Carver Raven 350 Amps

@smokenjo 

Every speaker I listened to while visiting Bob Carver, the Carver 350 blew away the 600R for soundstage.  On one of the speakers I thought the 600R had a better sound in the highs, but over all I preferred the sound from the Carver amp on every speaker I listened on (even the one I thought the 600R had better highs on.)

What finish do you have on your SoundScapes?

erichgs,

If I connect the output from my Direct Stream Dac directly to the Carver amps there is very little hiss.
But if I connect the Direct Stream output to the input of the BSG QOL or to my DEQX Premate preamp and then to the Carver amps I get the hiss. Either piece of equipment will cause the hiss. 

Bob Carver suggests reducing significantly (50% from full level) the Carver volume control and just turn up the level on the DEQX Preamp. To do this I would be playing the DEQX Preamp at its 85-95% top settings. I'm not sure I like that.

When my Atma-Sphere Amps are used instead of the Carvers there is complete silence.

I don't know what more to do. 

All of my equipment has true balanced connections and quality balanced interconnects are used. The Carver even though it has a XLR input it is still just a single ended connection. I think if the Carver amps had a true balanced input there would be no problem.

ozzy

@ozzy 

Have you tried the RCA inputs?  Maybe it is possible that your balance out to single ended in is causing a ground loop or some kind of feedback issue (not sure what Carver is doing with the unused pin.)  I can try the XLR inputs on mine and see what happens.  It is single ended and I have RCA everywhere else, so I didn't see the point in using it.

Erich

erichgs,

No need to. Bob says the RCA and XLR are wired together as a single ended input. The XLR is there for convenience not for a true balanced connection. So either rca or xlr should perform the same.

ozzy

So switched to the XLR inputs on mine and it actually reduced my hum (which manifests as a hiss from the tweeter.)  Now have to be inside of an inch to hear it in a fairly quiet room.

Again, I am just going from the benchmark dac3 directly to the amp and can't find anything on whether the XLR outputs on the DAC3 are actually balanced.

Erich