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Regarding Carver Amps.

kurtgo said:
Well - I had Kappa 9.2 Series II's and horizontally biamped them with Carver TFM45's. My son, a senior in high school, had too many parties in our basement/home theater and the kids pumped out major db's from 9PM to shutdown time at midnight. I ran the speakers in the extended mode all the time. While making the Carvers warm they never shut down. They hung with every type of music they threw at them. But, do not stack them one on top of the other - they will shut down. I don't have a golden ear but I enjoyed the sound the Carver's and the 9.2's put out. Just not as much as my RSIIb's put out though. (Hope to soon be a member of the 4.5 club!) Enjoy....
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The Kappa 9.2's are MUCH easier to drive than the original K9's...not even close. The K9's dip to 0.8 ohms in the bass frequencies, which is why they are so brutal on amps. The 9.2's are a rear ported design, as opposed to the sealed box design of the 9's...makes them MUCH more amp-friendly.
 
outshined said:
I'll take flat FR any day. If you look at the specs of most any amp or preamp worthy enough of your consideration, you will find that this is indeed the case.
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Here is the flaw in your thinking. Now I may be a novice, but I have a grasp of the basics in amplifier design. Several things that lab tests don't tell you is the amplifier's reaction to a reative load. There are many ways this affects the output stage (and hence power supply) of an amplifer and will change the way an amplifier "sounds."

But for the most part, I find amplifers make less of a difference in sound than the speakers.
 
panhead said:
My 2 cents on the DBT/ABX deally is this,why is a test that relys on human memory so highly touted as gospel when the most faulty of things (memory) is used in the experiment.
Differences in how different amps sound show up in lab equipment & they do show up in home audio,when the room response is measured with a spectrum analizer the differences can be seen.

Once again it all boils down to can you hear a difference.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. I mentioned I doubt I could tell you what amp was playing, but I probably could say what differences I heard. Besides, I dont have the old amp, and havent for 20+ years.

And thats the point I was trying to make.
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One thing to keep in mind with Carver equipment is that Bob voices his amps to sound a certain way. Specifically, he voices them to sound like he thinks they should sound. More tubey, than a regular SS amp. I know he rolls them off on the upper mids to smooth them out. He had a lot of detail about this in the Sunfire whitepaper that he produced some years ago. Probably says something about my taste in equipment, but my two fav guys in the high end audio world are Bob Carver and the late Harvey Rosenberg.
 
Damage said:
Several things that lab tests don't tell you is the amplifier's reaction to a reative load. There are many ways this affects the output stage (and hence power supply) of an amplifer and will change the way an amplifier "sounds."
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I agree & this is exactly what ive been talking about,speakers are reactive loads that do change the way amps sound/perform.
 
I figured I would chime in with my experience with Infinity 9 Kappas and Carver amps. One thing I want to point out that is often overlooked it that not only the 9.2s had the switch to select between "extended" and "normal" mode. My 9 Kappas also have the switch (but all models may not). If I remember correctly when in extended mode the 9 Kappas will drop to .9 ohms at around 22hz. In normal mode they never fall below ~3 ohms, albeit with a small reduction in deep bass output. Don't read too much into that last phrase. They still have incredible bass in normal mode, so much so that I can't even imagine what extended mode must sound like.

Make no mistake about it, in extended mode they are in fact a very difficult load to drive. I have tried with a Carver M1.0t (200wpc, 8ohm), a Carver M1.5t (350wpc, 8ohm), and with an Adcom GFA-5802 (300wpc, 8ohm). None of these three amps can handle the woofers in extended mode. Supposedly the M1.5t can "share" unused power from one channel with the other channel. I am not sure I buy into that, but if you can limit the energy a power supply has to put out by running only one channel, it seems to make sense that the remaining channel might be able to achieve more. So I tried running the Carver M1.0t on the highs, one channel of an M1.5t on one of the 9 Kappas, and one channel of another M1.5t on the other 9 Kappa. Still no cigar in extended mode.

However, in normal mode both the Carvers and the Adcom were very happy running the 9 Kappas. In fact, the best the 9 Kappas have sounded was when they were run with the GFA-5802 on the highs, and a single Carver M1.5T on the woofers. And it was indeed VERY nice. From my experience I believe the key to making the 9 Kappas really sing (even in normal mode) is bi-amping. Eventually all of my Carver amps gave up the fight, and the 9 Kappas just haven't been as impressive when driven by the GFA-5802 alone. While I may never be willing to invest in the kind of arc-welding power amp the Kappas demand in extended mode, I do hope to find a satisfatory deal on a second GFA-5802 or a pair of GFA-565 mono blocks (or even two pair of GFA-565s :thmbsp:), which will allow me to bi-amp them once again. I think a similiar suggestion was made elsewhere in this thread, and I wholeheartedly support it.

Rob
 
A very economical(in the current market) alternative for driving difficult loads in the 200-300wpc range are the MOSFET amplifiers from Ashly.

From their very first amplifier design they've been well known for driving low impedence and difficult loads with ease.

The FET 500 and FET 2000 will both tolerate continuous operation into a dead short until the power supply fuses pop.

There seems to be a growing number of members here discovering the very "hifi" performance of this company's amplifiers.

http://www.ashly.com/retired/manual/man-fet200_500.pdf
 
wineslob said:
And if your speakers like mine, they will show off the differences to a very high degree.
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Agreed,The JBL L250-TI's that i occasionaly run as mains will show differences in amps to a degree but the Mcintosh XRT 22 line arrays that i run 99% of the time will point out every weakness any amp has.

