Bob Carver tube amps

I have had a GREAT experience with Carver and Sunfire products (and I still own them).

The Theater Grand 3 sounds great in both two channel and multichannel. Bob added his sonic holography circuit and also a feature called side axis (wide) channels and it has 4 subwoofer connections. This was way ahead of his time. You are just starting to see processors with 4 sub outs and once you get used to wide channels you can’t go back. Studies done by Tomlinson Holman (of THX fame) found wides to be more significant than height or rear channels. I also own a Carver A series amp (AV505) that was on TAS list of the 10 most significant amps of all time. Look how many reviewers at TAS have his products on their individual top 10 list. Genius is an understatement:

I’m not sure how you can find what you found online and still consider Carver. He’s been a gimmick salesman for decades. If nothing else, look at the claimed power output to weight ratio of his recent tube amp lines, and compare to other brands. That speaks volumes (way-undersized transformers). There are other options, even in USA: Rogue, Quicksilver, ARC, Raven, VTA / Bob Latino. Maybe also look at English Acoustics. Audio Classics has a nice-looking VAC-made 9B. I’m sure I’m missing some great options. There are lots of great sounding vintage tube amps out there which are gems with a bit of TLC. Even those 60 year old tube amps won’t disgrace their tubes by using an under-sized transformer.

15 years ago I tried a Sunfire Signature 600 that was possibly the worst sounding hifi amp I’ve ever used. Not that it sounded outright wrong or awful - just that everything else I’ve tried in this hobby has sounded better.

Agree with those saying avoid Carver

Over on Audioasylum there is thread about the Carver Crimson 275. The amp is rated as 75 watts/channel. When someone pulled the covers off the output transformers, they found an Edcor transformer rated at 15 watts.  When tested by Audiosciencereview, the amp only produced 17 watts a channel with 1% distortion, and the fuse blew at 29 watts.

If nothing else, the company's published specs are very misleading under normal set of standards.

Almost forgot, I also have a Sunfire TSEQ10 subwoofer, two 10 inch drivers (1 active and 1 passive) with a 2700 watt amp. I don't think there is another sub out there that has this much power and at the same time only about 12 inches square in size. You can see the sub in the lower left corner of the front view pic of my system profile.