Help power pair of Infinity Kappa 9's please

A good solid state amp that is basically an arc welder will work fine with your speakers. however, you have exceeded your budget. Which is not a problem if you are not in a hurry. do one thing at a time. Don't rush. Mark Levinson 23, 23.5, 20.6, etc. Big Thresholds, Krells, will work fine. you just have to determine which amp's sound you like. Also, if your CD player has a volume control, you don't need a pre-amp at this time and can get one later and stay within your budget. Upgrades should always come one at a time. So, lets say your CD player has volume control, then you only need the amp as long as you like the DAC from your CD player, which in my opinion, typically are not very good because the power supplies are very bad in most CD players. As long as speaker placement isn't a problem, the room size of 12 x 12 isn't a deal breaker. Then, later get a decent DAC and use your CD player as a transport. That will make a huge difference in sound. "if" your CD transport is decent.

my opinion, small steps. one upgrade at a time. make friends with the sound of the equipment before upgrading.

enjoy

The only amp that I can think of that can drive them well, I don't think will sound particularly good with the Kappa 9's. That is an old Sumo Andromeda. The Original, Not the II or III. I've driven that very loudly years ago into 3 ohms without issue. It is a bit dry in the mid range and High end. I doubt your emits will like it.

I have the Kappa 9's. They're now in permanent storage in my attic, waiting for the day that I get the urge to rebuild them just for fun's sake.

Those things were God awful on amps. As many have said, the efficiency is way off what you posted. 88-90 dB/w/m, tops. They're not terribly efficient. The impedance load is absolutely brutal. It actually will drop to less than one ohm at certain points. It will eat almost any amp for lunch and spit out the burnt pieces.

Forget tubes, unless perhaps you look at the McAlister Audio OTL-195 amps. They drive difficult loads well, but I doubt they've tried to drive a less than one ohm load. Besides, those will set you back almost 9K.

I bi-amped them with an Aragon 2004 MkII for the low end, and an Audio Research D-130 for the top end. It was a hopeless waste of time and money. The Aragon, a pretty sturdy amp, would blow fuses within 20 minutes. The AR would shut down the protection circuitry about 10 minutes in. Forget it.

Those speakers will simply destroy the Sumo Andromeda amplifier. They'll blow it to pieces in no time flat. Same with Adcom. I used a pair of Adcoms to bi-amp them with before the Aragon-AR combo. The Adcoms couldn't last five minutes before tossing in the towel. The Macs are a maybe. You willing to spend that kind of cash on "maybe?"

I'd say some huge Krells are about your only hope. Good luck finding them for 2500......

Bottom line, as a previous owner of those monstrosities, I agree with what a lot of people have said. Sell them, and get a more efficient speaker. It's a classic case of "size does not matter." They're huge and impressive looking, but when it comes to playing music, they're just brutes.

You'll have a hard time getting 2K for them....classic or not. Anyone in the know about those speakers isn't paying that kind of money for them.

Don't mean to rain on your parade, but purchasing those speakers was perhaps the dumbest move I ever made with audio equipment, and I've made many dumb moves. They're as close to impossible load to drive as was ever created.

You can party louder and harder with more efficient speakers, as well as getting better sound. Sell the Kappas. You'll be forever happier for it. I have speakers with low powered SET amplifiers that get louder than the Kappas ever would, and I don't have to fret about blowing my amplifiers into the next millenium.

Don't want to be a jerk here with only negative comments. Sorry. You want good, very loud sound for 2500 bucks or thereabouts? Look at the Zu Soul for around 1800 bucks/pair, and pair it with a Peachtree Nova integrated amp for about a grand. Sell the Kappas for about 1200, and now you've got a about a Grover left for your used source components. That combo will play MUCH louder than the Kappas, even with vertical bi-amping of Krell MDA 300's (which you'll never find for 2500 dollars). The Zu is a genuine 101 dB/w/m efficient speaker, so it will blister your ears with a SPL of 120 dB with just over 130 wpc using a ss amp rated at 100 wpc into an 8 ohm load. I think the Nova is rated at 100 wpc. Furthermore, the Nova is an integrated amplifier, so your need to buy a premap just vanished as well. That combination, the Nova with the Soul, garnered some very nice comments at some big audio shows. You'd need about 1000 wpc to reach the same SPL using the Kappas. That's not a joke figure- it's being generous using a base sensitivity of 90 dB/w/m for the Kappas. Just a thought.

Alright, Alright, I'm gonna listen to you guys (not attempt to power these Kappa 9's for $2500), no matter how harsh you make it seem. But I already have a home theater system consisting of some infinity's and JBL's and a decent Denon amplifier so I'm not gonna spend my budget on new audio equipment. I actually inherited the Kappa's about 7 years ago so they can stay in storage for some more time until I'm out of school when I'll get them running and get back on here and brag about how incredible they sound. Until then thanks for your discouragement, j/k =D