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Whatever Happened to the Carver Brand??

V

vintagestereo

Addicted Member
Banned
I have a Carver "The Receiver", which really impresses me. It seems like the Carver brand was only around for about 10 years or so. Does anyone know anything about the "History of Carver" and what happened to the Carver brand? I know that Bob Carver began with Phase Linear and is somehow affiliated now with Sunfire.
 
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It's all Bob Carver. After Phase Linear he created some very innovative gear under the Carver badge. Making it a strong force in the upper end audio of the day. He sold the company and started Sunfire. The new owners of Carver tried to make it mass market, pushing it out of places like Circuit City, and broaden their product base. Well they forgot "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Bob bought the company back when the stock hit $0.5 a share. He dropped everything the old owners had done and pulled Carver into his facilities at Sunfire. He is trying to bring Carver back to a focused company and at present is only producing one home theater receiver.
 
Everybody I know including myself that has/had Carver receivers, only 1 has one that still works. The one I had was a HR752 and lasted 6 years, what a POS! It was very decent with a great tuning section while it lasted.
A simple web search will give you more than you want to know 'bout Bob. :)

Carl
 
CarlV said:
Everybody I know including myself that has/had Carver receivers, only 1 has one that still works. The one I had was a HR752 and lasted 6 years, what a POS! It was very decent with a great tuning section while it lasted.
A simple web search will give you more than you want to know 'bout Bob. :)

Carl
Click to expand...

I guess I'm really lucky! My "The Receiver" gets used everyday and has been since I've owned it, with no problems. However, I only use it while I am doing my artwork, so the volume never really goes past the 11:00 position.

I've noticed that there's a circuit board near the front, to the right, that gets really hot and is quite "brown/burned" underneath some aqua colored transistors. However, my tech told me that this was normal. (This is NORMAL?!?!?)

In case anyone's interested, here's some of the artwork I've done while listening to the Carver:
http://www.ckopfell.com/chrisart.htm
 
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Having just scored the 130 wpc version of Carver's The Receiver (later came in 150 wpc), I can attest to those 4 aqua-colored resistors getting replaced. Mine came from a friend of mine (original owner) whose went up in smoke one day for no reason at said resistors. Lots of scortched circuit board and blackened inside of the metal case followed. He sent it to the Carver factory for fixing (I have the invoice) and tune up. Still runs hot as hell at that point.

Carver's mainstream consumer gear was mercurial like the man. When it works, its stout, but when it blows, it fails hard. He gave impressive features for the money for the mid-fi consumer, and his hi-end gear is reportedly very good. You do have to put up with his overheated marketing copy too (not unlike those resistors, re: Magnetic Field Power Amplifier, ooooh, be still my little techie heart...). Have to admire him for putting his name on his gear and sticking behind it, though.
 
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