS1500 (class D) 775watts x 2 into 2ohms. Using this in a bi-amp configuration I can almost get the 9's to sound reasonable, but not good.  In general the 9's are all midrange (polydome mostly) and nothing else? Can anyone tell me what the steps are for troubleshooting the 9's?

The previous owner had the polydomes recovered with that silly transparent silicone material and I have since dropped in the 4ohm Western Speaker replacements and have swapped in some of my Millersound polydomes. Both of which are way better than the silicone Polydomes. The previous owner also refoamed the woofers himself.

So why am I getting no bass and all midrange? Am I correct that I am using enough amp to drive these?

...I just don't understand why the 9's sound so much worse than the 8's and 7's. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!