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. |
I wold be curious what opinion the OP has on the Ayon Triton (which I also owned and enjoyed) vs the Carver amps- it would appear he has kept the Triton as well... |
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. |
Changes in design to accommodate the KT150 output tube. I'm guessing those are photos of the older 180 and or 305 amplifiers. KT150 have a unique tear drop shape.
Personal build and delivery of every product! |
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 |
I think its very important to keep things in an audible perspective. Personally, I considered every published review I read of Carvers Tube products. Even more, I valued every account of personal satisfaction written by people who invested in purchasing these products. But most important is my own experience with their ability to drive my difficult load speakers with ease.
It wasn't that long ago I purchased a Nakamichi preamplifier that measured better than anything at the time and better than a majority of todays designs but the presentation was far less than desirable. Regardless of the Amplifier Experts measurements I'm pressed to find any user comments that reflect any weakness that their measurements suggest.
On the contrary, simple and relatively inexpensive modifications can have a very noticeable improvement on these amplifiers.
While your reaction is understandable don't let their fundamental advantage escape the reality of their presentation diminish because of a line on a scope.
|
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. |
Paul, Youtube pr Facebook I forget now but I think the work was done by the Amplifier Experts.
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.454118534700173.1073741836.266965016748860&type=1 |
I have a Sunfire tube preamp w/phono (even though I have no LP collection) & remote, but I decided I would go with the McIntosh C50 instead for my bedroom set-up. The Sunfire is now boxed-up and in the garage. I'd only part with it for a premium price because of its rarity and I feel like I may want to revisit its sound one day. It's the only brand of tube preamp I've ever owned to-boot.
If you have the greenbacks to foot that $2,000 upgrade and are a power hog like myself it might be worth it. Personally right now, I wouldn't have done that upgrade, but that's primarily based on me not having them greenbacks lol.
I do wonder how the 305 (I guess that is what it is still being called) with the KT-150 tubes sounds? |
Vic,
What YouTube video are you talking about, could not find anything about the 180's and power specs. |
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. |
Pittsburgh is a bit closer than shipping it to the west coast. If Pitt doesn't workout for you, I'm sure there are some other tech's/shops out your way that could assist you. Actually I would reeeally look for a shop within a two to three hours drive from where you are, before having to pack up and send these beautiful amps via a carrier to be worked on out of state. One thing about living in a large city like Los Angeles, you can find pretty much anything you need, but the problem of finding a good & fair shop/tech is still a challenge. I'm greatful I was refered to the tech I have now.
Good Luck my friend. I'm anxious to know what your thoughts are on the upgrades once they are done. |
Whew! I'm kinda glad I ended up getting mine straight from Bob himself if that's the case.
Curious if you used any of the Sunfire amps and what were your impressions, good or bad, of them? If so, with what pre-amp & speakers? |
Mil, You've confirmed my suspicion, hemoe was forced to hire someone who could actually diagnose and solder rather then simply shotgunning wire boards and power supplies to repair the rest of their dreck. Love to hear any actual inside information regarding the tube amp legacy, keep it coming.
I'm so confident of their build I strongly doubt my twins will ever be forced to breath scanky mississippi air. Only time will tell.
Recently, I was so put off by the YouTube power measurements that I queued up some Jimi, cranked them up and quickly fugotaboudit. The 180s spanked my Eidolons into submission with no discernible ill effects.
What is meant by "that much of a variance in them?
Can the 180's really handle KT150's?
Get dem Gold Points! |
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. |
Not assure what you mean when you say, "...carver didn't match the mono blocks when the were shipped." I have totally different tubes in, than the tubes that came with the amps. My Cherries appear to be matched when I have all the new tubes in and bias each amp with one another. Again, I'm not sure if this is the "matched" you are speaking about. Please elaborate.
When the tech spoke of biasing in the 140+ range, I think that was pertaining to the KT-88's being used in the Cherry 180's and not the KT-120's. I believe the KT-120's can be driven fairly hard and not be worn so easily, but I could be wrong.
Not sure why your bookshelf speakers would cause the meters to "peg" more than your floor-standing speakers other than the bookshelf speakers being far less in their efficiency rating. My speakers aren't too efficient and are power hungry, so I think that's why mine "peg" hard at high volumes.
Not sure what city-state you are in to recommend a tech. there, but I'm in Compton, CA. Yes, THE Compton lol Anyhow, I have had my tech in Westminster, CA, (a really nice part of town) rebuild my x-over network in my Infinity IRS Beta mids/highs towers; fix a troublesome woofer in my Thiel CS5i speaker; along with several other amp and transport/DAC work. I'm sure he could handle the attenuator and/or the V-cap upgrade. I am not sure if you can do PM's on this forum, but here is my email address dblf@pacbell.net
Hit me and I'll shoot you his info. and you can talk with him directly and get a feel for him. He was recommended to me by a Volleyball dad on my daughter's volleyball team about a year or so ago. |
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 can't imagine anybody at anotivia knows how to solder let alone diagnose a problem. |
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. |
Heard somewhere that Emotiva and Bob have parted ways recently. I am not sure how true this info is, but just thought I would pass it on in the event you run into complications getting results with your inquiry.
