2. speakers
  3. 1172408871

Kappa 9. Parasound HCA-3500 WILL NOT power them

I purchased a pair of Infinity Kappa 9's a few weeks ago. I had the Infinity RS3A's and decided to sell them and upgrade to the Kappa's. I first hooked them to one of my Denon POA-2400 200wpc amps. Not enough power. So posted this problem on here and after some research I decided on the Parasound HCA-3500 350wpc dual mono amp. So I bought one from a real nice guy here on audiogon. I hooked it up last night and this thing won't power them! The amp gets real hot fast. It clips when turned up and the speakers sound like crap. We hooked up a pair of Infinity SM-152's to a Denon POA-1500 150wpc amp next to all this and it sounds better! Also, I think I blew one of the soft poly mid-ranges. The yellowish white rubber on the mids turned clear around the outter edges after listening to moderatly loud music. I'm really frusterated. Three thousand dollars later my stereo sounds way worse and I can't turn it up as loud as I used to. Does anyone have any advise? Could there be a short in the speakers? Why did my midrange blow? What amp should I buy now?
400bill

Showing 2 responses by cytocycle

cytocycle
1,043 posts
 
Actually the Kappa's are know to dip under 1ohms, and if I remember correctly Threshold, Krell, etc or any other Apogee style amp ( you could look at the H20 digital amps that apogee owners get) Adcom 565's were modified to remove the protection circuitry so they could dip under one 1ohms but sometimes they would fry.

I hope you have the amp out in the open? Don't put that Parasound in a rack and run it on your speakers it will thermal for sure.

a sub 1ohm load is a short technically that's why your amps will heat up so much, and when they run out of juice they send crap directly from the wall to your speakers and cook drivers.

If you want to rock you will need a serious amp that can play at 1ohm. Not many amps will do that, look for 1ohm rating on amps.
cytocycle
1,043 posts
 
Btstrg: Kappa's are know at for killing equipment like Apogee speakers... they present a basic short to amplifiers and hence require amplifiers that can produce huge current at .8ohm-1ohm loads.. Very few amplifiers can do this for a sustained period. When these lesser amps fail they will clip the speakers and damage the amplifier or the drivers.

Another solution would be to sell the infinity and pickup some other brand of hard rocking speakers like Von Schweikert VR 4 Gen III SE which can kill the bass at 16hz but are an easy 4ohm load. Get yourself a pair of Parasound JC1 monoblocks and be in Rock heaven! Some of the larger Legacy speakers can produce high SPL. Or get some subwoofers to agument a new set of speakers so you can remove some of that load off your main speakers.

I would recommend fixing and selling the speakers... it will be cheaper than paying for maintenance on old Krell, Threshold, Etc amplifiers. Otherwise check out the Apogee forums to see what amplifiers they are having good luck with at these short circuit loads.

I've owned the Music Reference RM200 and while yes it could hand my 2.78ohm dip on my Wilson Watt puppies it still would not be a solution for your speakers.. Wolcott's would be one of the few tube amps for you. Stick with solid state.
More to discover