Cathodic arcs produce a highly ionized metal vapor which has proven useful in the production of dense, adherent coatings. For many applications, the macroparticles normally produced by the cathodic arc are unacceptable and must be filtered out. We have developed two filtered cathodic arc sources which have distinctly different operational characteristics. One of these makes use of so-called ‘‘steered arc’’ magnetic control of the arc trajectory, while the other employs a different form of arc control. The ion transmission efficiencies of these sources were improved by carrying a portion of the arc electron current through the filter.