• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Carver Making a Comeback~

whoaru99 said:
But, by the same token, there are many that seem to imply that most/any amp changes sound with different speakers as different speakers present different loads to the amp.

I'm certainly not a Carver defender nor am I a detractor; I've never had any Carver gear, just sayin'...
Click to expand...

The two amps for the test was a Conrad Johnson tube amp and a Mark Levinson SS amp.

The question I pose, is what happens when the M1.5T is hooked up to a difficult to drive speaker, one with large impedance dips or reactive phase angles in the crossover? Will the Carver amp behave like the target amp?

The CJ has an output transformer, and from my understanding this will basically buffer the output stage from a reactive speaker load. A bit simplistic I know, but this is a general statement. So in essence, the amps contribution to the sound is going to remain unchanged. The Carver amp can't do the same thing, its a SS design, with the output devices directly coupled to the speaker.

Now the ML is a SS design. This amp has a massive power supply and lots out output devices. Present this speaker with a reactive load like a pair of Infinity Kappa 9, various Theil speakers, or early Apogees, and its going to chug along. Run the M1.5T on the same difficult loads, and the chances are its going to burn up in 12 to 18 months. I remember the Apogees eating many a budget amplifier from NAD, Adcom, and B&K.

But as another poster said, these pieces are built to a price point. But Carver advertised these amps are the sonic equal of these expensive reference amps. While Bob Carver was able to clone the sound with a specific speaker, it does not mean that it can equal the performance of the target amps with other speakers. Carver advertising never mentioned that point.

Personally, I always found Carver marketing to be in lock step with the kind of ads Bose wrote. Amar Bose was a smart dude too, who probably knows more about speaker design than a whole lotta people. Doesn't mean I appreciate the efforts of his company though and how they conduct business.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
The "amp challenge was with a M 1.0 against Conrad johnson Premier 5. (I had a pair of M 1.0) bridged mono running Acoustast Spectra 33 (which could consume every drop of power fed them!).

The amps were good sounding for the money, and the Carver approcah to power was proven to be valid. I do not remember longevity being an issue with them.


Bob Carver is a very bright fellow, and certaily has been a big part of audio for many years now. I, for one wish him well with his endevours.

Innovations in audio are ofen scoffed at, at least initially. For example, the Sony S-Master Pro amp topology is some of the best sounding playback available, and anyone who has herd them set up correctly will question the need to spend scads of money to buy some boutique amp setup that costs as much or more than a new car.

The S-Master Pro design basically accepts a digital bitstream or L-PCM input, converts to DSD (unless it is fed DSD), which is sent to a pair of MOS-FET's as a output. If you feed in a fire wire input to a pair of STR-DA7100ES units in a bi-amp setup, one will get some of the cleanest, most transparent sound available at any price point. No D/A or A/D conversions to degrade the sound with this, and the results are clearly audible.
 
Mister Pig said:
Also the phrase "Flame Linear" doesn't inspire confidence.
Click to expand...

anybody who had (has) a PL400 and used it for its intended purpose laughs at this .......... because the PL's were price competitive at the time , people started using them as band amps .....pushed them at 100% for extended lengths of time .... and fried 'em ...as simple as that

In my experience the people who use this quote have never heard , let alone , owned one ....... BTW Corvettes suck : I tried towing my house trailer with one
 
Sunfire and Carver never went away .He made those tiny speakers A couple of years ago and I continue to read articles about him.Bob is quite the inventor!
 
Actually he sold the Carver name thus DBA as Sunfire now. Bob Carver is the last of the legends. My home boy, and supported my hi fi habit many years ago in Germany.
 
I remember seeing the video from Carverfest 08 where Bob talked about this concept for a speaker design....

Can't wait to see what the finished product is... :yes:
 
DrMux said:
Actually he sold the Carver name thus DBA as Sunfire now. Bob Carver is the last of the legends. My home boy, and supported my hi fi habit many years ago in Germany.
Click to expand...

