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Infinity Kappa 9 S EMIT not functioning or Hearing Loss?

First post after lurking for a couple years, so please be gentle.

I recently acquired a set of Kappa 9s. I know, I know, "amp killers," "poor design," etc. I'm having fun with them for now, so I'm willfully overlooking that part. Currently bi-amped with Audio Research Dual 75 running the top end. A more "budget" 2 channel solid state amp I pillaged from my home theater setup is temporarily running the bottom end with the bass extension of the 9s switched to off.

Question. Is it possible the frequency range of the S EMIT up top is out of my hearing range? I play test tones and the top of my range is somewhere between the 14kHz and 15kHz, but I don't think it's coming from them, rather the EMIT below. This is the case with the S EMIT on BOTH speakers. 

I used my 8 year old as a test subject and he said he can definitely hear sound emanating from the top S EMIT, starting around 19kHz. Being the skeptic I am, can I trust that he's hearing from the S EMIT and not the EMIT below?

I thought the S EMITs were crossed over around 10kHz, so I should hear something from them. I'm really far from a technical wizard or electrical expert. Physically digging into and testing crossovers and whatnot is a bit over my head.

There's another forum that has seems to have a more Infinity focused following, but I can't seem to create an account or search the site for whatever reason, so I'm turning to the experts here.

Richard

P.S. I've learned SO MUCH from you all, reading most of the top discussions delivered to my inbox every night for the last 2+ years.  

 

 

richardt9000

Showing 2 responses by waytoomuchstuff

waytoomuchstuff's avatar
waytoomuchstuff
1,002 posts
 

fyi- It’s a cheap (almost) free process to measure a speaker’s frequency response to see if something is "broken". RTA apps are free (or cheap) for phone/tablet and you can burn test tones (including pink noise) onto a CD Rom (useful) only if you have a CD player).

Play pink noise from your player and place the microphone about 3’ away from each speaker. In the case of tweeters, make sure the mic is placed on axis with the tweeter in that the sounds are pretty directional. This will tell you right away if a chunk of the signal is missing, or attenuated. If you don't have a CD player, and have a spare phone/tablet you can use it as a source. Just use a direct connection to the inputs.

There is also a "no desoldering needed" method to see if you have a bad driver vs crossover issues.

waytoomuchstuff's avatar
waytoomuchstuff
1,002 posts
 

@ervikingo

Keep in mind that this is a very course troubleshooting method that detects "broken" stuff and not items that are working, but not quite up to speed.

Audio signals to the speakers are AC. So, a basic multimeter will measure the audio signal. If you have a driver that is "quiet" there should be a presence of AC at the driver terminals iF the signal is arriving from the crossover. Just put any static signal (pink noise, or test tone) at the speakers input terminals and you should have some value there. If not, you most likely have a problem upstream somewhere. If this is the case, you can also inject the signal from a test amp (small amp/receivers work well for this) and inject signal directly to the raw driver as an additional test. Make sure the speaker is disconnected from your main amp. In the case of a tweeter, you may want to connect a capacitor (4-7uF) inline just to be safe. If the raw driver plays, you have a working driver, not necessarily a optimum driver, but a working driver.

I’m not an engineer, but have used this method for some time.

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