anyone own these? carver al iii

soundnerd

New Member
Looking at a pair. Will be driven by my sys. In my sig. The amp is heavily moded to 400w@4ohms.plenty of currant.figured a 2nd amp the drive the woofs and biamp them. If u gots em input please.
 
They are very inefficient and require an amp with a lot of power and high current. 100 watts is not enough, you need at least 150-200 per channel. AVRs will not suffice, you have to get separates. The ribbons are fragile so check them for any buzzing. If the ribbons are bad, they cannot be repaired but you might be able to find replacements from Parts Express. Also check the woofers, being old, the foam surrounds may have crumbled.
 
actually they CAN be repaired but don't attempt it yourself! check the carver forum for details.

the AL III was the last version carver built. it has a conventional 10" ported woofer woofer instead of the 3 or 4 12" special ultra high Q open baffle woofers with great slam and bass clarity.

most users on the carver forum replace that 10" woofer with a much beefier drive unit. the problem with down-facing woofers is the drag on the cone weakening the spider and losing alignment, especially since bob carver opted to mass-load the woofer with a weight to get the fs down.

ribbon buzz is a sign that they wearing out but you can still use them for years like that if you substitute an active xover at 200 hz.

i loved my big carver ALS but it needs a decent sized room to really sound great, so when i moved i had to let it go. once you start listening to the Amazing it is hard to go back!
 
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Don't own them, but played with plenty of them... most people have opted to update the woofer with a JL or Infinity Kappa Perfect car sub for the bottom end. As for the ribbons... when working they sound great... if not, they are annoying as hell, but they are reparable. It is kind of a PITA, but the material is out there and they do sound great when fully restored. If you are a DIY person, read ALL of the threads that you can find, as those magnets on the ribbon structure can be "difficult" to deal with when repairing them.
 
..If you are a DIY person, read ALL of the threads that you can find, as those magnets on the ribbon structure can be "difficult" to deal with when repairing them.

now THAT is an understatement!! i once tried to 'repair' one extra one i had....without a special jig those magnets will bite HARD on your fingers and appear to have a life of their own!

the AL III had the latest and best of the carver 48" ribbons and they will last much longer.

for a woofer, i would try this: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=293-656

or this:http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?partnumber=295-510
 
The surrounds have already been done and no rattling or noise comming from the ribons as far as i can tell. Just wondering how good a sound i can expect with the correct power given to them.might do the woofs and caps though.
 
expect excellent sound if you have a decent room! give them a little room to breathe, like about 3' from the back wall.

a carver amp works best, the higher power the better. you can use another brand of amp but make sure it's stable at 2 ohms as these can dip down at certain frequencies.
 
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The parasound can handle 2 ohms easily. Roon size may be small 12/15. But i listen at low volumes, mostly acoustic jazz.
 
400watts at 4ohm should be fine. I would recommend swapping out the woofers for other drivers. This makes a vast improvement. Infinity Kappa's are the most common modification but I would suggest a JL W3. Several of us Carver nuts are using these drivers in both ALiii's and Sunfire subs.
 
sleeper supra Though not benched at 2 ohms it should be putting out around 500+ watts and aprox 70/80ampers peak power.benched at 400+@4ohms. Also plan to biamp woofs with about 500.w so dont think power is an issue at all from what i read. Main ? Is what kind of sonics i can expect from the speakers.
 
Give it a try, but they do love power. I have a pair of the harder to drive original Carver ALS. I know that I needed big iron to really make them come alive. Yours may be more sensetive or efficient than mine, but mine really took over 475wcp @ eight ohms to even start to sound good. I now have them being driven by a Crown CTS2000 and it made a huge difference.
 
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i drove my ALS to really high levels with 500 watt (bridged) carver amps all day. these speakers can take huge amounts of power. i strongly recommend bi-amping though.

i know about the infinity woofer mod, but is that woofer still obtainable? one could use the PE woofers i mentioned and maybe just plug the port?
 
My son is picking up his heavily modified AL3's tomorrow. I know they have JL woofers. He is powering them with modified Carver C-1 pre-amp into a modified Carver M-500 power amp. Those are incredible speakers. He is giving me his McIntosh XD-717's that are in mint condition both cosmetically and electrically/accoustically. The Mac's sound awesome. Can't wait for tomorrow.
 
I'm keeping my fingers crossed on a reply for a pair of these. What is the load when running biamped? I have a citation 5.1 which will do 175/channel @ 4ohms. It's said to also be stable to 4 ohm in bridged mode, but I've found no specs on that.

Excited and will post my results, if I'm lucky, as well.

Well I bought a pair of these and a pair of silvers for 75/pair. Now got to finish the room they might occupy long term. Power will be a citation 5.1.
 
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I never chimed back in on this thread, I ended up with both pairs of speakers. Just found a set of 10" infinity speakers that look like the Perfect 10.1 and am waiting to find out if they are or not. So far I love these speakers, even if only have relatively low levels. What kind of improvement can I expect with the kappa upgrade? I ask since one of the drives coil drags a bit and I was considering repairing it.
 
I would skip the Kappa's and go with the JL W3 upgrade. I have heard both inside of ALIII's and the JL's are superior. Larger frequency range and they go much lower then the Kappa's. My 2 cents.
 
Thanks for the input, I've got a offer out on a pair locally for the kappas but if that falls through I'll look into other options.

What is the key feature when looking for the speaker? Since ports and volume are usually (or I thought) pretty specific to the speaker being used.

Is there a specific model JL w3 model or year?

Thanks
 
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