Infinity Kappa 8's

As a long time Kappa 8 owner I can strongly recommend a simple bypass modification to the crossover that makes the speaker easy to drive and actually better with a more natural and full bass response. Simply unsolder or cut one side of the 12.5 mh coil from the crossover and solder in a shorting bridge across any one of the three 500uf (1500uf total) capacitors that are the first thing after the woofer binding posts. This takes the 'reactor' out of the woofer circuit. Now your amp will just see a common 4 ohm load and the bass will be very natural without the 'thump' where that cap and coil reactor stores a charge and throws it at the woofer while melting your amp in the process. I listened carefully using the famous Hok-Man Yim Poem of Chinese drum CD and it actually hits harder with better decay after the mod and the amp doesn't overheat in the slightest. The Kappa 8's punch that track harder than anything I have owned with just one 12 per side. If you want to keep protection against a DC short from your amp, ignore shorting out the (series) capacitor, but by all means get that evil 12.5 mh (shunt) coil out of the woofer circuit.

Has anybody else performed this mod?

I know this is an old thread but I hope to bump it. Regarding heyjay's modification. I am very interested in doing this. I have been clipping first, my Adcom 555, then a Carver M1.0t, and now I bought a new emotiva xpa-2 rated at 500 watts into 4 ohms. Listening to Jesse cooks Freefall album track #4 (Freefall) has sent even this sturdy amp into protection mode. That track has some very powerful lows (as do tracks 6 and 8)and I am at my budget limit trying to satisfy the needs for these kappa 8's. I am an electronics n00b and would ask if there would be any chance that heyjay could send me a PM with pics and all? Just a thought and thank you

I did the removal of the 12.5mH (but did not bypass the caps) mod last night on my Kappa 8's. My Rotel 1090 can go quite a bit higher now before going into protection and it runs cooler. I did not notice any significant changes in the bass response.

I plan to put in a SPCO switch that will provide normal mode, extended mode and allow the 12.5mH coil to be bypassed. This will let me compare the mod's sonics quickly rather than though the half our change over memory.

The stock Normal/Extended mode switch simply bypasses the 5 ohm, 50W resistor. It does not bypass the 12.5mH inductor which is always in circuit.

The previous owner of my Kappas did some work on the xovers and got ohms law wrong. He replaced the 5 ohm resistors and apparently couldn't find 50Wer's. He correctly put two 25Wer's in parallel to cover the 50 watts but incorrectly used 2.5 ohms think the value summed like the wattage. So the resistive value was 1.25 ohms rather than 5 which meant they were always running closer to extended mode. Explains why I didn't hear a difference and my amps still went into protection mode at the volume setting, regardless of the switch's setting.

Are these mods only for the kappa 8 or is it also beneficial with the kappa 8.1's?

I rand my 8.1's from a adcom gfa-5500.... Never a issue but not enough volume

Married a girl who had 5 parasound hca1500's (4 of which work) and tried a hca1500 in place of the adcom.... Much better everywhere. Then decided to bi amp the speakers and again a nice improvement. Each speaker gets 200-220w x 2..... But I have been debating on upgrading my amplifiers. Thinking of the wyredforsound sx1000 amp..... But I can't decide if it would be a improvement in sound going with a new class d amp..... And also being able to use Xlr inputs on the amp

Doing some house cleaning yesterday realized the foam surround on my kappa videos and kappa 5.1's is failing.... And suggestion on where to get new foam surrounds? Or but replacement speakers?

The Kappa 8.1's do not have the 12.5mH inductor and present a higher impedance load to the amp than the 8's.

I would keep the stock driver and just replace the surround. It's cheaper and you will maintain the designer's voicing and specs. There are bunch of folks that sell kits, with the foam glue and instructions...check eBay or goggle.