I always wanted Carver gear, finally got a "The Receiver" in 2000. It seemed great for awhile, then it had a channel outage. Off to my tech guy (who was great with vintage gear) to get it going again. In the meantime I picked up a Kenwood KA-9100 to temporarily use in my system and it sounded good. Put the Carver back into the system and it didn't seem to have what the 9100 was giving me. Changed back to the 9100 and it wasn't even close, the 9100 blew "The Receiver" away, not even close. My wife even remarked that the 9100 sounded a lot better. "The Receiver" now sits on a shelf.