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So, our resident tuba amp rebuilder, James aka Old Texas Dog, needed a project, for a Karma. I donated this Conn organ amp, he worked his magic. VIOLA! Great looking, great sounding 12V6 push pull amp. Nice job, James! Together, we're giving it away! Karma is open to all members who want to experience a tube amp for the first time. Why are you wanting a tube amp? Tell us your story and pick a number between 1 and 100 (no numbers games this time!) Drawing to be made next Sunday, 9/20 around 6pm Eastern time.

System: Goldmund Studio TT/Goldmund T3 Tone Arm/Koetsu Rosewood Cartridge/Nagra PL-P Preamp/Sequerra Model 1 Tuner/Nakamichi 682ZX/Carver Silver Seven Tube amps/Genesis Model II Speakers

Hi. I'm a little crazy man from Sweden, as my father is a musician playing the banjo I have been interested i music all my life. Started my quest for good sound with a 2x2W Philips tube amp. Have gradually climbed the ladder against the sound nirvana. About 8 years ago I stumbled over a nice set of B&W800 series 80. They sounded nice but thin with my Pioneer M73. I upgraded with NAD318, it became better, then I was offered a pair of Carver PM1.5a and 2x450W made a difference but still I felt that they had more to offer. Bridged the Carvers and WOW I was blown away by the sound origin from the eighties. The bass shaked my walls and neighbours in the next villa complained about bass. Lived happy with this until january this year when I found a couple of B&W800D within my budget. (sold the old B&W800 for more than they cost me) They did better with the Carvers in Bi-amping and now I wait for a PM1200 coming om friday. It will replaced the PM1.5 driving middle/high on B&W. I bought two Marantz Ma-9s1 monoblock to replace my carver amps but they are for sale again, the old Carvers are far better then Marantz hi priced heawy monoblock. As I am in a wheelshair since eight years after an accident and quit work I have lot of time to experiment with my gear and enjoy music and movies with great sound and picture. It's a great hobby. One more thing, I have a PM1.5 driving a Dayton Titanic12 inch DIY sub and it is perfect on both music and movies.

I have been wanting move my hobby more towards DIY. DIY is fun. My speakers are DIY and have been in my system for over a year. I am very pleased with them. The speakers are now complimented by a DIY Amplifier and Pre-amplifier. OVATION NX-AMPLIFIER: A HIGH PERFORMANCE 100 W CLASS AB CURRENT FEEDBACK AMPLIFIER PREAMPLIFIER 2012 - Designed by Douglas Self- Featured in Elektor Magazine in 2012 - Also discussed in detail in his book "Self on Audio". This is a very quiet system at idle. Dead Quiet. Very clean and crisp sonics. I am extremely pleased with the final results. The Amplifier: The Preamplfier: And a shot of the new shop system:

Major new engine update is available. I'm going to have to do some research and ensure our 3rd party plug-ins will survive (like our live chat). I'll post a notice with date and time of the update, which probably won't take long, but the forum may have a different look and feel afterwards. Please take note of this! Don't complain in the chat - look at this thread for updates and troubleshooting or just ask the staff if something is not working or gets strange.

Hello, I am new to the carver world and actually just starting to get into home audio. Originally, I had a Yamaha receiver with a klipsch surround sound system which I thought sounded pretty darn good until a friend showed me his setup; consisting of a mxr150 with a pair of carver m200t amps running to some CV 15in pa's. I was completely blown away by how crisp, clear, and accurate it sounded. Needless to say, I now have my own mxr150 and a set of d-5s for now and my klipsch system sits in the garage. I am definitely interested in learning more about carver equipment and expanding my inventory so I figured this would be a great forum to be on.

i doe my best to doe som pictures sorry for my English a am not so familiar wit it

Anyone make any changes to their workbench or shop? Any new members want to share you hobby area? My bench I built in 2012 was getting a bit rickety and worn. The top was stool height and I grew tired on climbing up and off my stool. So time for a new bench. Adjusted for the lowest setting on my stool I can now rest my feet on the floor. I bought a new full size ESD mat for the top. Plenty of LED lights for these old eyes. This bench should last me. It looks neat now but give me a few month to fill it with clutter.

