Infinity Systems is an American manufacturer of

loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or, more fully, a speaker system) is a combination of one or more speaker drivers, an enclosure, and electrical connections (possibly including a crossover network). The speaker driver is an ...

s founded in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

in 1968 and headquartered in

Stamford, Connecticut Stamford () is a city in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, outside of New York City. It is the sixth-most populous city in New England. Stamford is also the largest city in the Western Connecticut Planning Region, Connecticut, Weste ...

. Since 1983, Infinity has been part of Harman International Industries, which became a subsidiary of

Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (SEC; stylized as SΛMSUNG; ) is a South Korean multinational major appliance and consumer electronics corporation founded on 13 January 1969 and headquartered in Yeongtong District, Suwon, South Korea. It is curr ...

in 2017. Infinity produces packages for a range of audio applications, including multichannel surround sound home theatre packages, in-wall home speakers, and marine applications. Other products include powered subwoofers and car audio amplifiers. Infinity products are installed as an option on Hyundai and Kia vehicles, some

Mitsubishi The is a group of autonomous Japanese multinational companies in a variety of industries. Founded by Yatarō Iwasaki in 1870, the Mitsubishi Group traces its origins to the Mitsubishi zaibatsu, a unified company that existed from 1870 to 194 ...

vehicles from the 1990s to 2006, and many

Chrysler FCA US, LLC, Trade name, doing business as Stellantis North America and known historically as Chrysler ( ), is one of the "Big Three (automobile manufacturers), Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn H ...

vehicles.

History

Founded in 1968 by Arnie Nudell, John Ulrick and Cary Christie, Infinity has produced home and mobile audio products by employing innovative materials such as

neodymium Neodymium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Nd and atomic number 60. It is the fourth member of the lanthanide series and is considered to be one of the rare-earth element, rare-earth metals. It is a hard (physics), hard, sli ...

magnets, mylar diaphragms, and

polypropylene Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer Propene, propylene. Polypropylene belongs to the group of polyolefin ...

cones. The company's first product was the Servo-Static speaker system which, as the. Infinity had an ownership relationship with Eastern Air Devices, later known as EAD. This involved the consumer brand of KLH speakers, and Avid< Perrless drivers, and Kyocera/Cybernet (which produces electronics) In the late 1970s Infinity introduced the EMIT (electromagnetic induction tweeter) and EMIM (electromagnetic induction midrange) drivers. These were flat quasi-ribbons that worked to move air based on the principle of electromagnetic induction. The system used samarium–cobalt magnets, allowing for a very low ribbon driver mass-per-unit area. Variants were made, such as the EMIT-R (radial emit), the S-EMIT (super emit) and the L-EMIM (large emim). The IRS (Infinity Reference System) was an ultra-high-end system, selling at US$65,000 in the 1980s. It consisted of 72 EMIT tweeters, 24 EMIM midrange drivers, and twelve 12-inch polypropylene woofers in four towers. Nudell left to form Genesis Technologies, a high-end loudspeaker company, founded in Seattle in 1991. Genesis' original flagship system, the 1.2, retailed for US$235,000, and is basically an updated Infinity IRS system. Since the departure of Nudell, Infinity speaker designs have taken a more mass market-oriented approach. The efficient SM (Studio Monitor) series incorporated a polycell tweeter and graphite-impregnated midrange/woofers. While not as elaborate or high end as previous Infinity efforts, they filled a popular consumer niche.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Infinity (Audio) Electronics companies established in 1968 Harman International In-car entertainment Loudspeaker manufacturers 1968 establishments in California Companies based in Stamford, Connecticut 1983 mergers and acquisitions