Just came in a couple days ago, have been reading some threads on Carver repair and upgrades. I got into Carver last year with the first piece being a C-1 to control two QSC GX5s wired to 4 Cerwin Vega DX-9s that I restored last year with new spiders and surrounds, keeping cones and VCs original. That system was fairly potent, but just not the sound I was after, too generic, no sound stage, just raw punch, no soul. Next stage was a Carver M1.5t to play my Paradigm Eclipse Monitors, or Athena AS-F2s with. This was sweet, getting close to what I was after, but still didn't help with the big boys, So the DX-9s got turned on about twice a month only when it was time for serious jams at concert levels on the QSC amps. The 1.5t hooked to a pair of the CVs was ok, it had better sound than the GX5, but still not what they wanted, so it stayed hooked up to the Paradigms mostly. For some reason, I won't mix two different amps on the C-1 since I am playing 4 identical speakers. I want to keep two of the same amps hooked to it. After a time I found a passel of Carver PM amps for sale, two PM2.0ts, and one PM1.5A. I picked them up, and traded one of the GX5s off in the process.
FF to now. I have the m1.5t, and the PM1.5A sitting in my bedroom waiting for another pre amp for them, while the two PM2.0ts are hooked up to the C-1 in my den with the DX-9s. I'm also running a TX-2 tuner in this system that I have a great fondness for, along with a Yamaha EQ, Yamaha CD player, Technics linear tracking tt, and a CV DB-10 bass excavator that has some magic inside that makes my system get nation wide, and it makes me grin a lot. None of these Carver components are perfect, they're old. But they are solid and are in 8 out of 10 condition. This set up has gotten me close to as satisfied as I will be until I slowly go through each component recapping and upgrading to the latest stage of mods and restoration that I read about here. The sound is fantastic, there is magic happening here that consistently blows minds. Bill Withers, or Floyd never sounded this good.