Infinity Kappa 600 Overview
It seems that nearly every recent review I've seen for an Infinity product laments the passing of the perceived glory days of Infinity under its founders: gone are the Infinity Reference Standards (IRS), their many reincarnations, and their offspring. Acknowledgement of what the current masters have accomplished is given almost begrudgingly. Under the guidance of the likes of Harmon International Industries Incorporated and Dr. Floyd Toole, who espouses a philosophy of simple design and good engineering, Infinity is perceived to have moved into the mainstream.
We should not forget what audio is about: the music. If esoteric design and unusual construction serve the music, then it is good. If less esoteric design and more mundane construction serve the music, this is also good, perhaps better. Good engineering is about satisfying design goals with the resources available; economics are inherent. A professor I once had said that to cross a chasm, you could fill it rather than build a bridge, but that is not good engineering; it is not cost effective. Diminishing returns is an economic truth that has a powerful influence over the quest for perfection in design. If a product can be engineered with ninety percent of the performance at fifty percent of the cost, that is good engineering; simple designs to solve complex problems are the most elegant and complexity for its own sake is unnecessary.
We should also not forget that even in those glory days, Infinity's designs always ran the full gamut from esoteric to mainstream with the IRS at one end and products like the SM series at the other. This is much like today with the Prelude MTS at one end of the spectrum and the Primus series at the other end.
The reincarnation of the Kappa series under Harman's version of the Infinity line has held to the spirit of the original series. At a list price of $2400 per pair, they are in the upper middle class of the Infinity lineup: they are of good build quality, elegant in appearance, and benefit directly from advanced technologies Infinity incorporates into its higher end designs. While some of the driver geometries may not be as unusual as in days gone by, the only real question is "What can this design do for the music?"
