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Bob Carver designed/manufactured gear

My Carver TFM35 (I think) 275w/pch @ 8ohms power amp and pre-amp CT23 (I think) served me well and trouble free for 18 years.
Replaced with a McIntosh Integrated in 2013.
 
I'm a fan of Bob Carver and his products. I always liked the way he thought outside the box. Maybe that was because he was a physicist and not an EE. (No disrespect to EE's intended or implied.)

-Dave
 
I have a phase linear 4000, which is an over complex nightmare full of leaky electrolytic capacitors and tarnished card connectors.

It does look Marantz 7ish though and do everything one could even imagine a preamp should do!
 
I've had a bunch of Carver stuff over the years, a couple of PL 400's, almost all of the TFM amp line (35, 45, 55, 75), some preamps, etc. Most were trouble free, except one TFM amp that had bad solder joints, which I learned was not uncommon on those, and a PL 4000 preamp, which seemed to have way too much going on inside mechanically (the L/R F/R balance, the plug in line cards, etc).

I still have a preamp or two around here, one is in use. I also have one of the 200 wpc cube amps, which seems like it was designed for people like us who might want something small and easy to cart around with a decent amount of power to audition speakers with.

bs
 
Have been using a Carver C-16 preamp and a Sunfire Signature Two Amp (600 wpc @ 8 ohms) driving my Polk SDA SRS 1.2’s since they were new in the early 90’s and love the “synergy” with the Polks.
 
Bought my HR732 Receiver and SDA360 CD player new in 1992 and they are still in use. Had one repair to the HR732 about 7 or 8 years ago and installed a new belt on the CD player last year. In 2008 I went on a little binge and bought an M500 (non-t), TFM45, CT6 Pre and Sunfire Tube Pre-amp. The 732 Receiver powers a pair of Paradigm Atoms in my exercise room, along with a set of speakers in my garage and another on my rear porch thru a Niles speaker selector. The TFM45 and Sunfire are paired with a set of Vandersteen 2ci's in my listening room, which I like very much. The M500, CT6, and SDA360 in my office are paired with a set of Paradigm Studio 20's, which again, I like very much.
 
holyman772 said:
I have had an HR-772 since new - somewhere around 1990. I never had a problem with it and am still using it today. It sounds good but it’s lacking something. It was built after Bob was forced out of his own company - at least that’s how I understand it went down. One of these days I’m going to try it as a pre with one of my other amps and see how that works out. Always wanted a set of Amazings. Someday.
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I have one of these......got it from a friend who got it from a guy whose wife wouldn't let him have "loud stereo" stuff anymore....LOL! He was using it as a preamp for his system......had an Adcom GFA-5800 MOSFET amp hooked to it and a pair of Klipsch Chorus IIs. Don't really find any of it that remarkable sounding....rather average if you ask me. I think my Sansui 4000 has a nicer sound and the two that beat the Sansui in my book were my KLH Twenty-Seven, and the Eico 2536 I had a while back. Wish I kept that Eico.
 
When I was young SAE and Phase Linear were quite the rage so later in life I went thru a phase where I collected a lot of both brands. I have racks of PL gear mostly the Spec II gear, everything from the amps, both 400 and 700 spec II's, turntable, which was made by Pioneer, to parametric EQ, spectrum anylizer, pre amps, tuners, heck I even have a few pairs of his first speakers, the Phase Linear Andromedia's with sub boxes and controllers. Actually the speakers sound really good.
 
Way back when I was looking to replace a Kenwood KA8006. I was looking at NAD & Carver. At one shop the salesperson warned me about the lack of reliability of the Carver but they looked so damn cool with their 2 little meters. Went with a NAD monitor series receiver. Liked it so much I owned 3 of them at different times
 
maxhifi said:
I have a phase linear 4000, which is an over complex nightmare full of leaky electrolytic capacitors and tarnished card connectors.
Click to expand...
The mass of broken solder joints is also fun. They sound pretty good when working but the mechanical aspects of the thing are pretty awful. No supports for the cards at all beyond the bit of foam glued to the lid. If they had made side guides for the cards that mounted to the chassis it would have been a lot better.
 
sanford12 said:
Way back when I was looking to replace a Kenwood KA8006. I was looking at NAD & Carver. At one shop the salesperson warned me about the lack of reliability of the Carver but they looked so damn cool with their 2 little meters. Went with a NAD monitor series receiver. Liked it so much I owned 3 of them at different times
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That's ironic as the initial batches of NAD monitor series pieces were a disaster for us, even worse than the Carver! They did clean up their act, probably changed factories and tightened up the tolerances and things got better.
 
