[Bill Epstein]

Been fooling around with a $95 ART 311 crossover for my JBL 2226/B&C DE-250 speakers.

Classe Model 70 on the woofer, my own 45 amp on the horn.

I love the way the smallest change in frequency or output/attenuation effects the sound and how well it can be tailored to the room.

The downside is a somewhat confused image and softening of detail from the horn.

Sure would like to see a sub-$500 half kit with tubes that would do that Hagerman magic. Jim?

[bpape]

I'd be interested in something like that too. 

Bryan

[Brinkman]

Here's Jim's prior responses to other Hagerman enthusiast's requests for such a thing:

It's not likely.  Crossover design is very specific for each speaker.  There can be no one generic machine with knobs & stuff that will do the job properly.  For a good example, look at what Linkweitz did for his Orion design.

So how flexible should an active crossover be?  Two band or three band?  Do you need your choice of rolloff steepness?  This isn't too hard with op amps, but using tubes might make this difficult.  All depends on the requirements, how far you want to take it.

This is his opinion about designing an amp, possibly SS or SS/tube hybrid for folks with low-sensitivity speakers:

As for real-world speakers.  Well, low sensitivity and complex crossovers are a crutch for inferior design, just like feedback.  Maybe those aren't the speakers you really want. 

I interpret what he's saying as that he's only interested in offering versatile, distinguished and competitive products that he can stand behind (and he does, spending hours doing support on this forum). I think that from his POV, if he were to design a crossover that was tube-based, it wouldn't be versatile, and if he were to offer one that was versatile enough it would have to be op amp-based, which would make it indistinguishable from other market entries.

I'm with you guys in wanting to see a Hagtech active crossover. I'd even be happy with an op amp design. I'm just not holding my breath. But who knows? Maybe Jim's waiting for someone to double-dog dare him into it...

[JoshK]

My $.02....  If you know enough to design the filters correctly that would make an active tube crossover perform very well, better than say, a well implemented passive crossover, then you probably don't really need a kit to build such a crossover.  I think this is the way Jim has to think about it.  Most of the potential customer base for such a kit would probably try to use it for whatever speakers they wish to put together and it wouldn't end up with very good results and Jim's product would potentially get bashed for it.

[bpape]

My guess is that most people who would use this would do so between a monitor and a subwoofer or for a pair of biampable towers - again, with the xover down relatively low in frequency - maybe a couple hundred Hz.  In those cases, having flexibility of xover point and slope (and independent settings for the high side and low side) is very handy to 'tune' things to each other and to the room.

Bryan

[Bill Epstein]

The Marchand approach, which is too expensive for me, has frequency fixed on 'cards, little boards, that can be swapped and changed.
Kind of like the adjustable gain on the Bugle. Would that be better for quality as well as tailoring the crossover point to the speakers?

Seems to me, with the little I know, 6 octaves of frequency range and output gain/attenuation for each of 2 drivers would fit most speakers. Works pretty well for the ART and my high-efficiency rig.

Jim, maybe you could visit the http://www.audioroundtable.com/ and get a dialogue going with Wayne Parham of Pi Speakers and Duke Lejeune of Audiokinesis? 2 nicer and more generous guys you'll never meet and there's plenty of interest there among the high efficiency crowd.

[ecir38]

I had a chance recently to meet Duke Lejueune and like you said what a great guy. Duke stopped in New Orleans on his way home from the the Lone Star Audio Fest and set up his Dream Catcher's along with Richard Grey's NTV 6.2 watt mono amps at one of our club members home. What a treat that was. Here is a shaddy cell phone pic.