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Regarding Carver Amps.

Bigerik said:
I'm playing with a Carver 1.0t in the living room right now and it it very happily driving my Energy Ref Cons. These things are a real pain to drive and its really hard to find an amp that makes them happy. The Carver is doing shockingly well.
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Nice speaker! This series of foorstanders are 92-94db efficient and 8 ohms impedance. Tech sheets show a dip to almost 4 ohms.

These are nothing like a Kappa 9. Forgive me if I differ, however they are an easy load to drive.

Don't get me wrong, I run my a/d/s/ L910's a lot and my favorite amp for them is a Carver M-500. But the 910's are 93db efficient and an easy load.

When the going gets tough, the Carvers aren't even in the hunt.

Best,

Paul :thmbsp:
 
Have you considered some of the older pro amps? All of the best ones such as Crest, QSC, Crown, and some others are designed to run into 2 ohms at clipping for long periods of time. Fan noise may be an issue. As far as how they sound, you would have to let your ears be the judge.
 
jhal said:
Have you considered some of the older pro amps? All of the best ones such as Crest, QSC, Crown, and some others are designed to run into 2 ohms at clipping for long periods of time. Fan noise may be an issue. As far as how they sound, you would have to let your ears be the judge.
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"At clipping"?? Clipping of ANY form is extremely bad for the Infinity planar drivers (EMITS and EMIMS). That's why it is so critical to select an amp that can deliver the kind of clean, high-current power that these speakers need. Run an amp to clipping into these speakers and you'll be replacing tweeters on a regular basis...and these aren't made anymore.
 
I agree with Tedrick and beemer on the amp question and suggestions

I run my Infinities with a pair of Soundcraftsmen RA7502s
Whatever Amp you decide on I would recomend it has a protection circuit(s) designed to protect the Amp. The Soundcraftsmen has 3 means of protecting the output transistors.
 
I have seen some references to the "magnetic" amp Carver developed. If the speakers in question require continuious current, I would stay away from those types of amps. They work on the principle of magnetic field collapse which, like a coil in a car ignition system, will produce alot of voltage, but not current. Soundcraftsmen made amps based on this (thats how you get a "shoebox" 205 w/ch amp), and while they were good amps, if they were called apon to provide current at a continuous level, they would "run out of gas".
Just something to think about.
 
Tedrick said:
"At clipping"?? Clipping of ANY form is extremely bad for the Infinity planar drivers (EMITS and EMIMS). That's why it is so critical to select an amp that can deliver the kind of clean, high-current power that these speakers need. Run an amp to clipping into these speakers and you'll be replacing tweeters on a regular basis...and these aren't made anymore.
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What I meant was that these amps can be abused and still hold up, not that you would be doing that. Of course they can deliver massive amounts of clean power into very low impedance loads without distortion all day long.
 
panhead said:
I had a pair of TFM 55 amps that i ran in mono & they were not great,infact i have them listed in the "worst sounding gear" thread on AK,never could get a meaningfull bass response out of them,i could suck the carvers power supply dry as a bone with a pair of Klipsch Cornwall's,from my experience with Carver amps they do not fair well pushing subwoofers or full range speakers with big 15" woofers.

I also had a 2 week demo in my home with a clean pair of Carver silver 7T tube transfer function monoblocks,i ran them on my Mcintosh line arrays & the results were terrible,i was suprised at how quickly the line arrays drank all the power from a pair of 575 watt monoblocks.

As for comparing Adcom with Carver ive owned both & still have a pair of GFA 565 (white face) monoblocks in the closet,the adcom mono's crushed the carver amps in every way at half the wattage & did a much better job driving the line array's.

Stick with Adcom its a much more powerfull product.
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Wow I find that hard to believe. the Klipsch Cornwall's have to be over 100db efficent and there only an 8 ohm load. And you bridged them and run them in mono? Thats 1000 wpc if you cranked them up they should literally smoke those klipsch. I am going to call :bs: I think the cornwalls are rated at 118db or so max output so there is no way you would ever get close to using 1000wpc even if there only 100db at 1 watt efficent.

If the TFM-55s didnt perform well there had to be something wrong with those amps. Ive owned both adcoms and TFM series carvers and the carvers have always out performed the adcoms in every way period.

REGARDS
 
The TFM55 has tons of steam. Drove inefficient NHT 2.3As(86 db?) to room clearing levels with the matching preamp volume at 9:30! Sure these amps are voiced more than probably any other but its a voice I like.
 
