Carver Amazing Line Source Speakers

Ozzy,
Great job on the DEQX investigation! Since your past speakers were of higher efficiency others might have just settled that the Carvers need too much power, and sent them back. Smart move on the fuses as well. Complicated setups take time to optimize, and your knowledge/familiarity with you system is essential. I'll bet I can almost hear it from Florida now.

stereo5, koestner,

Thank you.
Sometimes the obvious is not always the best path to follow.

ozzy

@ozzy  Very cool that you were able to diagnose and fix the issue. You had been 'quiet' so I wondered if they weren't working out the way you expected or had hoped for. Terrific hearing you are happy with both the Carver ALS speakers as well as Carver's amps!

It's also reassuring to hear that Carver will stand by their components. Nice!!!

david_ten,

Thanks.
Yeah, while I was going crazy, Bob was always available. He also was quite stumped by the problem.
In a few days I will reintroduce the SR blue fuses to the amps.

I also had 5 SR HFT's on each of my DIY speakers. With the Carvers, I'm not sure where to start. I called Synergistic and they said "when I find proper placements to let them know!"
Anyone have any suggestions?

ozzy

Kudos, Ozzy, for resolving this very non-obvious problem. Great news, as others have said!

Instead of being 6 installed in the output jumper spaces there were only 4 and the other 2 were put in the RCA input section. Leaving the output without 2 key jumpers. I will add that I bought this unit used from the Music Room. The previous owner must have moved the jumpers.

I’m a little puzzled by this, as I believe your Premate has only four outputs (each in both balanced and unbalanced form), rather than the six that for example are provided in my DEQX HDP-5. And it appears that there **should** be two jumpers on the RCA input section (which adjust the input sensitivity over a fairly small range of 2.3 db). So perhaps the presence of only four jumpers on the output section was correct, but two of them had been placed on jumper blocks that are not used by the Premate.

In any event, as you have seen the output jumpers provide adjustment over a range of 12.5 db, which of course is substantial. And who knows what the consequences would be of simply having no jumpers on two jumper blocks that are in fact used in this design.

Finally, FWIW, I purchased my HDP-5 new and I’ve never changed the jumper settings from their default positions. Those result in max gain on the analog inputs (which I use for LP, in addition to using the digital inputs for other sources), and 4.9 db less than max on the analog outputs, which drive my VAC power amp and (in bypass mode) my Stax headphone amp.

Great work, and enjoy! Best regards,
-- Al