I would like to begin by saying that I have been a member of groups that gathered for various reasons but I have never felt the kindness and warmth from a group of people that I and my wife have these last few days. It all began with @sea coming to the rescue when our security code wouldn't open our cottage door. He introduced himself and took care of us and got us in our cabin. We went to a cookout that evening and were treated so well and from then on it just got better. I won't list peoples names here because I cant remember everyones names but I will remember the ones that we spent most of the time with. What a blast we had just hanging out and being together. We will be leaving Friday morning and we hope to say good bye to as many as we can. It was truly a great first time experience and if anyone has never attended Carverfest, you should.

Hello Carver group, Just joined, I hope everyone is safe this Labor Day! I'm new to Carver, and found this group while looking for support with a Sunfire sub.(I'll add in relevant section), but looking forward to discussing and learning from all of you. Thanks approving my membership! -Best!

Glad to be here, new member from Virginia. Recently got interested in Carver and have acquired several units: C1 pre - I would like to recap this soon M1.0t - Hopefully the MKII opt 2 is in order M500t - Also hoping to do the MKII A set of ALIIIs I'm planning on bi-amping the ALIIIs with the M500t running the ribbons and the M1.0t running the subs. Any advice/recommendations?

Greetings! I recently learned about this site while browsing YouTube videos relating to repair/restoration of vintage Carver amplifiers. I myself am a "vintage" electronic engineer and former owner of an audio retail store (August Systems) and an electronic repair shop (Audio-Video Service Center) located in East Central Illinois. During my retail career I was a Carver dealer and authorized service center. Those parts of my career began in the 1970's and extended into the late 1990's. These day's I'm semi-retired but still restoring/repairing vintage audio gear for my friends and family. This includes Carver and Phase Linear products. My experience is that nearly all vintage Carver/ Phase Linear products can be restored and enjoyed for many years. As a Carversite member I hope to be able to provide assistance to those who are repairing/restoring Carver gear. Here's my personal contribution to Carver history: Only two products were available during the very first year of the "Carver" brand name: These were the C-4000 "sonic holography" preamp and its companion C-500 power amplifier. These items were updated/modernized versions of Bob Carver's previous Phase-Linear 4000 preamp and 400 power amplifier. They looked and sounded great. But except for the addition of the "sonic holography" feature to the C-4000, their circuit designs were still fairly conventional. The real excitement happened about a year later with the initial release of Bob Carver's M-400 "cube" power amplifier: 200Wpc in an unbelievably small and lightweight box. As a young audio engineer I was entranced by the brilliant circuit design of the M-400. It contained two ingenious (but extremely logical) improvements compared to traditional solid-state power amplifiers: 1) The "magnetic field" power supply circuit: The primary winding of the main power transformer was supplied by an active triac circuit which reduced the conduction angle from full cycles of incoming mains AC to much shorter "pulses" controlled by the triac. Under the "no-signal" condition the pulses of AC feeding the power transformer primary were only a few msec in duration. As more power was demanded the triac conduction angle increased to maintain a regulated DC output voltage from the secondaries of the power transformer. Both the primary and secondary windings of the main power transformer required a much lower inductance compared to a "standard" 60Hz power transformer. This reduced the size/weight of the "magnetic field" power transformer to about 1/3 of a "conventional" 60Hz power transformer with the same ratings. 2) The 3-step "commutating" DC +/- rail voltages applied to the audio output stage. This greatly increases the power efficiency of the amplifier when driving loudspeakers with typical music audio signals. Audio signals have a very high "peak-to-average" power ratio. This can be as high as 20dB. The average power output is often <10W, but when a musical peak comes along >200W will be required for a few msec. Traditional solid-state power amplifiers apply the full B+ voltage (+/-75V DC for 200Wpc) at all times to the collectors of the output transistors. But during "normal" listening < 20% of this voltage and power is being fed into the loudspeakers. The remainder is dissipated in the form of heat by the output transistors. This is why conventional high-power solid-state amplifiers require such massive heatsinks. In contrast the Carver M-400 has additional +/-25V and +/-50V DC power supply rails. A system of diodes and "commutating" transistors varies the collector voltage applied to the main output stage from +/-25V up to the full +/-75V, rising just high enough to prevent clipping. Most of the time, while listening to music, only the +/-25V power supplies are active. This reduces output transistor power dissipation of by a factor of about 8 times. In other words, much less power is wasted in the form of heat. This is why the M-400 doesn't require large heatsinks for the output transistors: The aluminum case itself provides a sufficient heatsink surface area. Each later model Carver amplifier after the M-400 improved the efficiency and audio quality. To the best of my knowledge nearly all of Carver's later solid-state amplifier designs were improved and scaled-up versions of the circuit design first introduced in the M-400. Best regards, Elecdonia

