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  1. #1
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    CARVER products, what do think?

    A few years ago there was quite a market for carver products on ebay and other sites. there seems to be a lull in the activity now but i was wondering what people thought of their products in general.

  2. #2
    Forum Regular Woochifer's Avatar
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    Carver got split into separate professional and consumer companies several years ago. Founder Bob Carver left his namesake company a long time ago, and went on to help start up Sunfire. I believe that recently, Sunfire acquired the consumer division of Carver (which was in financial trouble), and was slated to start issuing products under the Carver name once again.

    Back in its late-80s/early-90s heyday (at one point, I think that Carver products used to be sold at Circuit City of all places), Carver was one of the most divisive and controversial audio companies out there. Their magnetic field amps (including the famous "cube" amp) were capable of generating off-the-chart power output, yet they weighed less than 20 lbs. and could run cool to the touch with no heat sinks or large capacitors. (They also had the unfortunate habit of blowing up on the UL test bench, so they were never certified. A store where a friend of mine worked had to pull all of their Carver magnetic field amps off the shelves because the Los Angeles County fire marshalls at that time did not allow stores to sell receivers or amplifiers not certified by UL)

    As controversial as Carver's magnetic field amps were, they also dabbled in several other unconventional product approaches. While Carver's magnetic field amps basically used switching power supplies similar to modern Class D amps to keep weight and heat down, Carver also came out with a line up of very well regarded tube amps and hybrid amps. They were also one of the first manufacturers to create a CD player with a tubes in the output section (this after they played with various digital error-correction tweaks that they called the "digital time lens").

    Carver's tuners were also very well-regarded (though the underlying technology was regarded by some people as simply a repackaging/relabeling of existing techniques). Carver also came out with a lineup of hybrid ribbon speakers they called the Amazings. I extensively listened to those speakers in the late-80s and thought that they sounded great. They also cost about half of what the audiophile press darling of that time, the Apogee Duettas, cost; and IMO outperformed the Duettas.

  3. #3
    Forum Regular risabet's Avatar
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    Back in the 80's. . .

    when I sold Carver amps we had them blowing up left and right. We joked that QC at Carver = the amp is in the box.

    Linn LP-12 (Origin Live Advanced PS w/DC Motor) Benz "ACE" medium output*TAD-150*Tube Audio Design TAD-1000 monoblocs*Parasound CD-P 1000*NAD 4020A Tuner*Velodyne F-1000 Subwoofer*Toshiba SD-4700 DVD*Motorola DTP-5100 HD converter*Pioneer PDP-4300*Martin-Logan Clarity*Audioquest cables and interconnects* Panamax 5100 power conditioner

  4. #4
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    Before BC lost (gave up?) control, and maybe for a while after they were pretty respectable. I suspect there was a down turn under new management. You can still get service on Carver products through Sunfire.

    I'm unpersuaded by the stories of poor reliability. I have an M-400 that has been operating for 25 years. (And sonic holography unit nearly as old) Similar allegations were/are told about the Carver predecessor, Phase Linear. If they wwere so frigile why did Pink Floyd use them in great quatities?

    The site, fmtunerinfo.com give pretty good marks to the TX-11b tuner (I think that's the correct designatiom).

    Carver, himself, generates a lot of resentment in some circles. Partly he has been known to sound a bit arrogant and secondly I think his sucess with products that inherently challenge some high-end assumptions aggrevates some people. The M-400 was a serious affront to the high-end crowd when 80W was a BIG amp and sold for a couple of grand. A look inside a lot of Carver equipment reveals the use of pretty mundane components -- next to nothing exotic, 5% resistors, ordinary caps, single sided PCB with no mask, etc.

    As to why there is less Ebay activity -- I suspect that most of the people who had units they were no longer using have dumped them now and most of those who had longed for years to get one now have it. The result is that the good has been separted from the bad and most of those who have the good units can't bear to part with them
    http://www.drachen-audio.com

  5. #5
    fergot... whasa XLR3?
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    I had a few Phlame Linears... a few... err.. years (decades) ago. Great sounding amps, lotsa power, had heat problems under heavy load (fixed with a bit of fans), but sometimes would just blow and put the rails (DC power supply voltage) to the speakers for no apparent reason. I had 2 of them do it to my hifi. Fortunately I was there the moment it happened, and had the power on a remote and cut it before damage to my (rather healthy Pioneer DSS-9) speakers occured. I sold them all, and went to QSC which sounded as good but had noisey fans... Oh well

  6. #6
    Forum Regular royphil345's Avatar
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    The earlier amps were a little scary. I've heard there were other periods where reliability wasn't so great. Carver made alot of great sounding switching amps at pretty reasonable prices though. The last batch of amps that came out after Bob Carver left and before the Company went under were among the best. The Lightstar (in competition with Bob Carver's Sunfire) was the flagship of that series. The others were all a combination of Bob Carver's technology and improvements from the Lightstar design (higher current, better sound, more reliable) and THX certified. This line might have saved the company, but Carver's reputation was getting bad and the company was functioning poorly due to lack of funds. I think Circuit City was about the only dealer left selling their products. Who goes to Circuit City to buy a $1000.00 + amp? The company went under shortly after introducing the A-X line.

    Agree that it's not so much that there's no market for them. A solid 200 - 400 watt amp just isn't the kind of thing you want to part with once you have it. I've seen mostly older Carvers on eBay. Would think that many of these could use a tune-up, and that's why they're being sold. Carver didn't use the same level of parts quality as some pricier audiophile amps. Think the switching amps can be harder on the power supply caps as well. Have heard of people using resistors between higher wattage Carver amps and speakers to force the power supply caps to work at closer to their capacity at lower volumes. Said it improved sound too.

    If I was looking for an amp, I'd absolutely consider something from that last series (A-220, A-500X, A-760X). I'd also consider an older one, but I'd have to have it checked out so the price would have to be right. Also, some of the older models were known to be just a tad bass-shy and not extremely detailed.

    See alot of TFM- series amps up for sale at reasonable prices now. Good sounding and probably not so old as to need service (well... perhaps replacement of the power meter lamps, believe they are soldered in). The guy selling this one agrees with me that the A-X series is the stuff though and says it's why he's selling the TFM. http://cgi.ebay.com/Carver-TFM-55X-a...QQcmdZViewItem
    Last edited by royphil345; 07-30-2005 at 02:10 PM.

  7. #7
    fergot... whasa XLR3?
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    To be fair, those amps were already decades old when they attempted to nuke my hifi. But on the road i remember replacing 700's during sets. It was part of the gig, we had a method

    BTW, those were Clair branded 700's with the pro mods


  8. #8
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    Carver's reliability problem is NO myth. I'm not saying they were 100% bad, but Carver had one of the worst return rate of any line I have ever seen. The store I worked for carried Carver for some time around 1990. The TMF stuff were boomerangs. A friend of mine employee purchased Carver's expensive monoblocks, I think they were called Silver 7t's or something like that and they went bad within a short period of time. Carver gear always lacked bass authority but other than that sounded pretty good when they worked. Sunfire is about as bad. That line was picked up and then dropped very quickly by the stores here and now I don't think anyone carry's it. Maybe Ultimate still does.

  9. #9
    None sam9's Avatar
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    It's my understyanding that by 1990, Bob Carver had little or nothing to do with Carver, Inc. The company was "Carver" in name only. By then his attention had turned to Sunfire. The "Classic" products such as the M-400 date from the early and mid 80's.

    The "stuff" manufactured in the later years should shouldn't be used to disparrage the the more authentic products that came earlier.
    http://www.drachen-audio.com

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