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Infinity Kappa 8's


What to do? My infinity Kappa 8's keeps eating amps for lunch.The 1st failure was with a Yamaha 200 watt per channel model P2200. Amp went black, I replaced the main fuses on the back of amp, it powered-up with new same rating fuses and then amp died again for good.Tryed another P2200 fuse blew again. I've decided not to try the amp again, for fear of completely damaging my last P2200. This is getting expensive! I'm not cranking the volume at full tilt or pushing the bass tone control past 12 o'clock. The speaker can be Bi-amped, but I've just used a single robust P2200 on them. The speaker wire uses large 1/4 inch bananna connectors, so no bare wires can not touch positive to ground on the back of the amp or speakers and the 4 binding posts on the speakers flat metal plates to connect the two binding posts together for single amp operation. Could a faulty cross-over wreak this havoc upon me. Any helpful suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
audiosaurus
beemer
444 posts
 
Having owned Infinity since the early 70's, and Kappa 9's were here for a while I can tell you what you need to do.
You won't like it but you need to step up to an amp capable of handling a 2 ohm load, one with high current capability. Me, I like levinson, on my current pair of RS1b's, I'm using a vintage ML3 levinson on the woofers, no problem.

I would suggest Classe, older Krell product, Levinson 333 or 336. Do not even think of anything under 200W/channel.

Step up to the plate and give the Kappas what they want. Until you do, you will continue to have problems.

Best,

Paul :-)
ngjockey
1,042 posts
 
Those speakers drop down to just under 2 ohms at 90 Hz. The Yamaha might be seeing that as a short. I have tried several amps on Kappa 8's and never had that problem. The Kappa 9's were notorious amp killers in their day as they dropped below 1 ohm. Yamaha did make some very good amps at some times and I had the B-1's, for a while, in a biamp setup with the Kappa 8's. The bulk of Yamaha gear is commercial quality.

If you have a multimeter, you can test for the speaker terminals for a short using the DC ohms. Zero would be bad. Four ohms would be nominal. If that checks out, it will be time to decide if you need a amp that can drive 2 ohms or different speakers.
hiend2's avatar
hiend2
376 posts
 
Speakers are drawing too much current. Krell Ksa200,ksa250,ksa300 ect will drive the #$%^ out of them and not even cough.
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