My Audio Research experience

I've been watching this thread with considerable head-shaking. I too, loved the performance of my ARC gear but like a Lotus, it required regular service and fresh tubes. Frankly, it's no longer necessary to buy unreliable cars to enjoy extremely high performance. Ditto for HiFi; it's not 1965 any longer.

In the interest of integrity, I must disclose the fact that I am the co-owner and CEO of the Bob Carver Company. To avoid a commercialized announcement, I will simply state some facts and make no claims regarding sound. Furthermore, there are fine solid-state brands that are quite reliable. Bel Canto and Halo come to mind but there are many others.

We choose to stick with tubes due to the potential for great midrange transparency and sound staging. Audio Research excels in those attributes. I love their products and their contribution to our culture cannot be over estimated. Given my involvement in a competitor, I cannot, and will not, discuss their reliability issues as I have no data other than hearsay. 

That said, our ampifiers have a minimum of a ten year warranty INCLUDING TUBES. Minimum? Well, as long as Bob and I live, no one will ever pay for a repair. No receipt necessary. Transferable warranty forever.  Additionally, our buy-sell agreement is with Jordon Gerber, our brilliant junior partner (and, like Bob, a degreed physicist) with a stipulation that he will continue the same policies.

To prove our mettle, we have an on-board tube checker at full voltage--get a bad reading, get free tubes. Want to roll your own? Biasing is easy, quick and fun. You don't even  need matched tubes! No printed circuit boards. No chips. Hand wired with conventional components, albeit custom caps, but you can surely find audiophile-grade replacements on the web. Gigantic power without heat; all components last longer.

The tubes do not get very hot and one can place one's hand on the top of the KT120s or 150s, all day and never get burned. By using proprietary circuitry, we control bias and distortions without depending on excess feedback. The result is a lowering of measurable distortions by a full magnitude and an indeterminate tube life--expect around 50 years. It's a Bob innovation. No sonic degradation.

As a result, we have no service department at all. There's only been a single failure during my tenure. Our failure rate is well under 1% LONG TERM. My goal when I ran Onkyo in the '70s, when they had the most reliable mid-fi line, was under 1% based on the warranty claims during the first 90 days. Our Carver failure rate is superior to solid-state! We've given out three tubes in five years.

How do they sound? I refuse to comment and refer to reviews and even other manufacturers who, in some cases, compete with us yet extoll our virtues. I don't know forum rules; if I'm allowed, I'll provide some incredible endorsements. In any case, ignore all commercial propaganda, even mine, and listen for yourself. My reason for posting is to bring you up to the 21st century; we are not the only tube-type vendor offering reliable product with actual fuses where they belong while not harming the sound. I find it astounding that a designer would claim fusing is destructive when they utilize PCs. 

Why not buy components that actually allow you to relax and listen to your music instead of suffering anxiety as your tubes degrade  hour after hour? Yes, people bought two Lotuses so one could enjoy sporting driving while the other was in the shop--in 1965. 

See you guys at Axpona Chicago in a couple of weeks. Feel free to call for more details. 

Frank Malitz
847-668-4519--any day.

"That said, our ampifiers have a minimum of a ten year warranty INCLUDING TUBES. Minimum? Well, as long as Bob and I live, no one will ever pay for a repair. "

That is so funny! With all due respect to Bob Carver who as all know is an innovative engineer and master marketer who has done much to promote high fidelity music systems using a variety of specially developed technologies this warantee is highly suspect. That is because none of the many companies which he founded and each of which promised many lofty claims for high performance could manage to stay in business for even close to 10 years at least under the same ownership! Phase Linear aka Flame Linear, Carver Corp, Sunfire, Carver LLC have all come and gone which proves a warrantee can be no better than the company that stands behind it! Caveat Emptor!

Dear clearthink,
While you think it's "so funny", I take it as being pretty close to a personal attack on my integrity. Perhaps our forum members should ignore everything I wrote. From my perspective, you are misinformed. More on this in a moment.

Let's look at the facts:
1) Bob started Phase Linear right out of college. It brought high-powered amplifiers to the masses and positively murdered the competing Bose and Macintosh Super-amps, not only in terms of power, but also sonically. The Phase amps had a very high failure rate comparable to the Arcam receivers of today. Still, 75% of the people who buy Arcam receivers or who bought Phase Linear power amplifiers, managed to get years of fine performance without a problem. With the initial units failing, Bob improved the design on a consistent basis, resulting in a very low failure rate ultimately. By that point, the company's books showed a very strong trend and Bob, in his very early 20s, was offered $1 million for the company. He took it. So would you if given the opportunity at that age. Should Bob be held responsible for the new Phase Linear management's decisions? Is Roy Allison to blame for what happened to AR, Allison, or RDL (all gone)? Is Henry Kloss responsible for what happened ultimately to AR, KLH, Advent, and Kloss (all gone; AR and KLH exist in name only)? Were it not for these fine pioneers and others with a similar background, you wouldn't be a reading this post right now. Due to the enormous expansion of the electronics industry, changing musical chairs seems to be quite common.

2) Bob took the money and started Carver. Once again, he brought high-performance concepts to a young budget-minded industry and the products were so highly regarded that even today, dozens of people converge on the Smoky Mountains every year for Carver Fest. Bob didn't even know about it! Imagine every cottage in the area being filled with Phase Linear, Carver, and Sunfire products – – each system freighted in for two weeks of listening and discussions--by consumers! I can think of no other consumer product that has this type of loyalty--not Porsche, Harley Davidson nor Ducati, all of whom have "fests". Remember, were talking two weeks of every year! When Bob found out, he was moved to tears. I'm not exaggerating; he's an emotional person and very affectionate.

