Carver Power Amps

I remember when Carver introduced the Phase Linear 300. "Three Hundred watts! You must be crazy!" is what they said.

But Bob Carver's inventiveness is, I think, best exemplified, not by power amps (although his were certainly different) but by his preamp, particularly the Autocorrelator, which was also available as an outboard unit. I had two (for quadraphonic use). The Autocorrelator was a dynamic multiband filter designed to surpress the noise characteristic of LPs. What made it different from other dynamic filters was the way that the filter gains were controlled. Bob realized that above some surprising low frequency (I seem to remember 2000 Hz) there are no music fundamentals: just harmonics. The frequency bands that will have harmonics are predictable from the signal content in the range of fundamentals. So, in the Autocorrelator, a filter required two things to be opened (gain increased). (1) Signal in that frequency range. (2) Proper harmonic relationship to signal in the fundamental range.

The unit worked quite well for conventional stereo, but for quad, where the inherently inferior L-R signal of LPs (vertical groove modulation) was amplified and broadcast by the rear speakers, the Autocorrelator in the rear channels made a very big improvement. It also had a dynamic rumble filter operating below the frequency range used for gain control, and a Peak Unlimiter (to counteract what recording engineers need to do to stop your stylus from hopping out of the groove).

Clever guy.

Thanks for the "HEATED" reponses to my thread.I appreciate all of them.

WOW! Most of these reviews are comparing the Carver A-760X to amplifiers costing twice as much or more. No wonder it's getting bad reviews. For the original price tag of 1500.00 (new), I would say this is a kickass amp in this price range. As a matter of fact nothing compares to it in the 1500.00 dollar price range so maybe that's why it's being compared to amps costing twice as much or more. I own this amp, picked it up here on Audiogon as a showroom demo in mint condition for 800.00 dollars a couple years ago and I can't say anything bad about it. This amp can knock windows out driving a pair of vintage Speakerlab Korner Horns.

I had a Carver Amp around 1990. Every time the base hit, the lights in the room would dim. (The amp and the lights were all on the same circuit.) So I ran a dedicated power line (10 ga) to the amp and experienced a big improvement in the bass response- much stronger and tighter. I moved on to a different amp in the mid-90s but, since then I have always had a dedicated circuit for my Stereo.

The Carver Lightstar Reference series amps that retailed for $4k each were the real deal. They were A/B'd in Stereophile against a Threshold T200, which was a Stereophile A rated amp at the time. Carver corp made 77 hand built true dual mono amps with separate power supplies per chassis that were so good, and expensive, they pulled the plug on the project because it was too costly to continue. I owned both a Lightstar Reference (1 of 77) amp and the Stereophile A rated Carver Lightstar passive preamp some 12 years back. You don't see either one of those components surface on the used market EVER. Is that indicative of the fact that they've found very happy owners perhaps?