Carver Power Amps

So is it a good amp or not? I have an A-760x powering a pair of Martin Logan Vantages and it sounds pretty good. I have bad ears, an asymmetrical room,  and I listen to rock music mostly, so I don't know if it should sound better or not. I was going to bridge two TFM-35x amps to the Martin Logans, but it says not to bridge if you're using 4 ohm speakers. 

There are always Carver naysayers who judge the man based on a few solid state amps that may or may not have been designed by Bob himself.  Every designer I can think of have designed a dud at least once in his career. As far a current Carver tube amps and speakers are concerned, they are world class. I lived with his Cherry 180 amp for the past 7 years and ALS speaker for past 4 months. I’ve compared them to so called"high end" amps and speakers costing 2-3x more, and his new gear just puts the other gears to shame. His Silver 7 four chassis tube amp from the 80’s is legendary and one of the most beautiful tube amps I’ve ever see.

I've owned an A-760x since it was new in 1998.  And it eats (yes at the frequency extremes as well, I have the test gear and have been there and DONE THAT) the lunch of any Parasound, Adcoms (I still own two 555's, they're in my garage system) or Brystons I've also owned.  (We won't even talk about Mac.  I own Mac gear as well.)  The 760x runs my 15" Stereo Integrity subs/custom sealed enclosure (2 ohms) with ruthless and foundation shaking authority.  (That's in room -3dB at 14Hz at listening position)  Whomever started this thread has a grudge or sells (sold, the thread's old now) a competitor's product.  It's bottomed every automotive SPL sub I've ever thrown at it, let alone a 20 years behind the times JBL HT ripoff.  The T-mod amps sounded great but had heat sink issues.  They worked fine if you ran them in Stereo or Vertically biamped.  (That's how I ran mine.  I owned a pair of those as well.)  But if you bridged them they ran hot.  The TFM series were an improvement but still had residual (but minor) transformer issues.  The A-series amps were all derived from the justly lauded (and early prototype Sunfire design) Lightstar amps.  I've never had a minute's trouble (or NOISE) out of ANY A-series amps and I owned all of them except for one.  I still own the A-760x, 753x and A-200.  It sounds like to me the thread originator had to have had 'em hooked up out of phase, backwards and maybe not even plugged in.  Or even out of the box.  Or even ordered and on their back porch.  Just sayin'....

dracule1, could you share any tube aging or rolling experience with your Cherry 180s.

I just removed all the power tubes for the first time since I purchased these amplifiers (5-6 years) to check them on the amp individually. Probably not the most revealing test method. I found one were the glass was mechanically questionable yet the bias was still good so I replaced it. The rest seem fine.

I did replace the AUs and ATs with Psvanes some years back. Thanks.



  

  

I have had several Carver products and I agree that a cause of the lack of power has to do with the impedance curve. The manuals themselves say that they are not good for anything dipping below 4 ohms. The damping factor of the m-1.0t is a 9 and the damping factor for the m-4.ot is just a seven. These amps work best with 8 ohm speakers that do not dip below 4 ohms, something like Klipsch Cornwalls or La Scalas work well with them. Even with subs these amps did not sound strong enough with those Kappas that I had. The seven Kappas sounded alright with one m-4.0t, but even with two m4's bi-amped into the 8 kappas only sounded good at lower volumes, and forget about the 9 Kappas.