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first infinity Speaker?

I have just set a message to the seller of those slightly modded Kappas, lets see how it goes, and what my dad says about me borrowing the van for a day or so.
 
OmegaHyperio said:
Here are some interesting fact from the offering with the Scanspeak, the dude is a audiophile and could hear the hardening of the mid range (that he appears to also still have), so he changed the polydomes to the Scanspeak,
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If the original Polydomes are being included in the sale, you could make a decent amount of the purchase price back by reselling them, even if they're not in "like new" condition.
 
I just revived a mail from the dude, and sadly he no longer has the polydomes, but the speakers are still available. So, well i think i will still get them. Were / are the plydomes that good, or do you guys think the replacements are good enough.
 
OmegaHyperio said:
I have also come across something interesting: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Infinity-Po...97?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_77&hash=item2c9954e421

Apparently this can protect / fix polydomes, i kind of doubt it though. Any thoughts.
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I'm skeptical, there's been no mention of this on the Infinity forum. And while the seller does claim that the treatment lasts forever, is he going to be around in a few years? The packaging look amateurish. Possibly he's just rebottling Meguiars protectant spray. Seems extremely unlikely that he would have come up with his own formula and then market it only on eBay.
 
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swechsler said:
I'm skeptical, there's been no mention of this on the Infinity forum. And while the seller does claim that the treatment lasts forever, is he going to be around in a few years? The packaging look amateurish. Possibly he's just rebottling Meguiars protectant spray. Seems extremely unlikely that would have come up with his own formula and then market it only on eBay.
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That's basically what i was thinking as well (well except the maguiars protection spray part), but it would be interesting if it would work.
 
Also just noticed that the speakers i found were Kappa 8.2I (based on their looks) as mentioned above the kappa 8.1i has a front facing port, and the 8.2i a rear facing port. If this is incorrect then correct me. Either way i think i will get them, as that offer cant be beat in my opinion.

Edit: I checked the pics again, and it dose say 8.1i on the terminal block, so i assume that its really a 8.1i
 
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The pickup of those Kappa 8.1i is proving to be harder then intended, i fear i might need to let them go a search for new ones.

I still have the option of getting the infinity amp killers (kappa 9) but well i could not use them, as none of my current amps, vintage or contemporary can drive a 0.8 ohm load. Heck the only amps i know of that can do that are the Krell's, and then only the high power ones. (could be wrong about it)
BTW small comment about the kappa 9's cosmetic condition, the polydomes are white, the EMIT and S-EMIT seem to be fine, the Polygraphs seem fine, but the woofers have the known foam rot, i if i were to get them (which is unlikely) i would need to have them refomed.
 
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Update:
I have finally managed to nail down a pick up date and time for the Kappa 8.1, i originally wanted to pick them up today, but due to a absolutely ludicrous amount of work for my Mathematics and Physics study's at university i dont have time this weekend. But next one seems promising.

I will update when i hopefully have them.

Here a question / plan for powering these beasts: after trying my fathers RBL ND310 (i think) speakers with his denon receiver (65W i think) i did notice a absent of power from it, when just reproducing a single frequency range they sound very good, but when playing a normal song they sound closed. I assume the same will happen with the kappas, as they are even more power hungry then my fathers JBL's

So here is my plan, after the Optonica SM3636 (currently most powerful amp), I would be inclined to get 2 of the most powerful Optonicas ever made (only rivaled by the exceedingly rar SM9100) , the SM4646. I would then use one for the woofers, and one for the upper crossover. Both power-amps driven off the tone amp of the top one. Connected using a custom Y connector. This should give me about 200W RMS power for the kappas. Thats probably going to be enough to drive them. In the future i might look into creating a custom active crossover for the amps.
 
They are now mine...

So i went to pick up the Kappa 8.1i i told you guys about, and wow are they nice, even if the dome mid-range is not a poly dome anymore they still sound fantastic.

I am currently running them off of a non restored Optonica SM3636 (65W RMS into 4 ohm) and i must say, that thing powers them quite nicely. Granted not as nice as the Kenwood amp that was driving them at the sellers house, but still.

