Kurt

Welcome to the Carver Site!

I've had 3 Carver CD players from the early years (TL3300, DTL-100, DTL-200 MkII) and I've seen a variety of issues. One I was able to get working to about 95% reliability (still skipped every so often) and I gave that one to another member on this site. One I chose to give up on...and scrapped. The last one I have is the one I'm still using DTL 200 MkII. It came relatively new in box a few years ago and works great. I've learned a few things in playing with these units. 1. The belt drives go bad in some of them. They are little rubber bands that like to deteriorate over time. Check for belt slippage. You can get replacement belts on line for pretty cheap and it's not too bad to fix. 2. There are thin metal rails that the transport moves on perpendicular to the disk grooves. Lubing these rails with a light silicone oil (real light so as not to get goop in any other parts) and cycling through a few complete disk travels can help. Sometimes they get dry or slightly corroded and cause the laser to hang up or stick a little. I've also noticed that the skipping can be more prevalent on a cold start up, which I think is related to this issue. 3. The pickup lens can get dirty. Clean the lens gently with alcohol and a lens cleaning paper. Those are the "easy" things to do.... and they may help your situation. If you are still skipping after all that, then you are likely into the transport mechanism and/or a new pickup . I think that's much more difficult repair, so I've never attempted it. Somewhere on this site is a list of which manufacturers made those Carver CD players. Other than the DTL feature, the CD players were the same design built by other companies for Carver corp to badge as their own. I think one is an AIWA design, I can't remember. Do some searching here. You may be able to find components from the sister units built by the original manufacturers.

I feel the same way about all speakers. I'm sure there are some good ported speakers out there.... but, I have not come across many ported speaker designs that really nail the accuracy. For lower powered systems, maybe they are a good choice. But, give me a sealed cabinet speaker and gobs of Carver power, any day.

That's an interesting question. I don't have the answer. A long time ago I did a search for Carver patents. I did not find one for DTL (there is one for Sonic Holography). The literature I've read about the effect mentions increase in some mid base frequencies and decrease in some mid treble frequencies. It also mentions an enhancement in the differentiation between L and R channels to increase stereo effect. That may be difficult to mimic with an EQ. I don't know if this is a clue or not, but in playing around with my system, I've noticed that using DTL (with no other tone controls) sounds very similar to when I use Sonic Holography + a Gundry filter (Nelion installed in my C4000 preamp).

Welcome to the Carver Site!

Welcome to the Carver Site!

Welcome to the Carver Site!

welcome to the Carver Site!

Heard this song today.....got me thinking back to late '80's, early 90's. Things were so different back then. My fellow Gen X'ers had survived the Cold War and the Gulf War. The future looked so bright.

Welcome to the Carver Site!

Welcome to the Carver Site!

welcome to the Carver Site!

Welcome to the Carver Site!

Welcome to the site!