Carver gear, from vintage to current, is all I have ever purchased for audio.
Nelion, Hitech, (Greg and Roland) bring these great pieces back to spec and even a few “upgrades”. But that is my decision to buy and have refurbished (mostly) before even plugging in most of them.
Tube amps are simple things. Any competent repair shop will be able to “fix” any problems any newer tube amp might have in 20-30 or 40 years from now (if tubes are still being made by then(?))
But I have had even non-serviced 40 year old Carver equipment playing music and they sound great. So getting “service” on 30-40 year old, 2d-3rd or 4th hand, equipment isn’t that difficult.
Not sure why there are so many trashing them.. If it sounds good to you, it sounds good to the only person that matters.
Jim Clark has been very responsive and helpful even for information on “older” Carver Silver Seven. Probably going to get the RAM285.
Have an A760x from Greg at Nelion driving a pair of Tekton Double Impact SE right now, 100 db is what I am getting clean (measured with Pile meter) before I hear distortion.. Since I ordered them as bi-amp, I can use the RAM on uppers and the A760x for lower (have a couple of Tekton 2-10 subs ordered also)
the DIs do seem to like it better when I limit lower end to them to above ~40hz.
But I might just be hitting power limit.. Lights do dim a bit at times…
Balance of systems.. Nice, loud, great sounding music that doesn’t cost as much as a house…