Bob Carver tube amps

Over on Audioasylum there is thread about the Carver Crimson 275. The amp is rated as 75 watts/channel. When someone pulled the covers off the output transformers, they found an Edcor transformer rated at 15 watts.  When tested by Audiosciencereview, the amp only produced 17 watts a channel with 1% distortion, and the fuse blew at 29 watts.

If nothing else, the company's published specs are very misleading under normal set of standards.

Agree with those saying avoid Carver

I’m not sure how you can find what you found online and still consider Carver. He’s been a gimmick salesman for decades. If nothing else, look at the claimed power output to weight ratio of his recent tube amp lines, and compare to other brands. That speaks volumes (way-undersized transformers). There are other options, even in USA: Rogue, Quicksilver, ARC, Raven, VTA / Bob Latino. Maybe also look at English Acoustics. Audio Classics has a nice-looking VAC-made 9B. I’m sure I’m missing some great options. There are lots of great sounding vintage tube amps out there which are gems with a bit of TLC. Even those 60 year old tube amps won’t disgrace their tubes by using an under-sized transformer.

15 years ago I tried a Sunfire Signature 600 that was possibly the worst sounding hifi amp I’ve ever used. Not that it sounded outright wrong or awful - just that everything else I’ve tried in this hobby has sounded better.

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:

Between Malitz and Clark, it's obvious this situation is a mess and that someone isn't telling the truth.

Great designer and engineer, very poor businessman. 

ghdprentice

I have followed Bob Carver over his career. Sometimes there are guys that think outside of the box and try different approaches to things. That is Bob. But I would never buy a Carver product… short attention span and poor at execution.

I think that's a very fair summation, @ghdprentice. Bob has been around a long time and designed some interesting products, but the lifespan of his companies and products in remarkably short. It's hard to take anything he might be selling now seriously.

My Black Magic arrived earlier this month. Put it on my kef blade 2. These are not easy to drive (properly). Dug it so much I listed & sold my Sanders Magtech to pay for a 2nd amp. Which arrived 2 days ago. Zero regrets. 

Ergo: Black Magic running mono. See my system page. 

Ergo: ask ACTUAL OWNERS like me what they're like, their service, and oh yeah: they sound killer. happy to chat @silverfoxvtx1800 

I haven’t found anything bad with Quicksilver, boy there’s a lot of research involved, \

Avoid the new Carver tube amps. Poor design and execution.

Russ is right, Quicksilver. 

How about a Quicksilver?

I just read two recent reviews in Audio Science review..it was horrible with two amps.. he even found a loose screw in the box

Bob is very solid guy. In my re-sell arsenal as well as in my personal system I use his products and pretty much I’d say I’m impressed by performance. I started diving on to his stuff when I decided to swap my Bryston 4bst amp for Sunfire SRA amp with absolutely same power, but SRA performance was way superior to Bryston that was nearly 3x more expensive.

Today downside of Carver equipment is service availability. After his retirement not many feel qualified to service these sophisticated pieces and they are not simple to examine and repair in case anything goes down south. I swap my carver amps in order to keep them running from time to time and see no issue with 40+ years old Carver equipment. It's indeed entirely underrated by Audiophile community

I have followed Bob Carver over his career. Sometimes there are guys that think outside of the box and try different approaches to things. That is Bob. But I would never buy a Carver product… short attention span and poor at execution. Flamboyant and innovative. I want rock solid engineering and execution. I would look at Conrad Johnson, VAC, Audio Research for high quality tube gear.