Doc, what's coming down the BH pipeline?

[Alonzo]

Anything new coming out?  Seems you've covered from source to pre to amp to speaker, cables to power cords, speakers and headphones.  There are some gaps in the product line for the budget minded of us who would like to stay with tubes and for the few people that need more than a couple of watts.  Any hints Doc? 
Alonzo

 

[Doc B]

There are some very interesting projects in the pipeline, but it would be premature to talk about most of them just yet. One thing I can mention is that we are hoping to have a prototype active tube crossover for the Jager soon.

 

[faskenite]

Whoa!

 

[Alonzo]

Nice!!!  Will this be a kit or a finished product?

 

[Paul Birkeland]

It's shaping up to be quite build-able as a kit.

 

[Alonzo]

This would be nice.  You can see from my signature I use 3 SS crossovers to tune my speakers to my old ears.  A tube version would be sweet to play with.  But if the crossover points are set for the Jager, would it be modifiable for other speakers?  What tubes are you looking at using?

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Yes, the crossover will be set specifically for the Jagers.  It's pretty tough to go from a passive crossover to an active crossover successfully (unless you want to do the mini DSP, which just isn't our jam), so there won't likely be a whole ton of support on our end for other speakers.  In the Jager, we loaded it up on impedance compensation so that the most straightforward passive crossover imaginable would be just right, and consequently it's quite easy to make an active crossover that is directly equivalent. 

When you get into the notched and contoured passive filters, pulling them out and going active can become quite complicated! (As I'd guess you may know)

 

[Kitchener]

I noticed in an older thread, 2017 I think, that you mentioned playing with the idea of a headphone kit.

Has this idea metastasized further?

Personally I have a bit of a DIY addiction so I fear if you ever start selling it, the temptation will be unbearable.

 

[fullheadofnothing]

That post must have been older than 2017, since the headphone kit had been discontinued since 2015.

 

[Doc B]

Well, that old headphone kit was discontinued.

 

[Kitchener]

Just dropping this here: https://bottlehead.com/smf/index.php?topic=10308.msg94944#msg94944


I’ve heard of the old Bottleheadphone kit, but it is pretty much impossible to find any pictures of it these days. Like Big Foot.

 

[Doc B]

I'll just reiterate that there are some interesting developments on the horizon, but I can't really talk about them yet.

 

[Kitchener]

Good enough for me! 

 

[Alonzo]

Waking up an old thread:
So, before I go invest in some planar headphones, has the pipeline for new products come up with something?  If RAAL can come up with some ear speakers I know BH can beat them with a kit.

 

[Doc B]

We are working with an ESL headphone manufacturer on an amp to go with it. That's still down the road a ways. I would also like to take another stab at a ribbon headphone design some day. The set I built a few years ago needed a fair amount more development but man, they showed some great potential. That is something that would need a good sized chunk of R&D time and an amount of capital that I don't have to spend, i.e., someone would need to back such a project.