Man! I need Bob's New 900watt Silver Seven. I run out of power (I think) with the Cherry 180's, when I "Live Concert" them lol. I guess I'm running out of power, the meter pegs violently, no real audible distortion though, but I assume hard pegging is an indication that you're almost at the end of the power available. Thinking of doing the Sunfire Signature again to get the 6 db of headroom back for my tendency to reproduce "Live" :-O |
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. |
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 have the Psvane tubes also and go back and forth between them & the Mullards. What are your impressions of the Psvanes? Did you change both of the smaller tubes or just the 12ax7?
With the KT-120's plugged in, the min. you can bias the amp is 90 and the max is way passed the meter scale. I set mine sometimes at 90, sometimes at 150, but right now I have it set at 110. It depends on what mood I'm in and what music I may be listening to at the time.
I have had a total of two KT-120's tubes go south on me. The first one took out a resistor and I had to get a technician to help repair that. I contacted Bob and he and my technician, at the time, chatted about it and got the issue resolved. The second time one of the tubes went out, it was a tube in the other cherry amp, but it did not take out any resistor(s). It bears noting that the group of KT-120 tubes were not from Bob, they were from an online site. I subsequently got in contact with a local tube dealer (Upscale Audio) and bought & installed a whole new batch of 12 KT-120 tubes, just to put myself at ease. I haven't had any failures or problems since. The owner of Upscale Audio is a little high strung at times, but again, I've never had any problems with the KT-120's or the Mullard 4004's & 4024's or any other tubes a bought from him. The initial batch was purchased by a very well known online site. I'm not saying that site sales bad or bunk tubes in general, but it just so happened that I got a few tubes from them that took a Dive after only several months of service. I haven't used that site since though. |
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. |
When I bought the amp, direct from Bob, he gave me the option to have him send me the KT-88's that he normally sends or the KT-120's; his new company didn't come online 'til a short time later. Anyhow, I ended up having him send me the standard tubes and I ordered 12 KT-120's from another source. Once getting the amps home, I plugged in the KT-120's and they have been in pretty much the whole time. However, I did once after several months, try the KT-88's. The sound was actually a little warmer, but the tubes seem to be working very hard. What I mean is, I like to play my music relatively loud at times and with the KT-88's it looked like a fire storm raging in the tubes as the music played. These amps was/are my only experience with tube equipment, so that was kinda scary to witness. Maybe thats how power tubes regularly behave under serious music listening, but with the KT-120's the peak "flaming" is much less and conversely less stressful to see when enjoying your tunes. The only drawback with the KT-120's, is that you can barley see that the tubes are lit, even at night...and as we all know that's part of the appeal of having tubes...seeing the glow lol. As far as the warmth goes, I added some Mullard tubes (4004 & 4024) to the equation and that warmed and smoothed out the sound again.
Thanks for the info on the KT-150's. I think I'll stay with the KT-120's for now. My next move would be the upgrades on the gain/attenuator & 2caps on each amp; which Dracula1 spoke about earlier in this thread. |
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. |
The 12ax7 & 12at7 Psvane tubes I installed 3 years ago have been the best of the few tubes I tried when I was doing the tube rolling thing. That was my 1st time with tube equipment.
I tried and ranked them this way:
1st Psvane - Well balanced and sounded just right. Not too this or too that.
2nd Mullard CV4004 & CV4024 NOS - Best Mids by far, but got tired of the effect after a while. Too too much of a good thing can wear on you.
3rd Gold Lion reissued - Brightest sounding of the bunch. Not waaay too bright, but my speakers can be finicky in the highs area to begin with.
4th Tung Sol reissued - Not a bad tube at all for the price; I think $20 each. I even might rank them above the Gold Lions depending on my mood that day. FWIW this tube had the highest gain of the few tubes I've tried.
All in all, I think I'm biased (lol) for a tube that is currently in production i.e. can be bought without having to hunt a set down here and there at some extremely marked-up price.
...oh, and I'm running Tung Sol KT-120's for my power tubes, even though the amps are set-up for the KT-88's. Back when I purchased them from Mr. Carver, he said it was cool to do and the KT-120's wouldn't harm the amps one bit. Now I'm curious if the cherries can handle the new KT-150's :-O |
...oh, and did you get matched pairs/quads of the .22 V-caps? Lastly, what tolerance (5%, 1%, 0.5%) should I get? |
Dracule1 - I have a pair of Bob's Cherry 180's. I elected to run my Sunfire Signature amp over the past year because the Cherries did not provide me the extra wattage/headroom I desired; I like to listen LOUD a lot of times. Over the past couple of days I cleaned up the Cherries, they just were collecting dust, literally, so after getting them all cleaned-up I reinserted them back into my system to see if I could live with the lower power output. I reinserted them because I was reading different threads on Audiogon about folks recently expressing their love for the Cherries, namely you sir.
