THE HISTORY OF INFINITY
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 magnets, mylar diaphragms, and polypropylene cones. The company's first product was the Servo-Statik speaker system which, as the name implies, consisted of electrostatic main panels and a revolutionary servo-controlled woofer based on the bomb guidance systems Nudell was developing at the time for defense contractor Litton.
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 $65,000 in the 1980s. It consisted of 76 EMIT tweeters, 24 EMIM midrange drivers, and twelve 12-inch polypropylene woofers in four towers. The Reference, and later Kappa series, were discontinued when Harman Kardon acquired Infinity in 1983.
Mr. Nudell remained with Infinity for a few years after the transition, and left in 1991 to form Genesis Technologies, a high-end loudspeaker company he founded in Seattle. Genesis' original flagship system, the 1.2, retailed for $235,000, and is basically an updated Infinity IRS system.
Infinity has remained in the portfolio of Harman International Industries, which has been a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics since 2017.