Bob didn't "sell" the name; Carver BoD voted him out after he took the company public & he took a sabbatical & came back voted out! They proceeded to run the company into the ground. When they finally BEGGED Bob back to save the company, they were ELEVEN MILLLION DOLLARS in debt. Bob tried, but ended up going into bankruptcy & starting Sunfire with many of the Carver employees (Rita, of Rita's Vintage Audio Repair, was a Carver employee for decades).

Sunfire did essentially the same with Bob, making him an "offer he couldn't refuse" but has kept him on as a consultant/designer. Sunfire sold to Elan, and they closed down the 200-employee plant in Washington & shipped all manufacturing overseas to China. There are less than a dozen Sunfire employees in the U.S. now.
 
Mister Pig said:
The two amps for the test was a Conrad Johnson tube amp and a Mark Levinson SS amp.

The question I pose, is what happens when the M1.5T is hooked up to a difficult to drive speaker, one with large impedance dips or reactive phase angles in the crossover? Will the Carver amp behave like the target amp?

The CJ has an output transformer, and from my understanding this will basically buffer the output stage from a reactive speaker load. A bit simplistic I know, but this is a general statement. So in essence, the amps contribution to the sound is going to remain unchanged. The Carver amp can't do the same thing, its a SS design, with the output devices directly coupled to the speaker.

Now the ML is a SS design. This amp has a massive power supply and lots out output devices. Present this speaker with a reactive load like a pair of Infinity Kappa 9, various Theil speakers, or early Apogees, and its going to chug along. Run the M1.5T on the same difficult loads, and the chances are its going to burn up in 12 to 18 months. I remember the Apogees eating many a budget amplifier from NAD, Adcom, and B&K.

But as another poster said, these pieces are built to a price point. But Carver advertised these amps are the sonic equal of these expensive reference amps. While Bob Carver was able to clone the sound with a specific speaker, it does not mean that it can equal the performance of the target amps with other speakers. Carver advertising never mentioned that point.

Personally, I always found Carver marketing to be in lock step with the kind of ads Bose wrote. Amar Bose was a smart dude too, who probably knows more about speaker design than a whole lotta people. Doesn't mean I appreciate the efforts of his company though and how they conduct business.

Regards
Mister Pig
Click to expand...

Well, the guys at Stereophile sure thought he did.

His nulled his amp into whatever speaker he had on hand ( a cheapie of some kind) and then the Stereophile guys listened to the two amps on whatever speakers they were using. He did not match the sound of the amps using the speakers that the listening test were done with. He actually did not compare the sound of the amps when he did it. The listening test was just done by the Stereophile guys. All he did was run a speaker (NOT the one used by Stereophile for the listening portion) between the two amps he was trying to make sound the same, and then listened to the difference between them. It was NOT music he was was listening to.

Nothing at all like what Bose was doing. Bob was actually trying to come up with innovative solutions to real audio problems and price them affordably.
 
Last edited:
The things I'm skeptical about with Carver goods, is here comes Bob again, and then gone again after two years. We then buy the euqipment, which is often innovative, but as well quirky, and when it breaks, who you turn to to fix it?

As of late, it's often 3rd party companies it seems (Or Bob+Rita), who then seem to charge expensive flat rate fees. When some proprietary $3 IC goes out, I'm not at all happy shelling out $350 for such

Just trying to find a schematic for most of Carver, or Sunfire Equipment is akin to finding the remainder of the dead sea scrolls. Doubtful I'll ever again buy anything with the name Carver attached to it.
 
Mister Pig said:
The CJ has an output transformer, and from my understanding this will basically buffer the output stage from a reactive speaker load.
Mister Pig
Click to expand...

Output transformer of vacuum tube amplifier is an impedance matching device. You can't have 5 kOhm speakers.

