Hello Everyone!
Just wanted to say hi from frigid Canada, introduce myself, and comment on what an intensely cool website this is! I joined this site a couple months ago, so this is long overdue.
I am not really an audiophile, but I truly enjoy good sound. Growing up in the seventies my Dad had music all over the house, pretty neat gear, and there were always stereo/hifi magazines to flip through. I remember marveling back then at the Carver cube ads. I thought they were so cool. Somewhere about the mid seventies my Dad's best friend's wife evicted a pair of Ohm F's I guess because they took up too much space. They ended up in my Dad's possession and a short time later he had a Phase Linear 400 amp and the matching preamp. My Dad encouraged me to blast the music as long as I was careful. Fast forward thirty years or so and my Dad's 2nd wife evicted the Ohms again. This time they ended up in my basement! That was almost ten years ago and the first thing I did was to acquire the first serious power amp I could find locally - a Hafler 500, with the DH-101 preamp. I also scored a Marantz 1090, a Luxman CD player and I also found a pair of JBL Decade 16's that my neighbor put out in his trash. One of the woofers fell out!!! That took me all of about 5 minutes to fix, and what a great sounding pair of speakers they are.
In recent years I have been trying my hand at fixing up old gear. Started by recapping and replacing all the jacks on the Hafler preamp (honestly, I could never hear any improvement). After that I came across a basket case pair of 901s with a dead EQ that I restored from the ground up. That was a very satisfying project. Then I restored my brother's Hitachi Receiver (a 150W class G beast).
Just this last December I realized I never was satisfied with the preamp work on the Hafler, and I got myself a stock C-1 control center. OMG what a difference!!! So that unit is currently controlling everything with the Hafler 500 driving the Ohms. In the other end of my long basement, the Marantz drives the JBLs. My vinyl sound fantastic through this rig.
I am currently on a mission to get my hands on a Carver amp. I am totally lusting after one of the transfer function amps. Top of list is the M-1.0 T. I also would love to have a 1.5 T or an M-400T. Any of these I would take dead or alive (preferably dead but cosmetically good). I go after every one I see, and get out-gunned every single time. These beauties are certainly sought after! The extent to which they have held their value can only serve as testament to the genius and ingenuity of Mr. Carver!
Not sure if i will ever succeed in my quest, but I am sure enjoying the journey! I am grateful to have found this awesome site, and look forward getting acquainted with you all!
Sincerely,
David
(aka Cool Ohm)
Ottawa, Canada