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 Infinity's Kappa Perfect 6.1 got the most high marks from our panel. |
Infinity Kappa Perfect 6.1
Kappa Perfect speakers are at the top of Infinity's mobile audio lineup. You believe it when you pick them up — with a heavy cast basket and hefty magnet, these speakers feel like they're good! Infinity uses anodized aluminum for both the woofer and tweeter, with a thick butyl rubber surround suspending the woofer. Infinity rates the Perfect components as able to handle 100 watts RMS power, with a frequency response of 75 to 23,000 Hz. The external crossovers feature jumpers so you can attenuate or boost the tweeter's output to either ?4 dB, 0 dB, or 5 dB. For our test, we ran the system at 0 dB. While Infinity rates the sensitivity of the Kappa Perfects at 90 dB, we actually found them to be the least efficient of the three speaker sets in our round table listening test.
While declaring a clear-cut winner of "Best Speaker" in our roundtable discussion wasn't our goal, the Infinity Perfect 6.1 component set consistently ranked highly with the panel. In fact, three out of five chose the Perfect 6.1s as their favorite overall speakers.
Being the best all-around didn't mean they did everything the best, though. Most of the roundtable was a bit disappointed in their reproduction of the massive orchestra and chorus of the Vaughan Williams' "Sea Symphony." Ralph thought the separation of parts was poor, and the bass was lacking. Charlie thought the sound "a bit dull," and the sound of the massed chorus thin. Danae seconded Ralph's concern about the bass, categorizing it as "a bit weak."
 Tim, Ralph and Dave all agreed that they liked the Infinitys best for overall performance. Dave (center) liked the "excellent overall imaging and tonal balance," Tim (left) appreciated how they "brought out the subtleties in the jazz and classical examples," while Ralph (right) thought they "performed best overall, consistently delivering a clean sound throughout a wide range of musical genres." |
On the other tracks, the Infinitys came through with flying colors. They received praise from the roundtable in capturing the energy of Blakey's Jazz Messengers in "Moanin'." Tim cited the "nice separation," "realistic instrument tones," and the "warm" trumpet and upright bass, while Dave summed it up pretty clearly — "best overall." If you're looking for the most versatile component speaker system, one that can handle a wide variety of music, you won't go wrong with the Kappa Perfects.
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Summing up
As you can see, experienced audio listeners can disagree on what the "best" speakers are. In addition, they may find one set of speakers sounds best on one style of music, while another sounds best for a different style. Our panel was often surprised with how much they disagreed about which speakers they liked the best!
What are the best speakers for you? Take a look at what our panel had to say about each set. As you compare the roundtable's comments, think about the kind of music you like. Although we didn't always agree on which we thought was best, we did agree that each set of component speakers had its own strengths and weaknesses when reproducing different types of music. Check out the comments of our roundtable, compare them to your music listening preferences and get a feel for which component speaker set matches up to your needs. Then get started building your own great car audio system!
