Speaker question

[savatage1973]

Purely for academic discussion, here's the Infinity Kappa 9 impedance curve (found on the web, hopefully accurate).

Yes, the graph you posted is indeed accurate, and yes, they do drop below 1 ohm at two points (as you mentioned)--hence their reputation as "amp killers". Most amps will pretty much just go into protection if you touch the volume knob, but I know (from experience) that the Aragons will not--and I drove them pretty hard on the Kappa 9's. They are now serving duty on a pair of Magnepan 3.6R's--another rather "difficult" speaker, but nothing like the Infinity's.

 

[savatage1973]

His favorite amp guy of all time is Nelson Pass.

That is interesting, but not really surprising. I totally respect Pass and his designs, but I shy away from his refusal to incorporate protection circuitry.

 

[vintage 5.0]

I did not know he did that. Do you mean no fuses and things to help protect the amplifier.

 

[Imprecise]

I did not know he did that. Do you mean no fuses and things to help protect the amplifier.

There is a school of thought that says protection circuitry etc. degrades the signal. There is another school of thought that says that a short circuit in a speaker or speaker cable can destroy an unprotected amplifier. Or start a fire if the power continues to be supplied.

 

[savatage1973]

I did not know he did that. Do you mean no fuses and things to help protect the amplifier.

No, the amps do have UL approved fuses for power protection, but there are no speaker protection circuits/relays. If a single cap fails in the amp, you are dumping full DC rail voltage to the speakers--so kiss them good-bye as well. Very similar to a lot of the older Adcoms (AdBombs)--single cap fails and you get ~76V DC out the speaker terminal.

I understand and appreciate his philosophy of "less is more" in the signal path, but a product that can take out an entire system with a small failure is just not so appealing.

 

[vintage 5.0]

That sounds bad I would not want to loose a set of speakers. Thanks that is good info to know.

 

[savatage1973]

That sounds bad I would not want to loose a set of speakers. Thanks that is good info to know.

Stick with your Aragon, or if you have the opportunity and go Krell--Dan D'Agostino is my "designer of choice" for beefy amps. I also personally know Bob Carver--his designs are "innovative"--he brought high power at a cheap price to the masses and always incorporated some kind of "gimmik" to the table with each amp/preamp/cdp.

Good luck on your journey!