# Infinity Kappa 100.9



## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

I purchased two Infinity Kappa 100.9W's mostly because I scored them next to new for over half off their price on Amazon.com. Apparently, according to scant online reviews, these are pretty good. And the gold color matches my Chevy logo on my truck, so that's like 15 hp right there.

Currently I have a JL Stealthbox with a W3 in it. After speaking with JL, I'll be sending in my Stealthbox (which flexes a lot on the top) for inspection. Perhaps that's why I'm not liking the JL W3 much. In the mean time, I have a compartmented downfire box that'll fit under my rear seats in my truck and I'm going to install one of these Infinity 100.9W's and run it with 350 watts. Once I get my Stealthbox back (probably not for a while), I'll see if I can drop the 100.9W in there for a more apples-to-apples comparison.

But for now, tomorrow I'm going to drop this in and give it some break-in time and report. I'll keep this updated as I go along - this might turn out to be a JL W3 vs. Infinity Kappa 100.9W thread if I find the time to make that happen.

All of this to occur in a '11 Silverado Extended Cab.

For now, some photos of the subwoofer and the spec sheet.


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## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

Initial Impressions:
The gold color is... _very gold_. If the sun were to hit it just right, I'd bet I'd get a glare from it. Build quality-wise it's up there. I saw no concerning elements but admittedly I don't always know what I'm looking for. I do not like the Infinity logo - it's just a bit cheap looking to me - kind if like when a car dealer puts their logo under the OEM nameplate of a car... it's just not right to me. But whatever. I do quite like the mounting hole ring on this one, it sort of fades up from the box at a good angle. Pressing on the cone yields some difficult to inflict flex - it is rock rigid closer to the center. The magnet is wide making the sub look chubby, for lack of a better way of describing it.

But as I post more pictures ideally you can see all this for yourself so I won't go on.


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## edzyy (Aug 18, 2011)

great subs

They sound phenomenal IB


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## andrewmac (May 18, 2013)

That is what I have and they sound very nice.


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

My 12 inch 120.9w sounds good in a 1cu ft sealed box. Very tight sound, and can dig quite deep, you can feel it well with body if the music has good deep bass content. I like the color as well as the woven fiber glass cone, which is pretty unusual. The color I have looks more like silver. It does fade a little with time, there is less glare now, perhaps it's from the dust. The subwoofer is probably underrated as far as RMS power handling goes. I use a 600watt amp and crank it up when I feel like it. It did sound good even with 250watt amp.


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## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

Okay. Here are some initial impressions with the time I had to listen to it today. As you can see in the picture, it is installed in a chambered box - that is, one sealed .71 compartment per sub but only one subwoofer is installed (as I only have one right now). I have it installed behind the driver's seat and it's getting 350 watts at 2 ohm from the Kenwood XR-5s. I dare not give it the XR-1s that you see next to it. Obviously the setup is temporary - the amplifiers would never really be mounted to the box. If I decide to stick with a downfire box, I'll be putting these amps or different (smaller) amps into the jump seat storage compartment somehow (with a fan for airflow). I refuse to mount the amplifiers against the cabin wall... no access. Anywho, I digress...

Initial impression: it's not bad but I don't think it's a downfire box contender. Now, let's be very clear - this is not an apples to apples comparison (yet). My W3 is in a JL Stealthbox where my jump seat used to be. It's downfiring but it has plenty of area underneath it to spread out left and right across the floor This sealed box has wood blocking soundwaves except from the door side (plus it's farther away). So... take this initial review for what it is.

So...
- Reproduces the base guitar in Bruce Springsteen's 57 Channels (and Nothin' On) with more lifelike (at least I think so) sound than the W3. I play the bass myself (badly) and anyone who's played knows that a bass guitar can be heard making a bvv-vv-vv-vv-vv sound - as if you can hear the string whip back and forth. At least that's what every base guitar on my $1,200 Hughes and Kettner bass amp has to say when its played. I like this sound, personally, and I do know the pickups and sound reproduction have a lot to do with how especially the lowest string will sound, but my Ibanez is no cheapy. Point is, you have to listen for it but it's there. Anyway, the Kappa reproduces this more accurately than the W3, which itself sort of smooths that bass note to a simple bvvvvvvvvvvvvv. I don't know which reproduction is technically better, but I do prefer that of the Kappa's when it comes to the bass guitar. 
- Certainly attributable to conditions like the box and location, but the Kappa does do a marginally better job of reaching the lowest hz in Tyga's Rack City. The W3 sort of pooped out on the lowest notes on a very steep curve during this (if you can call it) song but the Kappa accomplishes them, albeit not with much vigor (as in the feel of the bass disappears but you can indeed hear it). 
- It seems to do a better job in some cases (what I'll call) "musically". That is to say, it plays the part of reproducing "none bass thump" sound a bit more like I would expect a very good midbass speaker to do - it just seems to slap the notes better. That is unfortunately degraded I think by the muffled sound when the box is downfiring. If you flip the box over, the Infinity sounds better in these conditions. For example, I used Gorillaz' Clint Eastwood and Chilie Peppers to play with the crossovers between my mid and sub stages and at all times the Infinity "blended" better with my JBLs. That is, it did not peak or overtly overtake the role I intend my JBL midbasses to take. Even when I went full pass into the subwoofer it didn't want to buzz me out of the car like the JL is capable of doing. And by buzz I don't mean rattle I just mean the high peak of the upper sub/lower midrange.
- Spec-wise, it is more efficient. I left all settings the same when I first installed it and it was noticeably and surprisingly quieter than the W3. Like... by a lot. I had to jump the gain up more than I'd prefer to get the bugger to match output but turned it back down to where I was with the JL to be safe (not having test tones or anything). Again conditions are different - afterall, the JL is right next to me. The Infinity has a lot of space to fill before I hear it. But even upfiring and/or placed directly behind my seat it doesn't make as much noise.

