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Hi everyone, this is Bob Farinelli from Bob Carver LLC. Some of you may know that Bob Carver and I have formed a new company dedicated to high quality vacuum tube amplifiers and line source tower speakers. (with a significant engineering effort from James on the tower speakers). Bob and I worked closely together for over 6 years at Sunfire once we joined forces back in 2005. Neither of us are ready to retire, we get along well and are really looking forward to this new partnership together.
 
We are very excited about the new business and hope to have our website www.bobcarver.com up and running in the next 30 days. Below is a list of current projects we have on our launch plan line up, but please feel free to share your ideas with us for other product ideas we should consider.
 
1.   Cherry 180 Mono-Block - shipping in November
2.   Black Beauty 305 Mono-Block - shipping in November
3.   A 20W stereo amplifier - tricked out version of the one we all built at Carver Fest. (And it's not to late to give us inputs           on this one if you have any.)
4.   The line source tower speaker built by James and debuted at Carver Fest
5.   The reincarnated Silver 7  - as a 900 W Mono block using KT120s
6.  A tube based phono-prestage.
 
Other products are on the road map - these have our immediate attention at this time. 
 
Thanks,
 
Bob Farinelli
bobf@bobcarver.com
 
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Hi Bob - thanks for dropping by!

 

I'm interested to see where the 20W tube 'fest amp leads!

Please keep us posted  & welcome!

 
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Thank you very much for stopping by Bob.  We look forward to future updates about the new company.  Perhaps you could convince Bob Carver to stop by as well.
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Welcome Bob. Thanks so much for stopping by the forum. It's great to see you and the "Bobfather' collaborating on such wonderful audio gear. I am, and I'm sure everyone else here, are thrilled to have you visit our site and hope you'll stop by to "hang out" with us enthusiasts.

 

Best of luck with the new venture!

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Welcome to the site Bob, thanks for taking the time to stop by the site and post here.

Lots of Carver-fanatics here.

I too am curious about the 20 watt tube amp and its development and applications.

Thanks for helping keep our hobby alive with the addition of some wonderful new and exciting equipment.

Good luck on the new company !

 
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Hello Bob...and welcome from a newbie...I'm not sure what you folks built at Carver Fest but i'm curious about the 20 watt mono blocks and most definitely a tube phono stage...are the mono blocks parallel 300B's or similar?...looking forward to seeing anything tube based as well as new reviews from the written press...you know they love you guy's...and they need you...

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Thanks for posting, Bob.  It's always nice to hear what may be coming down the pike.  I just hope some of it will be affordable to the common man, the very same who laud Mr. Carver's designs for giving them the ability to enjoy true high fidelity without breaking the bank.  I doubt many of us could afford a pair of updated Silver 7 tube amps, the auction pair having sold for $32k.  I love to see 'em, but highly doubt I'll ever own them.
 
There are a lot of Sunfire Classic Vacuum Tube Pre-amps out there without the phono stage and remote options.  It would be nice to see a package available to retrofit these preamps, or even a new preamp to rival or surpass. 
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Couple of comments on the re-incarnated silver 7s and stereo preamp.

 

The new silver 7s (pictured on our current web page placeholder) are a 2 chassis design for each mono block. We don't even have a flushed out costed bill of material on them at this time, but when I look at my 2010 Sterephile Buyer's Guide competitive matrix - $26,000 seems to be an appropriate retail price based on our features against the competition. This will stir a significant debate I'm sure, but once I see how the costs line up I will be in a better position to establish that price. My goal is not to sell one pair every other month and I am quite aware that when I price these amplifiers to be more expensive than the brand new Nissan Altima I just bought my wife it will have limited market appeal. All I can say is - stay tuned on that one.

 

On the preamplifier. Bob and I discussed and agreed that we should resurrect the Sunfire Classic Vacuum Tube Preamplifier. First he wants to upgrade the phono input stage to add more tubes to reduce the noise floor to be the lowest in the industry. (more tubes = lower noise floor). So - we agreed that it would be easier and quicker to market to make the stand alone phono-prestage reference design, and then update the Classic Preamp with it thereafter.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Bob Farinelli

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Other news from Bob Carver LLC:

 

We are waiting on chassis metal to arrive at the end of this month to build our first production amplifiers. We have 10 sets (any combination of 180s and 305s) in the queue to be shipped in November, with more to follow in December. Most are already spoken for, if any of you are interested in getting one of the first 10 off our line please drop me a note at bobf@bobcarver.com.

 

I will be attending the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest trade show this Friday and be there through Sunday. We do not have a booth as it was unclear when product would ship 4 months ago when registration sign ups took place. So, I will be roaming about like a free range chicken, handing out business cards and cut sheets. I hope to work out something with a partner at this show so we can have some amplifiers placed in some suites at CES in Vegas in January. Stay tuned for that. Once it is set I will post it up on this forum.

 

Thanks,

 

Bob Farinelli

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Welcome Bob, 
Sorry I passed up the chance to do go to CarverFest and meet you.  But seeing as how the OCCD has already ruined me, maybe it's better that I didn't actually hear those new tube amps.  
Anyhow... it's great to have you on the forum!
Charlie  
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