Are Carver Preamps Any Good?

I have a Carver c-6 pre-amp that will be going up for sale soon. I used it in my system for a good 15 years without complaint until recently upgrading to a much more expensive ARC tube pre-amp.

They are unique values these days with very good performance. A c-6 in good working order like mine should bring $150-200 or so.

Mine has a lot of features not commonly found much anymore today that allow them to perform well in most any system and is in fact quite transparent.

For example the tone controls are among the most flexible I have seen ever and the built in phono pre-amp accommodates both MC and MM cartridges AND has easily switchable phono input sensitivity and impedance buttons on the rear panel which helps deliver very good sound with most any cart out there.

It also accomodates two recorders and two external sound pre-processors, like an equalizer and dbx for example, concurrently. No other pre-amp I know of these days can do that.

Sonic holography is another feature that in fact works and some will love and some will hate.

Audio purists will object to all the control features. Those looking for flexibility and good sound for little cost these days will find a lot to like.

My c-6 recently developed a distortion/breakup issue in one channel.

I'd like to have it totally refurbed. The time is right. CAn someone recommend a good place to do that?

I'd hate to lose the Carver permanently. It's a rare beast these days and I am comfortable using it in my second system regularly or as a spare when needed.

"Carver offers reliable, attractive components if you don’t ask them to be the star of the show."

They will not be the star of the show in most modern well executed audiophile type systems.

They can be though when some of the features come in handy as tweaks, like the tone controls, l/r variable blend, flexible mc/mm phono stage, etc.