Does anybody else ever wonder why nobody measures output from the speaker when they are doing an A/B/X to compare measurements against listener data?

IMO the whole ABX testing is flawed & useless,the only data used is human hearing, which varies greatly from person to person,speaker measurements dont lie & are not effected by a placebo.
 
panhead said:
Agreed,The JBL L250-TI's that i occasionaly run as mains will show differences in amps to a degree but the Mcintosh XRT 22 line arrays that i run 99% of the time will point out every weakness any amp has.

Does anybody else ever wonder why nobody measures output from the speaker when they are doing an A/B/X to compare measurements against listener data?

IMO the whole ABX testing is flawed & useless,the only data used is human hearing, which varies greatly from person to person,speaker measurements dont lie & are not effected by a placebo.
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(off topic sorry)

I agree to a point that human hearing is different for every person. However, having been in many "listening sessions" I've come to the conclusion that it far closer than we may know/recognize. Preferences, on the other hand, are the biggest factor in what someone likes or dislikes. IMO.
While measurements dont lie, they dont reflect the real world as far as a stereo system. I've found that if you spend time at someone elses place, your own, etc.. you will develop a sonic "memory" of that system. I have. There are several systems that I go and listen to. I know them well enough that if the owner says "hey! you gotta come over and listen to this!" that I can tell that a change in the sound of the system was good or not-so-good.
One fellow audio nut :music: loves the sound of an overly warm presentation. I dont, and most of the other "nuts" dont. Theres the preference.
When we do get together (5-6 audio "nuts) we can, and have, come to a "concensus" on changes to the system at hand. Surprisingly, most of our observations are the same.
One good experience that showed me this was true was when we were comparing CD players. On my player a male vocal was very good. we swapped out mine for the owners deck/DAC setup. Playing the same track, the guy next to me said " Now you hear a MAN singing, not a mouth". He was absolutely right, and his discription was what I was hearing.
While none of this is scientific, it represents what most, if not all, of us use to evaluate equipment, and I've found, for the most part, that it can tell someone else what a piece of equipment is going to sound like. YMMV IMHO :D
 
Bigerik said:
outshined said:
Bigerik said:
The problem is that the ABX devices are designed by guys who can't hear the difference anyway. So how the heck would they know if it made a difference?
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I'm not sure that this is true.

From the discussions I have had, it seems like the people who designed the ABX devices were interested in seeing if there was an objective method of testing that would show whether or not audio components (like amps, for instance) sound different.
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Does anybody here remember what this thread was originally about??

It has drifted way off topic... might be a good idea to start a new thread somewhere to carry on this debate.
 
panhead said:
Does anybody else ever wonder why nobody measures output from the speaker when they are doing an A/B/X to compare measurements against listener data?
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That isn't the purpose of an ABX test.

IMO the whole ABX testing is flawed & useless,the only data used is human hearing, which varies greatly from person to person,speaker measurements dont lie & are not effected by a placebo.
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The whole point of ABX testing is to include human hearing in a rigorous test. It's designed to eliminate things like the placebo effect.

Speaker measurements do sometimes lie. There is disagreement on which tests to use, the environment to test in, and the meaning of the results.

Just as an example, you normally only measure one speaker and use a mono signal.

That may or may not predict the performance of a stereo pair of speakers with a stereo signal.
 
hpsenicka said:
Does anybody here remember what this thread was originally about??

It has drifted way off topic... might be a good idea to start a new thread somewhere to carry on this debate.
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I was going to respond about the ABX but realized that you are right,we hijacked this baby real good.

New thread on the way.
 
I've had my M1.5t paired with the C-1 preamp since I bought them brand new in 1985. I think it sounds great and I am frantically saving my pennies for a "new-to-me" Sunfire amp or receiver.:yes:
 
My 2 cents:

I have used many different Carver amps with my Martin Logan CLS electrostats. A difficult load at best at 2 ohms.

m1.5t (best not go below 4 ohms) - sent into clipping at will - paid $150
TFM-35 - bettered the m1.5t but still worked to hard, no headroom - paid $175
A-500x (current limited at 2 ohms) - handled the load but worked a little to hard for my comfort level - paid $500
A-760x (current limited at 1 ohm) - did very well and didn't have to work to hard. would still be using if I had not got a good deal on the silver 7t mono blocks - paid $650
Silver 7t - walk in the park. effortless - paid $1000
 
Wardsweb said:
My 2 cents:

I have used many different Carver amps with my Martin Logan CLS electrostats. A difficult load at best at 2 ohms.

m1.5t (best not go below 4 ohms) - sent into clipping at will - paid $150
TFM-35 - bettered the m1.5t but still worked to hard, no headroom - paid $175
A-500x (current limited at 2 ohms) - handled the load but worked a little to hard for my comfort level - paid $500
A-760x (current limited at 1 ohm) - did very well and didn't have to work to hard. would still be using if I had not got a good deal on the silver 7t mono blocks - paid $650
Silver 7t - walk in the park. effortless - paid $1000
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Good example of "You get what you pay for".
I've heard that the 7's are very good. :yes:
 
From going thru all of these posts, I've come to the conclusion that I won't be trying to find a pair of Kappa 9's. :D I'll stick with my SDA's.
 
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