Bob Carver tube amps
Hello, looking for Carver amp info the read out there is a little sketchy. Is that place still in business? And who is actually making the amps? Do the have a factory in the Pacific Northwest….I live in the Pacific Northwest so I could drive there if I had a problem.
I need a tube amp for my Klipsch speakers, you tube heads out there is this the brand I should buy or is there a better option?
I can still remember in the 70s when my father in law went to the factory and grabbed me a Phase Linear amp and preamp off the factory floor..I had more problems with that thing, once and a while it made a super load pop when you turned it on..
And worse. They documented that the actual power output of the 275 was a small fraction of the published "spec." As for the OP's choices, he might consider a Pass power amp and a tube preamp. |
@silverfoxvtx1800 -- an additional note -- you didn't say which Carver amp you were looking at, nor what your budget or power needs are. However, this summper I bought an LSA VT-70 for $1,300 and it is an excellent amp. EL34 output tubes and 35 watts per channel. You say you have Klipsch speakers (but didn't indicate which model) but I suspect the VT-70 might be more than enough for your needs. I've posted a short review elsewhere in the amps-preamps section of this forum. I think LSA is out of stock for this item right now but expecting another shipment here in the near future. Obviously, disregard my post if you are headed in a different direction. |
Never heard or sold one of his tube amps. Did sell his early PL 400 and PL 700 amps. They were capable of playing very LOUDly, but most of them failed for various reasons. Typically, the owner would crank them up "all of a sudden" and that would cause them to fail. Other times, the source would send a "spike" (not a technical term!) to the amp and whatever protection circuits it had would not function correctly and it would fail. My customers loved them when they worked, but much like Crown amps back in the day (solid state ones), they tended to fail rather regularly. I heard that some live bands used the PL 700’s on stage, but I don’t personally know of any. I would have cautioned them to have some in reserve... Cheers! |
I have nothing to offer on Carver tube products, but I do have an old M-200t poweramp whose duty has been just to run the midrange on the analog setup in my living room. It’s been hooked directly to a pair of Altec 511 horns w/Peavey drivers for the past 30 years. It is silent at idle, never pops on turnon or turnoff (both important with that load) and produces crystal clear sound. It won’t handle a capacitive load (goes into oscillation), but I don’t use one. It is one of the famous or infamous ’magnetic field’ amps that tended to burn power supply resistors. I have a Carver receiver of somewhat later vintage that does just that if you don’t put a fan on top, but this one has never had a heating problem. |
