Bob Carver 180 Mono-blocks perform superbly

Looks like he has the 180 replacement up on the site now. The 200 uses a different tube and has a upgraded power supply. Site says $6950 for a pair.

Happy hollidays fellas!

I have had my cherries for a couple of weeks now and love them! Mine are in black sn#130 and 131. I am very intrested in switching out the volume pot but need to find a local person to do it. I live near louisville KY if anybody as a suggestion. Has anybody tried any of the other things like fuses or power chords? Also I am curious for the opinions on adding the KT-120's. From another carver site it is said to take them up to 260 watts at 8 ohms.

Thanks

Heynow,

Was there a drastic improvement when you went to the kt-120's from the kt-88? From what I read it takes the power up to 260 watts. I know somebody that went to the 150's in the cherries but he had to have bob carver himself modify the power supply up the what is in the black beauty's. Carver charged him $1000 for the mod and $1100 for the tubes. From what I saw it didn't change the power ratings much.

On one of my amps a couple of the kt-88 are going bad, the bias will max out at 100 where the other will max out at 140. Tax money will be for 12 kt-120's. I have already upgraded the front tubes to the Psvanes so I am hoping the combo will sound great.

I have enjoyed the Ps vanes (12ax and 12at) both in my carvers and a vincent 236mk hybrid intergrated. They have a nice highs along with solid bass. The only others I have tried are the cheap stock tubes that came with each. I have read that Bob preferred the NOS telefuken. If I can find a good deal on some I might try a pair. Since my last post i tested my 88's using the sixth slot according to the owners manual and had a them test between 20 and 40. I then matched them up so each amp had the same added up number for all six and the bias was still low(110) vs the good amp(140). I must have something wrong with the one. I am going to try and contact emotiva and see what their tech says.

I looked at the upscale audio site and he tests the tube for 72 hours, none of the other sites do that. It's probably worth the extra couple of bucks for the peace of mind.

Talked to emotiva and they are honoring the carver warranty. The tech that I talked to did say that the bias will have different high and lows depending on the tubes along with the fact that carver didn't match the mono blocks when the were shipped. He recommended testing all the tubes and putting all the strongest in the weaker amp. According to him the normal listening should be done between 80 and 110 and that just because you can bias them up to 140 or 150 it is not recommended to drive the tubes that hard.

The only time that I had the meters bouncing was when I had a pair of Polk bookshelves hooked the the carvers and I was running them pretty hard. They would bounce all the way down to 10 and back up, the looked like some VU meters. When hooked to my gallo speakers,the needle barely moves, strange.

Vic! Great to have you back in the thread. Apparently emotiva kept some of carvers staff when they purchased the company. Since my last post I have talked to another emotiva staff member was a carver tech and didn't know I had talked to the first guy. He told me the same thing the first guy did and that the amps can have that much of a variance in them. He mentioned that the amps are a very simple design and are built like tanks and very rare do they have to do any warranty work. Most times it's a problem with tubes.

I went onto the goldpoint sight and looked at the attenuators. If I purchase some can anybody recommend a technician to do the work? I don't have anybody local. Would be willing to ship.

Thanks

Paul

I think what he meant was with a brand new set of tubes you could have one amp that will max out at 130 and one at 150. I am guessing that carver didn't match the amps from a max bias stand point ( 140 with a 140 or 130 with a 130) and just shipped completed units.

Thanks for the suggestion. I live just outside of Louisville. Think I may call vintage hifi in Pittsburgh since they were a carver dealer and repair facility at one time.

I know a guy who had to have his cherries modified by bob him self to run the 150's. Bob upgraded the power supply to that of the 305 black beauties. For the upgrade and the tubes it was $2000. Me personally, I would save the money for some better speakers than my Gallo's.

Hey,

This is the first carver product that I have owned. I would like to have a sunfire tube pre but they are rare and cost a chunk when one does come up for sale.

Vic,

What YouTube video are you talking about, could not find anything about the 180's and power specs.

Vic,
I did read that review, he was pretty harsh! He also did a review on the small carver amp and trashed it as we'll. I sent him a message saying I had a pair and asked if he had any recommendations on how to improve them and he responded with that I would have to spend several thousand to get them right.

Carver has his new site up with some improved 305 that he is calling the 350. Looked like it uses the kt-150's with a improved power supply. He also added some balanced inputs and a two ohm speaker tap. The picks look more like his ebay offerings from a couple years ago. At $9k a pair I think I will keep my 180's

Bobcarvercorp.com

Might have to send him a message to see if he had an upgrade program. Just don't know if there would be enough sonic improvement to warrant the up charge.