Tube Monoblocks for heavy music on Khorns

Right.

I've spent a lot of time in the recording studio. I think you will find that the more you process the signal digitally, the less musical the final result will be.

An fact the more you process the signal, analog or digital, the less musical the result.

IOW, that is why most passive crossovers work better than active ones, unless the speaker designer designed the speaker for a particular active crossover.

K-Horns are so efficient, that you really don't need hardly any power at all. Heck, your iPod you could prob sufficiently drive them.

Obviously, being horns, you definitely want a tube amp - and there are many very good choices amongst low-powered tube amps currently available.

I love the A-S S30 - I own one - but, that amp really shines best with 16 ohm speakers or higher and I believe the K-Horns are only 8 ohms. (Using Hedlund Horns with AER mk 1 16 ohm drivers, I was nearly chased out of a large room by an A-S S30 during a suddenly loud passage).

Since you want a lot of head-banging capability and heavy driver control, I would look at any of the moderately powered amps from VTL, BAT, Audio Research, and Quicksilver.

It would be nice to do an A/B test with the same speakers in the same room: (A) with the passive crossovers and one amp. (B) without the passives but with actives, and at the same slope and frequencies. Also, each amp in the active circuit would be the same as the amp used in (A).

Atmasphere: What did you and Brian Cheney run at the CES? I thought he liked active systems, but he probably didn't use them at CES with you, did he???

Stimbo22, Brian seems to have designed his speakers so that he can use an active crossover. I suspect that if you were to open the cabinets, you would find some minor compensation components to deal with the characteristics of the drivers. The MA-2s were used to drive the midrange and ribbon tweeters, but IMO the amplifiers were overkill! They had *way* more power than was ever needed.