Bob Carver tube amps
Hello, looking for Carver amp info the read out there is a little sketchy. Is that place still in business? And who is actually making the amps? Do the have a factory in the Pacific Northwest….I live in the Pacific Northwest so I could drive there if I had a problem.
I need a tube amp for my Klipsch speakers, you tube heads out there is this the brand I should buy or is there a better option?
I can still remember in the 70s when my father in law went to the factory and grabbed me a Phase Linear amp and preamp off the factory floor..I had more problems with that thing, once and a while it made a super load pop when you turned it on..
Showing 8 responses by kota1
Almost forgot, I also have a Sunfire TSEQ10 subwoofer, two 10 inch drivers (1 active and 1 passive) with a 2700 watt amp. I don't think there is another sub out there that has this much power and at the same time only about 12 inches square in size. You can see the sub in the lower left corner of the front view pic of my system profile. |
I have had a GREAT experience with Carver and Sunfire products (and I still own them). The Theater Grand 3 sounds great in both two channel and multichannel. Bob added his sonic holography circuit and also a feature called side axis (wide) channels and it has 4 subwoofer connections. This was way ahead of his time. You are just starting to see processors with 4 sub outs and once you get used to wide channels you can’t go back. Studies done by Tomlinson Holman (of THX fame) found wides to be more significant than height or rear channels. I also own a Carver A series amp (AV505) that was on TAS list of the 10 most significant amps of all time. Look how many reviewers at TAS have his products on their individual top 10 list. Genius is an understatement:
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@volumizer , that sounds like a great combo you have. What are the pics you posted? |
The Sunfire 7401 7 channels x 400 watts each= 2800 watts Price=$4450/2800 watts= $1.58 per watt Then you have to factor in the cost savings on your energy bill because it doesn’t need to pull and store constant power, it pulls as needed. Take your favorite amp and run the numbers, is there any other 400 watt a channel amp available at $1.58 a watt? What about a 300 watt/channel? 200w? 100W???
Parasound A21 300w a channel x2=600 watts Price= $3000/600w= $5 a watt, if it sounds better it should at more than 300% the cost!!
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Not sure why there are so many trashing them.. Nobody feels "good" when their $30K amp gets run over by a $3K amp. Bob’s tracking downconverter is patented and unique to Carver. While his amps have "get up and go" to provide unlimited headroom other $$$ amps just "get up and and blow up" if they even come close to pushing that type of power. The customer that dropped kilobucks on what is essentially a bunch of watts being converted to heat is not pleased:
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I had a pair of JBL 230’s sitting on my desktop powered ny a Parasound Z series (Zamp, ZDac, Zpre). All is well and I see a Carver AV505 amp on CL for like $200. I already owned a Sunfire processor and subwoofer so on a lark I pulled the trigger. First thing I notice is the build, as in like a tank with rack handles. Second thing I notice is the THX certification and the gain knobs for each of the five 80 watt channels. The third thing I noticed was as soon as I hooked this thing up was my JBL 230 speakers sounded like I was hearing them for the first time. The soundstage blew out from wall to wall and what was unexpected was I had never heard a soundstage extend from floor to ciling before. The strengths of the JBL’s were brought forward and the clarity, preciseness in the soundstage were intoxicating. Within 30 minutes I was getting complaints from my condo association, as I continued to turn up the wick. This was paired with the Parasound Z preamp. Intrigued I pulled out some decent but entry level Athena bookshelf speakers. Again, unrecognizable, they went from entry level to really good. I said OK, let’s see what this puppy can do. I take my Paradigm Studio 20 passive speakers out of my home theater as surrounds and mount them on stands as proper L & R channels in the main room about 10 feet away from the MLP. Then I BI-AMP them so I have two channels powering left speaker and two powering the right. I also take out the Parasound pre out and insert the Sunfire Theater Grand 3 in two channel mode. Then I hit play and I was immediately surprised. I didn’t know that these speakers could sound this good. I had been running them with a decent amp as surrounds. When I researched WHY this amp was knocking my sox off I found that the Carver A series used the same power supply as the famed Carver Lightstar. The big brother, AV705 has even more power if you can find one. So, the moral of the story is a $200 CL find of an amp from the nineties made my speakers sound like they cost MUCH more than the MSRP. This was like steroids for speakers. This isn’t even close to being one of Carvers best amps but this thread made me want to share why I am so pleased with Carver/Sunfire amps.
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