Frank, I see that you are new here, so welcome! And thanks for providing such a thorough and witty post.
I owned a Carver C-4000 for a few years, beginning ca. 1980. Initially I was quite pleased with it, but as the rest of my system evolved and improved its lack of transparency and other sonic shortcomings became increasingly apparent. Particularly when the sonic hologram function was in use, but also to a significant degree when it was deselected. Eventually, around 1985, I inserted a friend's Mark Levinson ML-1 into my system (that being the philosophical antithesis of the C-4000, with its design providing very little in the way of features but implementation that was very uncompromising), and it immediately became apparent that the Carver had to go. I purchased the ML-1 from the friend and used it for the majority of the next 25 years.
While the possibility that the Kleos may be under-performing for some reason can't be ruled out at this point, of course, my guess is simply that the sonics of the Delos happen to be more complementary than those of the Kleos to the colorations and relative lack of transparency of the Carver and/or the other components in the system. With an additional contributing factor perhaps being that the components may no longer be performing as well as they once did.
I hope you will receive these comments as being well-intended and hopefully constructive, which is how they are being offered.
Good luck. Regards,
-- Al
I owned a Carver C-4000 for a few years, beginning ca. 1980. Initially I was quite pleased with it, but as the rest of my system evolved and improved its lack of transparency and other sonic shortcomings became increasingly apparent. Particularly when the sonic hologram function was in use, but also to a significant degree when it was deselected. Eventually, around 1985, I inserted a friend's Mark Levinson ML-1 into my system (that being the philosophical antithesis of the C-4000, with its design providing very little in the way of features but implementation that was very uncompromising), and it immediately became apparent that the Carver had to go. I purchased the ML-1 from the friend and used it for the majority of the next 25 years.
While the possibility that the Kleos may be under-performing for some reason can't be ruled out at this point, of course, my guess is simply that the sonics of the Delos happen to be more complementary than those of the Kleos to the colorations and relative lack of transparency of the Carver and/or the other components in the system. With an additional contributing factor perhaps being that the components may no longer be performing as well as they once did.
I hope you will receive these comments as being well-intended and hopefully constructive, which is how they are being offered.
Good luck. Regards,
-- Al