So, it looks like there is great love for Bob's gear, despite some reliability issues some have experienced.

I've got to tell you that with the limited experience I've had with Bob's stuff, that it all sounds great and is super innovative in a lot of ways, but the reliability of this particular receiver has been so-so. However, with that said, I am chalking it up to long-term storage in a somewhat damp area and from lack of regular use. So far, I've had to recap the power supply due to a bulging, not quite completely failed, power supply cap. The FM tuner needed touching up as it would not lock in on the proper frequencies......it would lock in on the even frequencies.......100.8 rather than 100.7, etc. The volume control was a bit wonky......or so I thought....even after deoxiting all the controls and switches. That one turned out to be intermittent contact inside the speaker output relays. Had to crack those open and clean the contact points. Took me forever to figure that one out! Finally realized it was the relays and not the volume pot after listening via headphones. So, even though this is the youngest "vintage" piece I've owned to date, it is also the one with the most aggravating issues, even more than all the ones I've owned that I had to do a complete recap on, which includes the Advent 300 I had with the waterfall noise from the preamp! That one took some time sorting out as well, but now I know for the next one I do......recap all electrolytics and replace everything in the 15v regulated power supply out of course on an Advent 300.
 
Phase Linear 400 and 700 series II as well as the 700B are some of the best amps made at the time. The only Carver I liked was the M1.5T

Clair Brother did nothing to their PL amps, just demanded certain specs and the amps came in a steel chassis vs the thin consumer grade chassis. I am proud to own one of the last 30 known Clair Brothers 700 series II's and it brings the thunder daily but with complete WO internals now
 
Bought new and still own two PL400 amps. Both have been used a lot over the years and both have been gone thru, "cleaned & tweaked" and continue to run perfectly. No problems with either one other than a couple of meter bulbs went south and had to be replaced. Never did experience the "Flame Linear" thingee so many have mentioned but from my understanding that only happened when they were run run at full power in bands, etc. for many hours straight. For home use that was not a problem from my understanding. Also own a PL4000 pre that did go south some years ago. The right channel started "squealing", got worse then the left one started doing the same. Took it in to find out it was sadly way to expensive to repair and put back in working order so it sits as a relic now and will for sure never be used again. Poor solder joints and a few other not so good things going on inside it. Then I have my original pair of Andromeda III's that I have owned since 19977. Have made some changes to both over the years by re-positioning the lower center tweet to face forward as it does in the Phase III system. Also have had both panels fully recapped and the four mids reconed and edged, etc. Other than that both are still sounding great and going strong. Added a second system some years ago as a backup/parts system and also did the same upgrades on it. Both bass modules have also been re-coned and tweaked to where they now play cleanly down to 20 hz, 4 hz lower than when they came from the factory. I was going to enlarge my ownership of PL components at one time but then the SAE bug hit me and well, that's a whole other story for another time. Will say one thing, the big SAE P500 amp is a great match for the Andromedas and really makes'en sing beautifully.................:music:

All the best to everyone................BankShot
 
I had a Carver Receiver for years that performed well. I can still hear the buzz it would make turning on... Alas, Lightning fried it one night.

I also had a full set of Cinema System 5.2s, which worked very well in my HT for years. Again, the SW amp used to hum all day long... I upgraded my HT when I moved last year and had a hard time even giving the CS's away. Pretty big for today;s HT enthusiast, I suppose.
 
Although never owning one, I thought that the M400a was a neat little design and concept unit.

m400a.jpg
 
I've never owned Carver gear, so this is far from definitive... When I moved to LA I stayed with an old friend while looking for an apartment. He'd just bought a new Carver receiver for $900 and adored it.

I was hitting yard sales, to furnish my new apartment (once I found it). I found a Dynaco Pas 3 preamp and two Mark III monoblocks for $75. I was really excited to hear them, so when I got back to my friend's place, I asked if I could hook them up in his system for a minute. No problem, he was a nice guy.

It only took 10 seconds. He looked at me and said "I just pissed away 900 bucks. This old tube **** blows my Carver out of the water!"
 
That's why I use a pair of MKIII's. Admittedly they are highly modified. However, when you start with good gear modifying it only makes good better.
 
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