Phase Linear & Pioneer

[TRC]

What do you think? I'm not a fan of Bob Carver by any stretch of the imagination, but I had gotten these recently from my cousin. He's moving into assisted living and is down sizing. He said either you take them or they're going into the dumpster.

A friend of his used to have a recording studio and that's where these originally came from. You see how nasty the Pioneer is..? The Carver stuff was in the same condition. They were dark "yellow" with cigarette smoke. Then they were kept in storage for a few decades.

I've cleaned up the Carver, but the preamp needs further cleaning of the pots and switches. The amp I've not powered up. These amps have a reputation of being, "incendiary". The Phase Linear has a nickname: "Flame Linear", due to its ability to send straight 70VDC to your speaker if an output goes bad.

That happened to me once with a Crown DC-300, fed into a pair of vintage Electro-Voice corner horns. It had bypassed the fused protection circuitry and fried the drivers and the crossover. I was NOT thrilled. This Carver (Phase Linear) is designed the exact same way.

TRC

 

[Lavane]

Those Phase Linear pieces are worth restoring. The 400 amp in particular can get the White Oak treatment and be an exelent amp. The preamp is no slouch either. The Pioneer scope is pretty technical and you should find the manual for it befire using. It sold for around $550 new. It's a pretty versatile piece of equipment.

 

[just dave]

I've got some Phase Linear gear and I like it a lot, worth restoring I would say.

 

[llwhtt]

Pioneer did own Phase Linear at one time in the past.

 

[mbz]

due to its ability to send straight 70VDC to your speaker if an output goes bad.

Just about any big vintage amp will do the same when output shorts, point is to have a suitably rated protection system, something that is needed in the PL400 http://www.wattsabundant.com/

Also the guys over at pheonix https://forums.phxaudiotape.com/ describe a race condition where rails voltage can be dumped on the speaker line, the fix being to connect two diodes across (back to back) a cap...(memory failing...)

I've collected 3x400 and 1x4000 waiting in the shed, one of the 400's will get the full WOPL treatment, need the AUD to improve against the USD first...

 

[Lavane]

Doing the basic updates on the Phase Linear amps is a must in my book.
I had a Model 200ll that let go and took out my speakers too. It was the o ly time I ever saw smoke come from a speaker along with a glow from the coils melting down through the mesh dust caps.

 

[wallacefl]

Someday it might be really fun to put together a sorta dream vintage system…Phase Linear 400 + Marantz7 t + Crown 824 reel to reel + Dahlquist DQ-10 + some turntable with an SME tone arm….it will not live up to modern standards but who cares!