After plugging them in...mmmmm, to hell with the extra head room for now, I think I may leave them in for a while. If I can get by the heat these beautiful tubes put off, but I don't remember them putting out as much heat as they are. When my money gets right, I plan on getting the two upgrades you spoke about 1) the GP attenuator 2) the V-cap .22 caps. I was thinking to do the copper instead of the tin caps. I'm not sure if the copper caps really sound better, but if anybody has any feedback one way or another I'd appreciate it.
Are there any other new upgrades for the Cherries? |
Keep the volume pot and upgrade it to a better one. It is useful to have as a feature. Lets you experiment with DAC directly too. |
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 |
anyone compare these with the Rogue m-180? thx! |
How do you bias the tube sets without an attenuator turned full counter clockwise?
Lacking deep bass, compared to what (speakers and amplifiers)? According to the manual Velodyne Room Optimization program I'm getting almost the same frequency depth on my Avalon Eidolons as compared to a pair of Hypex nCore 400s. The trace for the VTA 180s is slightly fatter around the 30-50Hz region. I personally prefer the what the VTAs are doing for general listening. The nCore are relegated to my little recording studio were the overall presentation is more useful than tubes.
Keep in mind we're getting into the subjectivity of our differing rooms. My listening room is on the large size with a vaulted ceiling, using more reflective diffusers and little in the way of absorption |
Hi Guys,
I have picked up a pair VTA 180 with GP volume pots and did bypass the attenuator found the sound open up a little more, more resolution with clarity. I however found the deep bass is lacking and thinking of upgrade the output tube to kt120 or kt150. Can anyone here with such experience with KT150 please advise? |
I kept mines in and upgraded the volume pot for the sake of flexibility to future upgrades if its ever needed. However if you do try to bypass it I would be interested in the gains you may notice? |
has anyone bypassed the attenuator and wired direct? I have the GP in my amp but don't use the attenuator at all. I also switched out the 2 .22 caps in each amp with the Jupiter Beeswax HT - nice improvement in overall smoothness and resolution. |
Forget the warranty. Its gone. |
Hi all,
Carver site was down and I didn't save a copy of the user manual. Anyone know the fuses size of VTA-180, and how many?
I want to upgrade to high-priced fuse
BTW: Emotiva and Carver Tube no longer partnership - who will handle 7 yrs warranty on my amp? :( |
Can anyone confirm the model types required for the Upgrades on the RCA input Sockets and the Speaker binding Post? the right ones to fit the chassis. |
Im still waiting for the build to complete. Prob Mid October as advised by Ralph. |
Dragon_vibe, What's the status of your AtmaSphere MA2? How do they work in your hot humid climate? |
How about the power supply, any caps there we can change to better types? |
There is only one cap at 2.2 uF per amp |
I have just purchased Vcap CUTF, I wanted to ask how many caps do I need for the Feedback cap upgrade on the value of 2.2UF
I have seen some Duelund 2.2 VSF second ones sold for a pair at 200 dollars. So might buy this and see what happens.
Any other upgrades one can do the internals? |
Anyone consider bypassing the volume attenuator? |
Thanks for your updates Thuan98.
I had my Goldpoint attanuators installed a few weeks ago and all I can say the upgrade is 100% recommended.
The Bobs sounded fantastic with great tubes such as GL KT88's and Telefunken 12AX7 but the vol attenuators have lifted the Bobs to another playing field.
There is another level of clarity and resolution to be had that the stock volume attenuators were restricting.
I am still leaving the components as they are though as can't be happier with the sound I am getting now. |
How embarrass I am - Look further online to find how to read capacitor marking. the ones I found 224J 630V indeed .22mF @630V. The "J" is not Joule but it's 5% tolerance
I'm good now
Thanks all |
I try KT120s in Cherry 180 with good result :)
Produce stronger bass and larger soundstage, mid and high at least as good as Gold Lion KT88
I got green light from Carver staff to use these, he said KT120 will add extra 10-20 wpc. Still need time for break-in, I'm still around 5 hrs of break in period
Happy listening :) |
My amp is using caps denoted as Joule, not Farad
And nothing is match to .22mF :(
Any help would be appreciated
Regards |
Thanks Vic,
My amp circuit laid out a bit difference.
I see 2 large Vishay with value on them as 100v 85 degree C (only these came with symmetric pair. Doesn't sound right?
How big are these caps? I also see a pair which noted 224J 630V - not sure which ones
I can send pic. |