Wow! This is one absolutely amazing forum! I can't say enough. Thanks.....thanks.....thanks!

Hi Gents I'm a new member to your forum. I'm a retired Warrant Officer from the ARMY. I'm rusty bench tech with time on my hands trying to refresh a fleeting skill set.

CF20 setup

I arrived around 6:00..... Took a minute to unload...... (Too Much Again) This year was a test drive for the Big Boys...... Let the Festivities Begin....

The speaker shootout last month (detailed in THIS thread) was so much fun, AND so informative, that I'm thinking of doing another one, only this time comparing digital formats (CD, FLAC, MP3, SACD and DVD-A). I have three (3) titles where I poses CD, SACD and DVD-A (and of course FLAC, from the CD) - Fleetwood Mac Rumors, The Who Tommy, and Donald Fagen Nightfly. I would also compare a few CDs to their respective SACD and DVD-A. The reason I am wanting to do this, is that I have seen it stated multiple times, on various forums, that there is no audible difference between SACD/DVD-A and Redbook CD. This is not my experience generally, but I have never done an exhaustive A/B comparison. If I do end up doing it, it would be methodical, much like the aforementioned speaker shootout - I may even enlist the help of my son, in order to do a blind comparison. Any thoughts from the group?

Okay, I've finally passed the Novice level, so I can post pics of my system, and do it on the proper forum!!! As I mentioned in my new member intro, this has been a 15++ year long journey in the making (and I am not done by any means)! This is my current setup in the basement of my new house since my divorce! I am running a Sunfire 300x2, C-16, SDA-490T, TX-12 (going upstairs to bedroom since I don't use this system for radio), TD-1770, BSR EQ3000, Realistic APM-500, MSB Link DAC, and Avid Diva II turntable! Some changes are coming - as I said, MSB and TX-12 are moving to other systems in my house, and C-16 getting replaced by C-19 once I am done modifying it! I had some neighbors over for a vinyl session the other night, and I got a lot of "Wow, can't believe how clean that sound is" and "this is incredible"! Now they know what I get to experience on most of my evenings! It felt real good inside to know that I had a system that can "Wow" people! It has taken a very long time and a lot of trial, error, and financial workings to get where I am today! Everybit worth it! Neil

Here is a close up of the main stack as it sits currently! (This was taken as I was putting the Sunfire in the stack!)

Hi Everyone, just joined but have been Carver fam for 30 years. I used a 1.5 as amp in my radio production studio for about 25 years (which was a little overkill!) till it started going bad and they put some crappy 75watt crown amp in which died in a few years. I also have a TX2 tuner I have had for about 20 years and a year ago picked up a 732 receiver which is in the shop as it had a power supply issue so looking forward to using.

