Bob Carver 180 Mono-blocks perform superbly

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.

I can't imagine anybody at anotivia knows how to solder let alone diagnose a problem.

Vic! Great to have you back in the thread. Apparently emotiva kept some of carvers staff when they purchased the company. Since my last post I have talked to another emotiva staff member was a carver tech and didn't know I had talked to the first guy. He told me the same thing the first guy did and that the amps can have that much of a variance in them. He mentioned that the amps are a very simple design and are built like tanks and very rare do they have to do any warranty work. Most times it's a problem with tubes.

I went onto the goldpoint sight and looked at the attenuators. If I purchase some can anybody recommend a technician to do the work? I don't have anybody local. Would be willing to ship.

Thanks

Paul

Not assure what you mean when you say, "...carver didn't match the mono blocks when the were shipped." I have totally different tubes in, than the tubes that came with the amps. My Cherries appear to be matched when I have all the new tubes in and bias each amp with one another. Again, I'm not sure if this is the "matched" you are speaking about. Please elaborate.

When the tech spoke of biasing in the 140+ range, I think that was pertaining to the KT-88's being used in the Cherry 180's and not the KT-120's. I believe the KT-120's can be driven fairly hard and not be worn so easily, but I could be wrong.

Not sure why your bookshelf speakers would cause the meters to "peg" more than your floor-standing speakers other than the bookshelf speakers being far less in their efficiency rating. My speakers aren't too efficient and are power hungry, so I think that's why mine "peg" hard at high volumes.

Not sure what city-state you are in to recommend a tech. there, but I'm in Compton, CA. Yes, THE Compton lol Anyhow, I have had my tech in Westminster, CA, (a really nice part of town) rebuild my x-over network in my Infinity IRS Beta mids/highs towers; fix a troublesome woofer in my Thiel CS5i speaker; along with several other amp and transport/DAC work. I'm sure he could handle the attenuator and/or the V-cap upgrade. I am not sure if you can do PM's on this forum, but here is my email address dblf@pacbell.net
Hit me and I'll shoot you his info. and you can talk with him directly and get a feel for him. He was recommended to me by a Volleyball dad on my daughter's volleyball team about a year or so ago.

I think what he meant was with a brand new set of tubes you could have one amp that will max out at 130 and one at 150. I am guessing that carver didn't match the amps from a max bias stand point ( 140 with a 140 or 130 with a 130) and just shipped completed units.

Thanks for the suggestion. I live just outside of Louisville. Think I may call vintage hifi in Pittsburgh since they were a carver dealer and repair facility at one time.