So Bob brought speaker kits so everyone could assemble a pair of Cinema Ribbon speakers. The following year everybody got to build a 20 W per channel Carver-designed tube -type amplifier. But, I digress. The Carver brand was so successful, that the company began to deviate from Bob's original vision. There was a Board of Directors who voted down many of Bob's ideas, inventions, and suggestions. Eventually, amid acrimonious board meetings, Bob was fired! He did not leave willingly. Shall we excoriate Bob for the actions of the remaining management?

How about this: years later, when Sunfire was enjoying great success, Bob told me he was going to buy the Carver name back, reintroduce the brand and cover all warranties. I could not understand why he would do this since he was only buying the brand name; he had no warranty obligations to any Carver consumer legally. He turned to me and said, "Frank, with my name on the product, I will not abandon these consumers". Bob paid for the repairs out of his own pocket.Compare this to some of the ARC posts above.

3) The Sunfire story was a bit different and yet similar. In a repeat of what happened with Phase Linear, he was offered a substantial amount of money for the company but by then the company had been in business for many years and Bob was thinking about retirement. So, yes, he did sell the company to Core Brands who changed the direction of the company downmarket. Bob chose not to remain on board although he was invited to. The upshot of this last venture is similar to the Carver situation in that the Sunfire products are still out there doing things no other product has ever done, all these years later, and we even provide continuing service through an outside contractor wherein we make no money but arrange for a repair with no estimate charge, a full warranty for one year, and upgraded components ensuring future reliability. Regular technicians cannot repair many of the Bob Carver-designed products because no one has been able to backward engineer them despite the patents expiring. We are able to turn to Bob for the most difficult and arcane repair issues despite this endeavor having no commercial connection to our current company.

4) So you feel our warranty is suspect... If failures are not an issue, and this forum is open to anyone's eyes in case my claims are fraudulent, why would we go bankrupt? Bob wants a lifetime warranty on our new products. I fought against it due to the fact that cynics like clearthink laughed in my face asking how old we are. So, I made it 10 years and I put it in writing. It's still our intention to charge nothing for service or tubes as long as the company remains solvent. Would we sell the company? Well, yes, but remember that Jordon has right of first refusal and frankly, owning the Bob Carver Company represents his future. He's half our age.

The current series of power amplifiers albeit with higher power now, have been in production for five years with the stellar reliability record I referred to above. Our amazing Line Source Loudspeaker, which easily took Best Sound at the recent New York hi-fi show, and garnered a review from Absolute Sound implying it's one of the greatest speakers of all time, has had zero failures since there are 40 drivers per tower absorbing energy. Were not even sure what the power handling capacity is other than the fact that it's in excess of 1000 W RMS and yet the review was done with a 20 W per channel tube -type amplifier which we'll be reintroducing with more power in about 60 days. So, to the uninformed, it would appear risky to offer a 10 year warranty including tubes but not when you have no failures. Make sense?

So, dear forum members, based on these two posts--one negative (and slanted) and one rebuttal, feel free to make your own choice. From my perspective, clearthink is the equivalent of fake news. He emphasizes a single negative aspect while ignoring the positives. Yes, this is like politics; people like clearthink will never change their opinion and, in fact resort to personal attacks, twisting the truth to validate their opinions.

I'm a 50 year veteran of the industry. My reputation is my stock in trade. My social circle includes a huge percentage of people from this industry. I'm the founder of Onkyo, and Integra in the United States. I participated in the launch of Sonus Faber, Focal through JM Lab, named the Pro-Ject turntable, helped launch the REL line of subwoofers, and too many more to mention. I've represented most of the brands you are likely to see on this forum from Apogee to whatever starts with  Z. I have always been available to help people in our hobby. It's my hobby too. You may note that I published my phone number. I get calls seven days a week on equipment selection, system setup, acoustics and so forth. Most of this has nothing to do with my business. I just like it. I love the industry, I love the products that emphasize individuality, and I love music like the rest of you. If I've derailed the thread, or if I've come across as nothing more than a salesman with no integrity, I most sincerely apologize.

Finally, and this is the funny part, clearthink warns us using his command of Latin to beware of my product. This warning was issued after countless negative ARC posts in this very thread! Clearthink's position is that Audio Research is to be trusted while we are not. I do indeed find THIS rather funny. In fact, our current superb dealer network and endorsements from industry luminaries and other manufacturers makes clearthink's position look rather foolish. That said, I'm glad that he posted because there are people out there who are prejudiced against Bob Carver and I always feel the need to clear the air of false assumptions. I also appreciate the fact that he did allow that Bob is a talented designer. If he were not a caring and professional partner, I would not be involved.

Yes Mr. Carver has been an innovative designer of equipment used in Music Reproduction Systems and he has founded and sold one company after another while making millions of dollars in the process which is the free market at work and while the free market is certainly with it's fault's as all would agree it also is the best system we have and Mr. Carver has demonstrated how it is possible to profit from it. There is nothing wrong with that and no need to apologize I do not think Mr. Carver has broken any laws. But as you have stated because his products are protected under various duly issued world patents the equipment he has produced is really not generally serviceable because competent technicians can not figure out how the products work especially when they are already broken! Thank you also for not arguing the facts that Mr. Carver has never founded a company that lasted as long as the warrantee of 10 years that he is "promising" for these new equipment so that is the point here it is so funny! he could give it a lifetime warrantee and it would not matter because the company will not be in existance or perhaps he will sell it to others and the warrantee will be worthless. That you put your phone number in your post doesn't mean anything at all and if you think I have attacked your integrity as you claim you may alert the moderator's to this post and it will be their decision whether to allow these statements or not again a warrantee is only as good as the company that backs it. As for Audio research which you again mention they have been in business continuously for more than 40 years and they still honor their warantees and their equipment is very serviceable as all who know about them agree yourself included!