Help power pair of Infinity Kappa 9's please


Hi all!
I have a pair of Infinity Kappa 9's:
Nominal Impedance: 4 to 6 ohm
Power Rating: 60-340 watts RMS
Efficiency: 102 dB SPL @1 watt, 1 meter
Crossover Frequencies: 80Hz, 800Hz, 4500Hz
Frequency Response: 29Hz-45kHz +/-3dB
Physical Attributes:
1x - SEMIT Supertweeter
1x - EMIT Tweeter
1x - 3" Edgewound Voice Coil Polydome Midrange Driver
1x - 5" Polypropylene/graphite Diaphram Polygraph
2x - 12" Cast Frame , L/C Tuned Woofers
Dimensions: 59.5"H x 21.5"W" x 8"D

My room is 12'x12', I have $2500 budget and would like to play music off my computer. I need amp(s), a preamp, and a DAC i guess (is the DAC necessary at my low of a budget range?). I know my budget is low so I will be shopping for very used/old equipment. If anyone has any experience, suggestions, or words of wisdom, they would be very much so appreciated.
Thanks,
JT
jtiesel2

Showing 4 responses by rrog

This speaker is way too big for your room. There is an error in your specs. The efficiency is not 102db. It is more like 88db, but the Kappa 9 has a volume threshold and refuses to play loud with most amplifiers. Besides that it is a difficult load for amplifiers. Your budget of $2500 will most likely be spent on a used Krell or Levinson amplifier in an effort to drive your Kappa 9 speakers properly.

If you like Infinity speakers I recommend you sell the Kappa 9 and buy a much smaller Infinity speaker more suited to the size of your room and less finicky about electronics and you will have much better sound.
Infinity Kappa 9 is not 102db. Not even close. The Technical Manual has a misprint.
If you like to party and play your music loud sell your Kappa 9s and buy Klipsch speakers.
The Kappa 9 has been known to cause grief to many audiophiles over the years since its introduction. It is, what I consider, a poorly designed speaker because of the difficult load it presents to the amplifier. Even if you find an amplifier to deal with the load, which would be very expensive, the amplifier's sound will be degraded due to the speaker's load.

It makes more sense to design a speaker with a reasonable sensitivity and an amplifier friendly load. This type of speaker design will always produce better overall sound.

Paul Klipsch was often quoted saying "What this country needs is a really good 5 watt amplifier." What would a really good 5 watt amplifier do for an Infinity Kappa 9?