It's obviously not broken in yet so I'll keep playing with it and see what's up. Honestly, overall, I prefer the JL right now. I'm ultra curious what the infinity would sound like in the JL's box.


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## thomasluke (Jun 10, 2011)

One thing...The further you can get the sub away from you the better and location plays a big role in how a sub will sound in any given situation. 
It doesn't have to "fill up" cabin. The further away you can get the sub the better the lower octaves will sound. So that may have an issue with the JL.
I'm not taking up for it or trying to discredit your review at all. Just felt I needed to put that out there.


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## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

Yep - and a truck isn't the world's best platform for an audio system, I'd say. Good thoughts - someone chime in and help me test this thing in a proper way. I went to school for biological science originally - I get the scientific method, but these are speakers!


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## tnbubba (Mar 1, 2008)

measure the distortion and impulse responses..
I think you will be very very very surprised..

Ie home theater shack.com subwoofer measurements.. hint hint

i cant find the link but to save you the trouble the home brewed kappa was one of the lowest distortions they had EVER measured including servo subs.. and best the JL fathoms( ie JL7 by a wide margin)

http://www.hometheatershack.com/for...ived/978-diy-infinity-kappa-perfect-12-a.html

not the link but this is the old perfect..


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## rmoltis (Sep 4, 2012)

I have 2 of these subs in a ported enclosure with 2 seperate chambers.
After the dsp improved the wave decay the subs still sound tight punchy and musical even in the ported box.
They are connected to the kappa five class D amp 800w rms 1600 watt peak
So with the 2subs at 350rms each I have 100 extra rms to use for headroom.
They sound great. 
As far as sound quality versus price is concerned awesome sub.
I got mine for $125 each free shipping brand new. 
Would recommend to anyone going for a good system for a low investment.


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## meantaco (Apr 10, 2011)

updates?


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## sirbOOm (Jan 24, 2013)

Been working a lot and took it out of the truck for now. Possibly over this holiday weekend.


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## therapture (Jan 31, 2013)

ZAKOH said:


> My 12 inch 120.9w sounds good in a 1cu ft sealed box. Very tight sound, and can dig quite deep, you can feel it well with body if the music has good deep bass content. I like the color as well as the woven fiber glass cone, which is pretty unusual. The color I have looks more like silver. It does fade a little with time, there is less glare now, perhaps it's from the dust. The subwoofer is probably underrated as far as RMS power handling goes. I use a 600watt amp and crank it up when I feel like it. It did sound good even with 250watt amp.



With limited SQ experience (I didn't even think you EQ'ed subs haha), I can mirror your thoughts on this sub. I do have quite a bit larger box @1.45ft³ and stuffed, but it digs very deeply when asked to. It takes everything my V9can toss at it with ease, even under heavy loads when I am cranking my fave psytrance.

I find my setup sounds good with damn near everything...all I need is an adjustment of the sub level for each different genre of music.


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## ZAKOH (Nov 26, 2010)

What I really enjoy about this Kappa 120.9w is the transparent up front bass. All I have done is run auto eq on my Pioneer DEH-80PRS head unit, then adjust the time alignment, crossovers down to 80Hz, and subwoofer level (up a few dbs) by ear. This tune took about 10 minutes, and I haven't been touching any of subwoofer settings since then except for the subwoofer level. Regardless what I listen, whether it's pop or rap stuff on radio or some higher quality recordings, the bass transparency is phenomenally good, even with the half assed sound proofing job I have done in the trunk. Yeah, I haven't heard the true high end SQ subs like Morel Ultimo to judge how well it stacks up with them, but Adam at talkaudio.co.uk wrote in his review of Kappa 120.9w that it seems to give you a slice of Morel's SQ at a fraction of the price.


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## djPerfectTrip (Aug 15, 2013)

Those are some purty subs.


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