I have a Carver TFM-22 amp connected to some Rectilinear III speakers and I've used it with my B&W DM14 speakers. Both are fairly inefficient 8 ohm speakers and I have to say the Carver is one of the best sounding amps I have heard and drives these speakers big time with no problems.

The Carver owners manual specifically says: "TFM-22/TFM-25 is recommended for driving loudspeaker impedances between 4 and 16 ohms. Sustained loads of much less than 4 ohms may cause premature tripping of the protection circuits or cause a fuse to blow."

So they are not a good match for Infinity speakers that run at 2 ohms or lower as I have learned from my AK brothers.

Cheers, Snade
 
jim3860 said:
Wow I find that hard to believe. the Klipsch Cornwall's have to be over 100db efficent and there only an 8 ohm load. And you bridged them and run them in mono? Thats 1000 wpc if you cranked them up they should literally smoke those klipsch. I am going to call :bs: I think the cornwalls are rated at 118db or so max output so there is no way you would ever get close to using 1000wpc even if there only 100db at 1 watt efficent.

If the TFM-55s didnt perform well there had to be something wrong with those amps. Ive owned both adcoms and TFM series carvers and the carvers have always out performed the adcoms in every way period.

REGARDS
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Call bs all you like,i'll call inexperience on your part,since when does factory ratings have anything to do with how gear really operates,have you ever owned cornwalls & teamed them up with hi power solid state amps,they have a 1,000 watt max & can take it all for short periods as long as the signal dont clip.Too much folk lore about Klipsch & tubes,cornwalls are built to be abused.

The only thing wrong with the FM 55's were that they were weak amps.
 
panhead said:
The only thing wrong with the FM 55's were that they were weak amps.
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LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO :lmao::lmao::lmao:

Now thats inexperience speaking!!!!!!

It may well be that the kappa9s need power than the carvers can give I dunno, but if so dont look for the adcoms to fit the bill either then.

REGARDS
 
basite said:
I read somewhere that they dropped to 0.8 Ohm at some point...
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Just to reiterate some very valid points made on the Carvers...

The question here is whether Carver amps can sustain driving a speaker load which may dip to .8 Ohms?

They will drive most any speaker except some that present such a low impedance. This is the exception. Carver amps are very good, but are not built to drive a short circuit:no:

If, by chance, you have such a speaker with a very low impedance potential, it only makes sense to drive it with an amp that's capable of driving such loads.

And they aint cheap... Can you say $20k Krells? Or $72K Chords?

C'mon... :sigh:
 
beemer said:
Nice speaker! This series of foorstanders are 92-94db efficient and 8 ohms impedance. Tech sheets show a dip to almost 4 ohms.

These are nothing like a Kappa 9. Forgive me if I differ, however they are an easy load to drive.

Don't get me wrong, I run my a/d/s/ L910's a lot and my favorite amp for them is a Carver M-500. But the 910's are 93db efficient and an easy load.

When the going gets tough, the Carvers aren't even in the hunt.

Best,

Paul :thmbsp:
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Umm, Paul.
The Energy's are 87 db efficient on a good day. Call it more like 85.
E
 
beemer said:
Myself, I wouldn't consider any amp that didn't double it's power rating from 8 to 4 ohms for any large Infinity speaker.
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Paul, that's exactly what my Sunfire 300 does, theoretically at least.

Ir pushes my Maggies with ease.

Years ago, I had a TFM-35X which I used to power large Advents and Bose 501s simultaneously. Never hiccuped. I found the older Carver to be grainy sounding once I heard the Sunfire, which is known for a softer top.

Regards,

Ken
 
Urizen said:
Paul, that's exactly what my Sunfire 300 does, theoretically at least.

Ir pushes my Maggies with ease.

Years ago, I had a TFM-35X which I used to power large Advents and Bose 501s simultaneously. Never hiccuped. I found the older Carver to be grainy sounding once I heard the Sunfire, which is known for a softer top.

Regards,

Ken
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Just curious...

How can an amp have a "softer" top if the amp has a ruler flat FR in the audio band (and beyond?)
 
Urizen said:
I ain't a tech, but my guess is less distortion, or Bob just voiced the amp that way? I dunno.
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I'm not a tech either, and I'm not trying to be facetious (although I can be when necessary:yes:)

Bob Carver has a very good way of "voicing" amps. How this is actually done, I don't know. But he sure embarassed the hell out of c-j now, didn't he? :banana:

BTW, I think Sunfire stuff is top shelf :thmbsp:
 
Bigerik said:
Regardless of what Julian Hirsch thought, all amps do sound different.
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I think Julian had just a smidge more experience than most of us here...

You say there is a difference, but you can't prove it.

However, you're entitled to your opinion.
 
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