Peeking inside a Carver Crimson 275 Tube Amplifier

I'm about 70 hours into the VCaps and ClarityCaps.  

Everything sounds wonderful.  

An update on the differences between the stock Suntan brand caps and the new VCap CuTF and ClarityCaps---

With the stock caps, I had a massive soundstage; nicely holographic.  

With the new caps, the soundstage is just as big but the things going on are more focused without losing that holographic nature.  There's an added composure to the sound.  Things were little less organized before, but that was quite pleasurable given the overall picture.  Now, however, I feel as though I didn't give up the size of the picture while detail and definition increased.  Very cool. 

One thing about the size of the soundstage did increase; that is the depth of the performance.  It was good before. I heard depth on many recordings that made me smile. Now, I'm just hearing more of it, across more recordings.

I'll stop the reviews and updates now as things are settling in nicely.  All the best to those who chimed in!

I am Frank Malitz, owner of the Bob Carver Company. I should be addressing capacitor and resistor questions. But, I would like to respond to phantom. here’s what he said about my company:
"I used to own the Black Beauty, It ran very difficult speakers and can handle difficult loads, Unfortunately Bob carver setup Distributors globally and got everyone to buy and market the amps for some time and then dropped all the distributors within an instant. Nice Amps but the people running the company have no idea."
1) the Black beauty was made many years ago and has nothing whatsoever to do with Glass Audio Inc. doing business as the Bob Carver Company.
2) Bob and I started the Bob Carver Company on January 1, 2016. I took over ownership January 1, 2020. Bob remains as my chief designer and certainly one of my best friends; we speak weekly. EJ is my only partner and builds it all by hand in CA.
3) I have only expanded into Thailand, New Zealand and Australia. I have not set up distributors globally because we have never been able to meet the demand and still cannot to this day. All purchasers of my product will be forced to wait between two weeks and six weeks depending on the model although two of our three approved Internet resellers stock large quantities which makes it easier on us all. Phantom, I have never dumped a distributor. Let me explain what a distributor is: we have no distributors in the United States. We only sell through retailers. We do not sell directly to the public. In the world of audio, a distributor will stock inventory in a warehouse in larger quantities than a retailer. That distributor would sell to the local retailers in his country who are too small to buy directly from the manufacturer--a common scenario.
4) the only time that Bob set up distributors globally was for the Carver brand and they fired him 35 years ago so phantom is a little bit behind the times. Even Sunfire, which Bob opened after being fired by the Carver Company, did not have global distribution.
5) Bob is still honoring the warranty on in-warranty tube units that he sold before January 2016. When he bought the Carver name back, he covered all the warranties out of his pocket. It is not legally our responsibility to back up those units but we always help anyone with a problem as best we can. This is easy because there are no failures. We have no service department. I can remember one 350 failure and about four 275s with buzzing transformers due to a mistake made by our supplier in not following Bob’s design. This is over a 15 year period representing hundreds of units sold. Our warranty is 40 times longer on the tubes than McIntosh or Audio Research, on our point to point units and 20 times longer on our PCB models and ten times longer that Prima Luna who are smart people! We’ve sent out eight tubes in ten years. In my 55 years in the industry, I have never handled any product with this low a failure rate (In all honesty, I don’t recall a defective Bel Canto).
6) I do not think it’s appropriate for phantom to claim that I have no idea what I’m doing. Most people would be offended. If this response is too wordy and defensive, I hope you can understand. I spent my life in this industry trying to bring good sound to everybody at every price level, hosting trainings at 8:00pm in the middle of nowhere. Yet, according to phantom I have failed.

Here’s a list of companies I’ve established, designed for or represented: (from my profile):

Onkyo USA

Integra (part of Onkyo USA)

Yamaha (twice)

SME

Grace

Supex

Denon

DCM

a/d/s/

Meitner

Museatex

VPI

Thorens

Trinnov

Pro-ject

REL

Counterpoint

Vector Research

Kenwood

Audio Alchemy (twice)

Acoustic Research (second launch)

Dahlquist (second launch)

Apogee (second launch)

Sonus Faber

Totem Acoustic (three times)

Triad Loudspeakers (three times)

Golden Tube

Tandberg (second launch)

Electrocompaniet

Cambridge Audio

Earthquake Sound

ADA

Artison

Harmon International (incl JBL, Infinity, etc)

ELAC

Sunfire

Carver

Sennheiser

Focal

Klipsch

M&K

AudioControl

Nordost

Monster Cable

Arcam

and at my age, I can guarantee I’ve left some out!

Consultation Experience:

Denon (tone arms and cartridges)

Stax (designed their first close back headphone)

Ortofon (phono cartridges)

BES (loudspeakers and marketing)

Thiel (product and marketing)

Acoustic Research (product and marketing)

Signet (electret headphones)

MXR (third octave equalization)

I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. Coolest job in the world! Almost.

Sometimes, when I visit a forum, at the close of business, which is a rare occurrence because I own three companies and I’m 75 years old, I see a note like phantom’s and I wonder why I’m participating in this until the wee hours of the morning. But, the positive responses make it all worthwhile. I know some of you folks and you hopefully know I’m on the level. Come see me at the shows. I’m delighted to help anyone on any hifi topic and my phone number is published right on my website! I’m here for you seven days a week. 

@fmalitz a lovely note Sir, and quite the nice recounting of a career full of high end engagements;-).

JB i would echo @jjss49  kind and accurate words. Cool room and groove, cool system…. Keep on trucking and soldering !