Bob Carver 180 Mono-blocks perform superbly

I have the Psvane tubes also and go back and forth between them & the Mullards. What are your impressions of the Psvanes? Did you change both of the smaller tubes or just the 12ax7?
With the KT-120's plugged in, the min. you can bias the amp is 90 and the max is way passed the meter scale. I set mine sometimes at 90, sometimes at 150, but right now I have it set at 110. It depends on what mood I'm in and what music I may be listening to at the time.
I have had a total of two KT-120's tubes go south on me. The first one took out a resistor and I had to get a technician to help repair that. I contacted Bob and he and my technician, at the time, chatted about it and got the issue resolved. The second time one of the tubes went out, it was a tube in the other cherry amp, but it did not take out any resistor(s). It bears noting that the group of KT-120 tubes were not from Bob, they were from an online site. I subsequently got in contact with a local tube dealer (Upscale Audio) and bought & installed a whole new batch of 12 KT-120 tubes, just to put myself at ease. I haven't had any failures or problems since. The owner of Upscale Audio is a little high strung at times, but again, I've never had any problems with the KT-120's or the Mullard 4004's & 4024's or any other tubes a bought from him. The initial batch was purchased by a very well known online site. I'm not saying that site sales bad or bunk tubes in general, but it just so happened that I got a few tubes from them that took a Dive after only several months of service. I haven't used that site since though.

I have enjoyed the Ps vanes (12ax and 12at) both in my carvers and a vincent 236mk hybrid intergrated. They have a nice highs along with solid bass. The only others I have tried are the cheap stock tubes that came with each. I have read that Bob preferred the NOS telefuken. If I can find a good deal on some I might try a pair. Since my last post i tested my 88's using the sixth slot according to the owners manual and had a them test between 20 and 40. I then matched them up so each amp had the same added up number for all six and the bias was still low(110) vs the good amp(140). I must have something wrong with the one. I am going to try and contact emotiva and see what their tech says.

I looked at the upscale audio site and he tests the tube for 72 hours, none of the other sites do that. It's probably worth the extra couple of bucks for the peace of mind.

Heard somewhere that Emotiva and Bob have parted ways recently. I am not sure how true this info is, but just thought I would pass it on in the event you run into complications getting results with your inquiry.

Man! I need Bob's New 900watt Silver Seven. I run out of power (I think) with the Cherry 180's, when I "Live Concert" them lol. I guess I'm running out of power, the meter pegs violently, no real audible distortion though, but I assume hard pegging is an indication that you're almost at the end of the power available. Thinking of doing the Sunfire Signature again to get the 6 db of headroom back for my tendency to reproduce "Live" :-O

Talked to emotiva and they are honoring the carver warranty. The tech that I talked to did say that the bias will have different high and lows depending on the tubes along with the fact that carver didn't match the mono blocks when the were shipped. He recommended testing all the tubes and putting all the strongest in the weaker amp. According to him the normal listening should be done between 80 and 110 and that just because you can bias them up to 140 or 150 it is not recommended to drive the tubes that hard.

The only time that I had the meters bouncing was when I had a pair of Polk bookshelves hooked the the carvers and I was running them pretty hard. They would bounce all the way down to 10 and back up, the looked like some VU meters. When hooked to my gallo speakers,the needle barely moves, strange.