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The Carver Amp Challenge and the 21st Century and it's Failure

Some of you may be old enough to remember this article from Stereophile. Bob Carver claimed he could make an amplifier audibly indistinguishable from some of the best from Conrad Johnson. A high efficiency (not class D), solid state linear amp vs. a linear tube amplifier.


https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge


Carver's approach was to feed a speaker via both amps at the same time using opposite terminals. The speaker itself was the measure of accuracy. Any difference in output between the two amplifiers would cause audible output.


What's super important here is Carver invented a new way to measure the relative difference of amplifiers with a real load.


That's kind of revolutionary from the standpoint of commonly published measurements of amplifiers before. Steady state, frequency sweeps, THD, IM and S/N all failed (to my ears) to express human experience and preference. I remember a reviewer for Audio, I think Julian Hiirsch, who claimed that these primitive measures were enough to tell you what an amplifier sounds like. The man had no ear at all, in my mind.  More here:


https://www.soundandvision.com/content/reconsidering-julian-hirsch

And here was Carver in 1985 cleverly showing that two amplifiers which measured reasonably well, sounded differently. We should also be in awe of Carver's ability to shape the transfer function on the fly. That's pretty remarkable too but not the scope of this post.


My point is, really, Carver showed us a revolutionary way to examine differences between gear in 1985 and yet ... it did  not become widespread.  << insert endless screaming here >>


As far as I know (and that is very little) no manufacturer of any bit of kit or cable took this technique up. We are still stuck in 1985 for specifications, measurements and lack of understanding of what measures cause what effects and end up cycling through cables and amps based on a great deal of uncertainty.


My points, in summary:

  • Most of what we consider state-of-the-art measurements are stuck in the 1970s.
  • There are a number of ways to improve upon them
  • No one has.
  • We should be a little more humble when asserting if it can't be measured it isn't audible because our measurements are not nearly comprehensive
  • I look forward to manufacturers or hobbyists taking modern equipment to pursue new measurement and new insights into our hobby.


Best,
E


erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,041 posts
 
Thanks for the clarifications, @almarg I was not aware of the earlier testing with the ML, so my thinking about the current improvements was probably not accurate.

I appreciate your detailed and informative corrections!

What this keeps tickling me of is the Technics digitally controlled Class D amplifier. They use DSP to pre-correct issues the amplifier has with the load. Amplitude and phase issues Class D amps tend to have in the top octaves.

I wonder if today we couldn't make better models, or get a better idea of what amps are doing, in such a way that would allow us to pick a sound.

Best,

E
erik_squires OP
16,041 posts
 
@spatialking Apologies, I seem to have been very much in error. You were right. I was wrong.

Best,
E
tuberist
951 posts
 
great post, keep em' coming.
Larry
maplegrovemusic's avatar
maplegrovemusic
1,113 posts
 
Erik - Douglas Schroeder just reviewed a amplifier that does what you are describing . Think it was a Goldnote amp . Something about changing the dampening factor by a switch . 
https://www.dagogo.com/gold-note-pa-1175-mkii-solid-state-stereo-amplifier-review/
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
My points, in summary:

  • Most of what we consider state-of-the-art measurements are stuck in the 1970s.
  • There are a number of ways to improve upon them
  • No one has.
  • We should be a little more humble when asserting if it can't be measured it isn't audible because our measurements are not nearly comprehensive
  • I look forward to manufacturers or hobbyists taking modern equipment to pursue new measurement and new insights into our hobby.
Same here.

Who knows how many more audiophiles there might be if they had not had their minds poisoned by Julian Hirsch? For years I was under his spell, so bad it took many trips and listening sessions to finally realize what a crock of bull it is thinking we can measure music in any meaningful way. Thanks to him and a whole bunch of others misled into his camp we had to go through a whole generation of high powered amps that measured great but sounded bad. We had to go through the CD! Gad! 

Suppose it is too late to ask Stereo Review for my money back?

Seriously though, the damage is incalculable. Cable construction. Frequency response. Timing. Double-blind testing. On and on. All kinds of seemingly unrelated things that when you dig into them all are based on the false assumption that measurements matter.

And granted its a little complicated because sometimes measurements do matter. Where the damage is done is at the margins where instead of asking if this is an area where measurements matter people simply assume that they do. Which is wrong. Forced to choose, no measurements at all build everything entirely by ear, and the opposite, I'll take by ear every time.

I'm just thankful there are so many talented designers like Ted Denney and Keith Herron and Duke Lejeune who understand when and how to use measurements, and when to trust their ears.
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