Are Carver Preamps Any Good?

Name them. imo, the Carver C-16 pre was way better than any equal priced produce from NAD, Rotel, Proton, Adcom, Audio Source, MTX/Soundcraftsman etc.
The pre has a complex tone control section that was more like an eq and works well for subtal changes and a loudness control for bass at low volume levels which was rare on most preamps. It also has a full phono stage which may be of use for the vinal revival crowd.
The Carver Sonic Holograpy was a good idea and did work if you took the time to set the speakers up right. The preamp would be right at home with products that are in the same $$$ leauge. I agree, it is not high end, but okay for $200.
The C-16 is kind of rare so I would get one to just try it.

The C-19 was a very good pre for the $$

Remember Carver amps being better (although they were just OK) than their preamps. While the preamps sometimes had lots of features, they were not transparent and the bass were not their strong point - features were. If you are going to drop two hundred or so, adcom 555 or 565 sound better, but they don't look as nice and lack the extras Carver provides. do like Carver's champaign finish...a Carver rack with the Amazing speakers still look cool today.

Carver stuff always sells because they are inexpensive and great bang for buck pieces. They sound decent, but you get what you pay for. Great for a starter system. But as your ears get a little more discriminating, you'll move on to something better. I still own two carver preamps that I don't use. I'm going to give one to my 12 year old son to get him started in audio.

I have a Carver c-6 pre-amp that will be going up for sale soon. I used it in my system for a good 15 years without complaint until recently upgrading to a much more expensive ARC tube pre-amp.

They are unique values these days with very good performance. A c-6 in good working order like mine should bring $150-200 or so.

Mine has a lot of features not commonly found much anymore today that allow them to perform well in most any system and is in fact quite transparent.

For example the tone controls are among the most flexible I have seen ever and the built in phono pre-amp accommodates both MC and MM cartridges AND has easily switchable phono input sensitivity and impedance buttons on the rear panel which helps deliver very good sound with most any cart out there.

It also accomodates two recorders and two external sound pre-processors, like an equalizer and dbx for example, concurrently. No other pre-amp I know of these days can do that.

Sonic holography is another feature that in fact works and some will love and some will hate.

Audio purists will object to all the control features. Those looking for flexibility and good sound for little cost these days will find a lot to like.