Heathkit XO-1, do I want them?

[r2falleur]

Hello all,

I have the opportunity to trade for a very nice condition restored pair of these. I know nothing about them and am having a hard time finding an listing impressions on them.

Any impressions would be much appreciated.

 

[r2falleur]

Ed

I get they are collectable and have value as being of a certain rarity. What I'm asking is, do they sound good?

 

[gadget73]

The XO-1 is an active crossover. They're used if you want to bi-amp stuff. Essentially you feed your preamp into the XO, and it splits out a low frequency and a high frequency output out to your various power amplifiers. The crossover points and such are adustable.

How they sound compared to other things, no clue, but its a nice vintage piece if you're into 50s hifi. Mate them with say a pair of WM-5 amps for the bass and whatever you like for the high end and you've got quite the system.

 

[r2falleur]

I will be bi amping with them. I use a Melos MA-111 hybrid tube pre. I have 2 Magnavox 9302 (stereo 6bq5) amps that I want to run, till I convert my Roberts se 6bq5's to stand alone duty.

This will feed into Altec 288/MRII594's over JBL D130/075's sub duty is handed off to Velodyne CHT15.

 

[Lavane]

Sony made a nice 3way active crossover in the early 70's too.

 

[arts]

They work very well,and have no distinctive sound of their own,probably because of the simplicity of the circuit.When I was bi-amping,I only had one of these,which I used to determine the crossover points I wanted to use. I then constructed a second which had fixed crossover points with no switching to run my other channel.

At the time, I was running Dyna MKIII's for the bass and Quad II's for the mids/highs.

If you do some comparisons between the Marantz and Audio Research offerings,they are really not all that much different in terms of circuit topology.

 

[r2falleur]

 

[r2falleur]

No added coloration is about the best compliment that could be said.