Tube Monoblocks for heavy music on Khorns

The complexity will kill the impact. With K-horns you want things as simple as possible.

Atmasphere: What if all the same amps (hence all the same characterists) are used in an active system? For example, a s-30 on the bass, a s-30 on the mids and a s-30 on the treble. If all these are crossed over at low-level therefore not requiring highlevel crossovers it should INCREASE impact, right? EG same amps with same characteristics and reactance for all drivers;No high-level crossovers that mess with phase and cause loss of dB due to insertion loss;all amps have smaller bandwidths to amplifiy. Now...this versus a circuit with high level crossovers in addition to only having one amp amplifying the entire frequency band?? I would think the active system would have more impact, but maybe I'm missing something. Not to mention the multiple amps woud be time delayed to all reach the listening position simultaneously, in case speakers are not time-alligned. Thx!!

I have tried many amps with my Khorns and ended up with a custom 6 wpc OTL amp. I can't believe how good this combo is with plenty of power AND bass for my 23'x24' room (with a vaulted ceiling). Drop me an email if you would like to know more about the OTL amp, a guy in Italy custom builds these.
I had one of Will Vincent's Baldwin amp's once and remember it also being a good combo. There is an ad running right now for a pair of Baldwin mono blocks ( I think built by Will, but not for sale by him). I think Will would build you a custom pair of mono's for you.

IMO if you are gonna play LOUD you need to change the sqawker. To get the most out of your khorns I would go w ALK crossovers and his wood trachorn. The khorn is PIERCING at loud volume. I ran mine w/ 2 Mcintosh MC2102's in Mono w/ outstanding results. I now run 2 MC2000's in Mono w/ even better results. I've compared smaller tube amps as well and they were lacking in bass and dynamics. You can't beat larger tube amps w/ Khorns. don't know were you live but you can come have a listen.

Stimbo22, most horns (Khorns included) have high efficiency drivers that, because of their efficiency, are also highly reactive. Such drivers have a lot of back EMF because of the greater precision and efficiency of their magnetic motors.

The back EMF really messes with amplifiers have a low output impedance. However the passive crossover of the speaker is helpful, because it is a series element in the speaker, and so allows you to use amplifier with a moderate output impedance (at least) without too much trouble.

If you get rid of the passive crossover, the only amplifiers that will work well without being excessively shrill (due to the interaction with the back EMF) will be ones that have a high output impedance.

The S-30 is one of these, as are a number of smaller SETs. So you *could* make that work, but OTOH you could have a slightly larger amplifier and the passive crossover, and it might work every bit as good, with a lot less complexity and a lot less invested.

BTW if anyone has ever wondered why transistors are often shrill and honky with horns, this back EMF issue is why. I should point out though that the back EMF will mess with any amplifier that uses a lot of feedback.