I live here in Kentucky and bought a pair of Bob Carver Cherry 180M amplifiers.
These are the best amps that I have ever had, I won't try and describe the sound they make. I was never good at trying to describe what "bright", "warm", and all the other terms that reviews use to describe a speakers sound. I do know what sounds good to my ears and what doesn't. Besides, I am sure the "sound" will change depending on what speakers, Pre-amp, tubes, and source choices are. What I will tell you is that before these amps I was using a pair of Jolida 1000P stereo tube amps, and before that I had used McIntosh MC-2105, Jeff Rowland model 3 mono amps, NAD 272 Stereo amp, Magnum Audio Stereo Amp, and I am sure there was some others in there as well.
Of course along with all these other amps I also had many other Pre-amps, sources, and speakers so it would be hard to give you a true A to B comparison.
So let me tell you about the Bob Carver Cherry 180M mono blocks, they are truly hand built, point to point wired, and solidly put together in an attractive case that is painted Cherry Red with Black transformer covers and Gold name plates. I was able to go to Lexington and tour the small facility where they hand build these amps. So yes, $7k might sound like a lot of money for a pair of amps but when you honestly consider that these are Hand Built with point to point wiring by Kentuckians in Kentucky and not some sweat shop in some foreign country with slave labor you will understand that these are actually a bargin. I am not saying that parts inside the Amp are not from china, I believe some of the tubes are Chinese as are resistors etc. because this is a manufacturing company they have to get parts where they can at a reasonable cost and it is impossible to source a parts from America. These amps are made so well that I would venture a guess that they will still be working 50 years from now.
So that takes care of the build quality, as for sound. Well with these I have a full range of sound, from low wall shaking bass when playing Daft Punk via the Turntable or the highs of a woman's voice like on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. And with all thats going on in the music with Pink Floyd's The Wall it all becomes clear and precise. At least I think that how I should have described it. I sure some one will correct me if I get it wrong. So let's say you just want to Rock, spin some Iron Maiden The Final Frontier and prepare to just enjoy metal the way it was intended. The soundstage is huge with depth and the amp is dead quiet, thanks to a volume control built into the amps. Plenty of power available too with 200 watts per channel.
I have had my amps for about six months now and have not been disappointed one bit, of course I did change out the factory 12AT7 and 12AX7 tubes with new production Tung-Sol 12AT7 and new production Electro Harmonix 12AX7 tubes. But that's part of tube ownership, tube rolling. So is the heat that these produce, however they do not produce as much heat as my previous Jolida Tube Amps. And even my favorite Solid State Jeff Rowland put out a lot of heat under load.
So, I would recommend looking in to the Bob Carver Cherry 180M amps if you are wanting to get into tube amps. To get anything better you would probably have to spend well over 20k on VAC or something similar. Hey I would be surprised if these are the last amps you buy, so it you spread the cost out over 20 years the cost is quite low (That was a joke).
My System is:
Leben HiFi RS28CX Tube Pre-Amp with Tube MM phono stage and outboard Tube rectified power supply.
Bob Carver Cherry 180M Tube Mono Blocks
Janton A&V 803 Real Full range loudspeakers
Pro-Ject Xtension turntable with 12" Evo Carbon Fiber Tone Arm
Ortofon 2M Bronze Cartridge
Denon 3800BDCI Blu-ray player
Jadis JS-1 Tube D.A.C.
AppleTV 3rd Gen
Playstation 3
Core Audio Component Rack
Core Audio Amp Isolation Stands
Tice Power Block
Luminous Audio interconnect
Wireworld Silver HDMI
Luminous Audio Speaker Cable
50" Plasma Hitachi