I have included a image of them in my room, were they will stay for a while.

These speakers are even higher resolution then i had thought, they are just awesome! All i need to do now is get more power into them (as well as restore the SM3636), but still they are awesome.

Thank you everyone here at AK who helped me decide on these wonderful speakers.

Also in the image are my old speakers, and my old amp (the top silver thing).

Also, i am using them with the covers on, i just removed them for this image.

Image:
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OmegaHyperio said:
So i went to pick up the Kappa 8.1i i told you guys about, and wow are they nice, even if the dome mid-range is not a poly dome anymore they still sound fantastic.
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What kind of midrange is it? It looks pretty similar to the polydome. Congrads on the speakers, they look great.
 
Sounds like the seller really knew what he was doing. Congratulations, a great purchase, I'm sure you'll get many years of pleasure out of these.
 
By the way, is that a Sony cassette deck in your system? The styling is similar (but nowhere near identical) to that of my old TCK-555, purchased 30 years ago, and probably not used for at least 15 years.
 
swechsler said:
By the way, is that a Sony cassette deck in your system? The styling is similar (but nowhere near identical) to that of my old TCK-555, purchased 30 years ago, and probably not used for at least 15 years.
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No that's a Denon Cassette Deck, its a model DR-M34HR. Its a nice Deck, but it needs a recap done. I occasionally use it, if i want the sound of Cassette over that of my DAC's. Sadly i do not own many cassettes, nor dose my father (who gave me the deck, interestingly it was given to him, by his father). But i recorded some 24-Bit audio tracks to some black sony cassettes i had from my days with a Commodore 64 (i learned to program on one).

The deck was originally part of my grandfathers hifi system (together with the Optonica Radio at the bottom, and a turntable that no longer exists, i also had the amp, but it got lost during a move) back in the 80's, after the CD came along my father got the cassette player, and used it until 2008 (well maybe like once a year, towards the end) that's when i got it. I then used it to archive some of my Audio books i only had on cassette, and now its part of my hifi system.
 
swechsler said:
Sounds like the seller really knew what he was doing. Congratulations, a great purchase, I'm sure you'll get many years of pleasure out of these.
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Indeed, and based on the fact that he had about 30 pairs of other speakers laying around, and knew about the audio karma forum id say he knew quite a bit. He also had some very nice 3 way speakers in his living room, they sounded very nice, but i liked the highs of the Kappas more. He was driving them threw a KT88 amp btw.

The speakers look basically new, there is very very little indication they are from the 90's. The surrounds on the woofer are in very good shape as well, so :banana:.

Now all i need is to restore the optonica amp, and then i will have a decent system, finally. Also interestingly enough the kappas sound better on my Optonica amp then they did on his Kenwood. But i do notice my optonica is not as powerful as his kenwood. But that might change sometime this year, since i intend to do Passive Bi-Amping with 2 Optonica SM4646 amps. That should be enough power i guess.

Here are the specs of the amps btw: RMS Power: 95W 4 ohm, Peak power 165W 4ohm. At least according to the vintage knob, and hifiengine.

I want to thank you again on your recommendation of these speakers, i am very happy with them.
 
OmegaHyperio said:
The speakers look basically new, there is very very little indication they are from the 90's. The surrounds on the woofer are in very good shape as well, so :banana:.
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Do they (the surrounds) look original? There's something about the foam on this particular woofer that's different from that of most others; if it deteriorates at all, it seems to take a lot longer. For example, I have two pairs of 6.1s, which are of the same vintage, and they both needed to be refoamed several years ago.
 
swechsler said:
Do they (the surrounds) look original? There's something about the foam on this particular woofer that's different from that of most others; if it deteriorates at all, it seems to take a lot longer. For example, I have two pairs of 6.1s, which are of the same vintage, and they both needed to be refoamed several years ago.
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Acording to the Seller they are the originals, i have included a image of the surrounds so you can look at them.

If they do need a refome i will send off the woofers to some professional refomer.
 

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If they are original surrounds I'd say their days are numbered. I would keep a close eye on them for any buzzing or distorting in case they're going out of alignment.
 
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