BTW, Carver challenge was proofed by blind tests and dusted many "audiophile" and "high-end" theories.
 
markd51 said:
The things I'm skeptical about with Carver goods, is here comes Bob again, and then gone again after two years. We then buy the euqipment, which is often innovative, but as well quirky, and when it breaks, who you turn to to fix it?

As of late, it's often 3rd party companies it seems (Or Bob+Rita), who then seem to charge expensive flat rate fees. When some proprietary $3 IC goes out, I'm not at all happy shelling out $350 for such

Just trying to find a schematic for most of Carver, or Sunfire Equipment is akin to finding the remainder of the dead sea scrolls. Doubtful I'll ever again buy anything with the name Carver attached to it.
Click to expand...

Huh? 2 years? Carver Corporation was around for 20. Would likely have been longer, but the board of directors kicked Bob out and then proceeded to run it into the ground.

Sunfire is 16 or 17 years old now and still going. Not owned by Bob anymore, but the company still exists and Bob was still involved.

Carver/Sunfire has TWO repair shops available with very experienced technicians available (Rita who worked for Carver and knows all the gear inside out, and Rolland who bought the stock of old Carver/Sunfire parts and does great work), which is much better than a lot of old gear.

From my understanding, the $350 is a maximum. I know my C-19 was done by Rita and Bob (Bob actually ran it in his system for a week), and came back sounding and working like new.
 
OK, it's time for me to come back out of hiding... :D

I can take or leave some of the later Carver gear, but I currently use a C-4000 preamplifier and an m-400 Magnetic Field Power Amplifier, and as far as I am concerned, they have given me no troubles.....after I fixed the C-4000.

Not that the C-4000 is a pile of crap, it just so happens that FedEx doesn't know how to read packages that say "Fragile". Go figure. Anyway, my cube amplifier puts out more than what I need, the C-4000 offers innovative features, and looks cool with it's bajillion buttons and dials, what's not to love? I think that the only thing that I could ever complain about is the weight. The C-4000 weighs a whopping 13 pounds, while my M-400 weighs only 9 pounds. Yeah, their light.

Bob stumbled onto something innovative, but like all things like that, you have not only fans, but non-fans as well. Not everyone can like Carver gear. I know that I do, but it doesn't mean that you have to. Personally, I would like to see him bring the Carver nameplate back. I always thought that the look of his m class power amplifiers and the early preamps (C-1, C-2, & the C-4000...just to name a few), looked like they meant business. When everything else had a black faceplate, his were the unique anthracite, which after almost 30 years, still looks modern.

What more could you ask for? Power, light weight, and looks cool. While most of the equipment he released is of high quality, some of it is not. The MXR reciever line would be a good example of this. Oh well, nobody's perfect. I am still a fan of the monoblock power amplifiers, and probably will be until the day I die. Let's just see what Bob Carver will do with his famous nameplate.



-Jason
 
I'll be looking with money in hand. I've had nothing but excellence from the PL/Carver/Sunfire equipment I've had over the years. FWIW - dan
 
barkerd said:
anybody who had (has) a PL400 and used it for its intended purpose laughs at this .......... because the PL's were price competitive at the time , people started using them as band amps .....pushed them at 100% for extended lengths of time .... and fried 'em ...as simple as that

In my experience the people who use this quote have never heard , let alone , owned one ....... BTW Corvettes suck : I tried towing my house trailer with one
Click to expand...

exactly, and they we're NOT intended for band/PA amps
 
2-3 shops in the world who repair Carver and have the schematics. These are decent amplifiers when working. That first feature is a major drawback. I prefer not having to ship an amplifier cross country for a repair unless it is of very unusual quality. I require an amplifier to be serviceable to component level by myself or a good area technician, a la Terry DeWick. Those trick power supplies and proprietary IC chips here mainly increase repair expenses. I would love to see Carver design a good conventional amplifier with his house sound and easily repaired since he usually makes good sounding gear.
 
FYI: The TFM-35 and lower TFM series amps were all conventional power supply as it was determined to be unnecessary to power the lower output amps with the triac circuit.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom