Carver 275 Crimson tube amp --- any feedback appreciated

@steakster thank you for the detailed feedback! You may just have saved me $4,500 going for that Mcintosh 275. 

@whitestix yes I would think so, but despite this logic, I’ve heard from many places, including the ML owners forum that some people swear by tubes with ML. In fact, some older models, it actually says in the manual that they are best driven by “pure class A tubes”. I have had a tube amp before I owned any MLs and I tried it with a pair of Dynaudio Contours and it sounded horrible. I have since been reluctant to go tube again. 

Thanks
Cheers, happy holidays! 

Angelgz,
Well, I stand corrected on this compatibility issue.  These days, everything I seem to know is wrong.  I have a pal who has pretty large Tyler Acoustic's speakers that are nominally 4 ohms, but have frequency dips to under 2 ohms and he could not drive the speakers past 80 db with a 65 wpc Don Sachs KT88-based tube amp without congestion.  However, in my system with 12 ohm Spatial Audio M4 Triode Master speakers, his amp was fantastic, truly, just brilliant.  He bought a pair of Spatial Audio M3 Triode Master's and the amp is of course astonishing.   The variable between the speakers is the impedance difference, as far as I can tell.  Perhaps there are other variables.  Mark

 

Well I own the Carver Raven 350 mono blocks. And I used these amps with the new Bob Carver Amazing Line Source speakers. The amps got very hot and the amp meter was swinging very hard to the right, even at lower "rock" levels.
 
When I switched speakers (Focal Sopra 2) the amps now run very cool and the meter hardly moves.

Hard to believe such a mismatch in impedance with 2 current products from the same company.

ozzy

@ozzy . Back in the 80's I went to audition the Carver Amazing loudspeakers which were heavily promoted. The salon had a carver system w/ a  preamp with holographic imaging. Long story short...it was awful. My son and I were both shocked that a high end stereo store would play something so awful and talk about how good it sounded. Maybe the speakers were good...I don't know. But whenever I think of Carver, I remember the holographic imaging and how bad it sounded. Still I d love to hear the 275 in my system

Ozzy,
My cashy pal during my college years got the Phase Linear amp and preamp and pretty much blew us plebes away in the SPL of the system with RTR speakers.  Actually, he still has the amp and preamp 40 years later.

There are rave reviews from the owners of the 350 mono's, but not yet one from an owner of the Crimson 275.  I dashed my order for the Crimson amp and ordered a Don Sachs KT88 amp, which I have heard in my system and it's simply glorious.   

I hope an owner of the Crimson amp catches this thread and informs us his impressions of the amp.