I'd say it's a toss up between anything by Yoko Ono and 99% of rap ever produced

Great job! I’ve done a lot of recapping. The metalized polypropylene capacitors are a significant upgrade over the NPEs. Most poly caps run a 5% tolerance although some are 1%; either way this is much closer than to nominal than the 20% of the NPE and therefore closer to the design intent. As MadMike indicated, they will go thru a break-in cycle. Some sites have thrown out numbers as high as 250 hours, but I find they gradually get better over 30 to 40 hours. The biggest improvement would be noticeable in the first 3 hours then it tapers off. I find restoring speakers very rewarding. My latest was a set of JBL L100t’s. Here is a pic of the crossover that I recapped with Auden and Solen caps while bringing it up to T3 configuration. Enjoy the music!

Recently got a pair of AL III+ and I am in love. My original obsession started with Sunfire amps and speakers in my home theater so I suppose I am just now getting into the original really good stuff? Any way, thanks for having me and looking forward to reading and learning!

I live about 250 km South of Gothenburg, Olofstrom is a small town of 7000 residens in southern Sweden Try to post a couple of pics. First one is in my listening room, second one is where amps are located. I have until now only Carvers Pro gear so they will need further modifikation before they can be in my listening area. The Marantz monoblock will be sold soon, Carvers amps sound better.

my first topic from holland about Carver C-1 TFM-45 M-1,0t i doe som Restoration and the play beautiful

carver M 1.0t amp from 1984 or so ..still works with no upgrades or repairs. Is this normal or is this a ticking time bomb to fail soon? Thanks

Good morning all! I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and our team at Watershed Resort. I am Misty Sneed. Ed and I worked closely in the beginning of the planning stages for this year's Carverfest. Our maintenance manager, Derek Webb and I have been preparing our staff to best meet your needs while you are in stay with us. I am working on finding talent for our event on the 19th. I have a great local band, Red Clay Revival, potentially lined up for the event. Here is a link to a concert they performed in Asheville preCOVID. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2hiiDXfvtU&t=1426s I look forward to hearing your thoughts on them! Misty Lynne Sneed Operations Manager Watershed Resort

Amazon Prime seems to be where I find shows I am interested in. I rarely find anything good on Netflix. However, I am currently watching Netflix "Reckoning". A crime drama that's not bad.

We now have the full Carver TD-1700 Service Manual in our Manuals Database courtesy of Dadvw and Will Meyer. We really have a great resource in these manuals available to everyone. Thanks guys.

My situation may have a happier ending than I thought... Test result "Negative" this morning.

Get in touch with member @sea - he performs the only suitable Carver ribbon repairs. He’s a stand-up guy, and he’ll do what he says, when he says... buy with confidence!

Please stay safe! We all could use a miracle in 2020. I hope the forecasters are wrong!

I'm new the forum, but excited to be here for the vast knowledge base that the forum offers. From my first product, "The Carver Receiver" to my current system with Carver Silver Seven tube amps, I love the brand. I look forward to joining the community. System: Goldmund Studio TT/Goldmund T3 Tone Arm/Koetsu Rosewood Cartridge/Nagra PL-P Preamp/Sequerra Model 1 Tuner/Nakamichi 682ZX/Carver Silver Seven Tube amps/Genesis Model II Speakers

Martin and I checked in 3 days ago, up and running...

My father Egon on banjo. https://m.facebook.com/watch/?v=10150170847469154&_rdr

In other words, racism / bigotry / prejudice does not happen unless it is perpetrated by WASPs. We care not for who the best qualified person for any said position might be, only that something about them must be different from a heterosexual white person of European descent - you know, roughly 64% of this country's population. Got it. Fuck Hollywood.

