Bob Carver LLC Black Beauty Review


If any of you GON members are interested in Bob Carver's new mono-block tube amps take a look at my review that was just posted on hometheaterreview.com. It's in the recent short review section on the front page. It was a very interesting experience to compare the Carver's performance with my Pass Labs XA-60.5's.
teajay
With your 305's the power increase would not be that much, maybe only 10 to 20 watts at the 8 taps. In my case I'm going from 180 watts to 315 or so watts which will make a much more significant sound improvement not only from the new tubes but also giving me a whole lot more headroom. Bob claims the new 150 tubes give you the best of all tubes from top to bottom and since I only have had kt88's and have never heard the kt120's I'm not sure what you will gain. The few reviews out there on these new tubes are really positive. The 305 do not need any mods to run the 150's.
200 for the internals and 600 for the kt-150's. Think he gave me a good price due to it cost me almost 300 to send them to Washington and back. Just got an email and they should be done in the next month.
["200 for the internals and 600 for the kt-150's"]

[[[["Question: "I have read on the web that it may be possible for you to upgrade my 180's to 350's. Any information you could forward to me on cost, turnaround time, and if this upgrade is, in fact, something you offer, it would be greatly appreciated."

Upgrading your 180 to a 350 is too much of a stretch and is not practical. The extra cost is such that it would be cheaper to purchase a brand new 350. However, taking a 180 to a 305 is eminently practical, and I would be happy to do it. The price is $1,849, and its performance will be very close, on speech and music, to a 350, but on continuous sine waves it will be a 305. Low and medium level signal handling (up to 305 watts) will include my latest thinking, as implemented in the Raven/Crimson 350."]]]]

$800 vs $1800 plus shipping? Hmm.
Have you tried the KT-150's in a Black Beauty 305? Is the change worth investing in a set of KT 150's?