hello need help

[john03]

I had a onkyo amp it took a **** after many years rather than fix it I went and bought a harman kardon hk3490 now my onkyo I think had more balls and sounded better even though it was only a 60 watt amp as opposed to the hk3490 being 120 watt? so I was thinking on buying a used carver tfm 15cb or tfm 25 anybody wanna chime in on this???????

[StevenSurprenant]

I've owned a few Carvers but I'm not sure they will be what you want. For instance, I tried a 60 watt Carver TFM 6C (I think) against a 30 watt Pass Labs Aleph3. The Carver was going into clipping (according to the clip lights) and the Pass was right there with it playing in the other channel. If there was any distortion I couldn't hear it. On top of that, the sound quality of the Pass was far superior.

I'm not saying that the Carver is bad, but I think you might be doing more of a lateral move rather than a step up. I think some more opinions are in order to be of any use to you.

[john03]

i had heard a carver tfm 15cb back in the day and it rocked i know one thing this new harman hk3490 seems muffled and doesnt really i mpress me the least as i stated
the onkyo i had before this hk was way more open and seemed to be louder when i wanted that? i havent bought a new amp up until this hk in many years is this a common thing in new amps
as i listened to a marantz before buying the hk and even a new onkyo i chose the hk for the phono jack and the 120 watts the newer onkyo i looked at had only 80 watts and did have the phono jack i really dont know what to as im just not fulfilled with the sound of this hk anybody have any suggestions??? thats another thing about this hk when i turn it up to around 10 db i get distortion ? that would not even be halfway? on the onkyo id push that thing i wouldnt hear any distortion until it was over 3/4 of the volume?

[blackraven]

Its odd that the 3490 does not play loud enough. It has a beefy power supply and is high current. What gauge speaker cable are you using? It should be 16 or heavier. As far as the sound, it is a warmer sounding amp and it is a budget piece of gear.

What is your budget? You could use the HK as a preamp and purchase a separate power amp. If you are on a budget consider a Class D Audio amp, Parasound A23 or Parasound Classic. Also look on audiogon for a used amp.

Home page

I have one of these amps. They sound great, are detailed, transparent, dynamic with good air but can be a little bright with the wrong gear. They pair well with warmer sounding speakers, preamps and tube preamps.

Here are 180 pages of discussion on these amps-

$175 Class D amp--120 wpc

[john03]

Its odd that the 3490 does not play loud enough. It has a beefy power supply and is high current. What gauge speaker cable are you using? It should be 16 or heavier. As far as the sound, it is a warmer sounding amp and it is a budget piece of gear.

What is your budget? You could use the HK as a preamp and purchase a separate power amp. If you are on a budget consider a Class D Audio amp, Parasound A23 or Parasound Classic. Also look on audiogon for a used amp.

Home page

I have one of these amps. They sound great, are detailed, transparent, dynamic with good air but can be a little bright with the wrong gear. They pair well with warmer sounding speakers, preamps and tube preamps.

Here are 180 pages of discussion on these amps-

$175 Class D amp--120 wpc

what about jolida amps???????

[StevenSurprenant]

Personally, I would take heed of blackraven's suggestion of a class D amp. In my opinion, they are the best for the buck. My experience is that they produce a very tight and strong bass and are above the norm in terms of clarity, detail, and soundstaging. As a matter of fact, I was blown away when I heard my first one. As blackraven said, they can sound a little bright but they do everything else very well.

As for tubes, that's a different animal altogether. I went to tubes out of curiosity and have no desire to look back. Compared to solid state in the same price range of tubes, tubes offer more clarity and much better soundstaging. With a little tube rolling you can make them sound pretty much the way you want them to. They can give you that warm tube sound or sound just like a transistor amp. If you like both, you can swap tubes out from time to time for a different sound. However, tubes are not maintenance free. You have to adjust the bias from time to time and change tubes out when they fail. Also, some tubes are not cheap these days. There is one more issue with tubes that might be of concern. Since tubes have a limited lifespan people don't normally run them day in and day out. If you're the type to have music playing all day long, a solid state or digital amp might be the best way to go.