It's fair to say I'm a sucker for movies with a twist. In fact, about the only thing more satisfying in cinema than a great twist, is a twist that gives you all the information to piece it together, as opposed to the random left-field reveal. Take The Sixth Sense - it was all there, had you been able to make all the connections, which makes the reveal all the more satisfying. Which brings us to the current selection - Lucky Number Slevin. The first thing that needs to be mentioned is the cast - Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley, Lucy Liu, Bruce Willis, Josh Hartnet and Stanley Tucci. As expected, Morgan Freeman does the heavy lifting, but the entire cast is on point in this film. The second thing I find immensely satisfying in this film is the dialogue - Sharp and witty, with subtle dark humor throughout. And rounding out the package is the story - It is delivered in a semi Quentin Tarantino style, where you get a piece here and a piece there, and you find yourself awaiting the next piece. I really can't say much more without compromising the story and reveal, but rest assured, it will be worth your time!

I do nothing now since I retired from an large aircraft company in Seattle. I'm now preparing for a move to Florida. I had no idea how much audio gear I had until I started boxing it up. Yikes is what the mover said when he was working up an estimate for the move. And yes, I've already sold off what I can live without. Now I'm trying to figure out what to do with my Carver Amazing speakers. The movers want $600 to crate them up. I've stared at those speakers many times trying to decide how to make a safe box for them. Not going to be easy. I hate moving. 🙄

Don't worry about your language skills; we all speak Carver here..🎶

Kevin sent me 2 manuals for our database. Scanned and added today. Carver C-9 Sonic Hologram Generator Preliminary Owner Manual (We did not have this Preliminary printing. It offers some different incite on proper setup) Carver Four-Zone Multi-Room Controller Amplifier Owner Manual

There's two camels with broken backs now Mark. I just heard about this show from a friend yesterday afternoon. I find myself in a difficult position. I want to watch the film to see if the content actually represents the media noise around the advertising but I don't want to support an immoral, sick production if that is truly what it is. I will choose the safer avenue and just not watch it. The sad thing is if the film actually has value and does not depict children in a poor manner it is receiving huge backlash from just the advertising done for it so far. Maybe morons in advertising will learn from the experience - but probably not. Selfishly I hope Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. all go this route, along with cable TV. Then, maybe, Americans (especially children) will learn to again find great value and satisfaction in playing with friends outside, having hobbies that require physical motion, reading quality books and learning about our world and the amazing things and people who live on it.

I just got a pair of AL-iii plus and live in tampa. Nothing wrong yet with them but want to rekindle the thread

I finally got the chance to do a test launch (after finding a road that was flat for more than a 1/4 mile) stock was nimble, stage 1 was quick, I'm at stage 2+ now am I fast yet? 0-60 3.6 sec 1/4 mile 11.6 sec (@106MPH)

Looks awesome Eric. Sorry I missed hearing the system yesterday morning. My “tech team” was here helping me yesterday with computer/internet issues. Thank you “Jeddy” and Martin. Will be over sometime this morning.

Mark, This sounds like another great endeavor to take on. I listen exclusively to tracks streamed over my home network from the QNAP and Synology NAS units here in the house. I listen to mainly Flac files I've downloaded from HDTracks in mainly 24Bit-88kHz, 24Bit-96kHz and 24Bit-192kHz resolutions and find them to sound quite nice. I wouldn't say they sound night and day better than the Redbook CD versions, I've ripped into Flac from my collection of CD's, but they are, typically, noticeably better sounding to me. But that's not always the case for some reason. Some sound like they are not as loud as the Redbook versions off my CD's and sound slightly weak. I also have some tracks I've setup in Wav format, since my BMW could only play Wav files from it's hard drive, and I kept them on one of the NAS's as backup and do listen to them occasionally. I don't believe there is any difference between the Flac and Wav sound quality in any of the tracks that I've ripped from the same CD's though. At least I can't hear any difference. I look forward to your findings.

I am a recent newby myself, welcome to the site. There is a great crew here, all helpful and you will really enjoy your time here plus find it very educational.