Bob Carver tube amps

I would like to add that I own a pair of the Carver M 350 Black Raven/Beauty Amps. These amps replaced Ralphs Atma-Sphere M-60’s Mk3-3, which replaced a Pass Labs 350.8, 350.5 and before that a Krell KSA 250. I actually had Bob stay at my house for a couple days when I was also trying his Line Source Speakers. (I didn’t like them).

To my ears and present equipment, these amps are very good in terms of sound quality and power available. Of course, as noted, I haven’t tried too many amps.

And BTW, I still own and operate one of the Carver M400 cube amps in my game room.

ozzy

I had a pair of JBL 230’s sitting on my desktop powered ny a Parasound Z series (Zamp, ZDac, Zpre). All is well and I see a Carver AV505 amp on CL for like $200. I already owned a Sunfire processor and subwoofer so on a lark I pulled the trigger. First thing I notice is the build, as in like a tank with rack handles. Second thing I notice is the THX certification and the gain knobs for each of the five 80 watt channels. The third thing I noticed was as soon as I hooked this thing up was my JBL 230 speakers sounded like I was hearing them for the first time. The soundstage blew out from wall to wall and what was unexpected was I had never heard a soundstage extend from floor to ciling before. The strengths of the JBL’s were brought forward and the clarity, preciseness in the soundstage were intoxicating. Within 30 minutes I was getting complaints from my condo association, as I continued to turn up the wick. This was paired with the Parasound Z preamp. Intrigued I pulled out some decent but entry level Athena bookshelf speakers. Again, unrecognizable, they went from entry level to really good. I said OK, let’s see what this puppy can do.

I take my Paradigm Studio 20 passive speakers out of my home theater as surrounds and mount them on stands as proper L & R channels in the main room about 10 feet away from the MLP. Then I BI-AMP them so I have two channels powering left speaker and two powering the right. I also take out the Parasound pre out and insert the Sunfire Theater Grand 3 in two channel mode. Then I hit play and I was immediately surprised. I didn’t know that these speakers could sound this good. I had been running them with a decent amp as surrounds.

When I researched WHY this amp was knocking my sox off I found that the Carver A series used the same power supply as the famed Carver Lightstar.

The big brother, AV705 has even more power if you can find one.

So, the moral of the story is a $200 CL find of an amp from the nineties made my speakers sound like they cost MUCH more than the MSRP. This was like steroids for speakers. This isn’t even close to being one of Carvers best amps but this thread made me want to share why I am so pleased with Carver/Sunfire amps.

I've owned a lot of Carver gear since 1986 and they were excellent in both sound quality and reliability.  But it's fair to say that his products evolved and that his engineering genius and passion could occasionally outpace his business sense.

I've owned four Sunfire Signature amps running (now restored, they lasted over thirty years before requiring a rebuild of the Bohlender-Graebner Ribbons) a pair of Plat Amazing Loudspeakers (w/outboard custom-designed subs) multichannel system and they are the best Solid State amplifiers I've ever heard. (And I own a number of the Mac amps that inspired them.)  His tube amps are something with which I have no experience besides having heard them in other systems.  They sound quite fine, even on challenging Telarc Organ recordings with first-octave Bass.  The Carver Corporation A-series amps are close to the same designs as the Sunfires.  (I.E., "Light Star"...)  If I were seeking out a 75wpc tube amplifier, I'd probably look at a McInlosh MC275.  The hyperinflation in High-End Audio is doing serious damage to the future of the hobby.  The industry needs someone like Bob to bring the "knee in the price/performance ratio J-Curve" back down to Earth.

@silverfoxvtx1800  You can take this opinion with a grain of salt as it is only my experience- and maybe you have already gone forward with your decision (would love to hear what it was if you did) I owned some Sunfire equipment from the early 2000s and was never impressed with it.  I owned a vaccuum tube pre amp and also a 300 x2 and found all the claims of them having tons of power were over rated.  They barely drove my paradigm signature towers.  There are a lot of great tube manufacturers out there with great designs and I'd try to listen around if possible. The support from sunfire is almost non existent at this point, save a few techs scattered across the US who are very good at it.  

@mbrusso 

+1 

Carver was innovative but seldom produced gear that sounded great… although often different (seldom in a good way), and not very reliable.