nettlecreek 3 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Hi forum folks! Stumbled across this site looking for Carver repair services. Was introduced to Carver by an audiophile friend in the mid 80's, he had a pair of silver 7's and I recall a pair of m-400's as well. We built a pair of custom speakers from a company in the U district (speaker craft?). Any how, at parties we would put a candle about 24" in front of the speakers and turn it up and watch the candle get blown out! Fell in love with Carver then and still love my gear today. My Carver line up consists of: SD/A390t CD-Player, CT-6 Preamp and a TFM-35 Amp, Driving a pair of Klipsch KG4's My amp is having issues and I'm thinking of getting everything refurbished by Hi-Tech Audio Ltd as they seem to be the go-to place for Carver repairs. Any feedback on them would be welcome. I'll post pictures tomorrow as I only snapped pics of the model numbers.
frenchguy 71 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 I had one of my tfm 42 amps refreshed @ Hi-Tech Audio Ltd & Rolland did a great job & the amp sounds great! only negative I could say about Hi-Tech Audio Ltd is Rolland has a pretty big backload of work so you will have to wait many months to get your amp back but really not much you can do, most quality audio repair places have a large backload of work! my second tfm 42 was refurbed by Greg, a aministrator on this forum! he did a great job & amp sounds great as well!! either one is a very good option in my opinion! Hi-Tech Audio Ltd is in Oregon & Greg is in Michigan so amybe go with closer place to you?
BrianD 507 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Welcome nettlecreek, good luck with your amp. I believe that no matter how you choose to proceed, your answers are here.
BarryG 2,853 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Welcome! We would love to see photos, I would also like to hear more about the custom speakers as well! As always; turn it up! Rock the neighborhood! BarryG
mike eckert 1 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Your custom speaker kit was possibly by SPEAKERLAB ? I never built a pair myself but I do own a really nice pair of S-50 factory built units. Had to do some refurbishing to make them look new again but now they look and sound pretty good. Mike
Community Admin AndrewJohn 10,451 Posted October 8, 2017 Community Admin Posted October 8, 2017 Welcome to the site - that's a nice set of gear! You're on the right path. Can't wait to see your pictures. Hoping you stay a while ans share your experience.
zumbini 6,147 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Howdy nettlecreek and welcome to the forum. Nice to have you on board. Thanks for the intro. We look forward to seeing photos of your gear in Member's Systems.
MORE CARVER'S PLEASE 99 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Hey nettlecreek welcome to the forum. Good luck with your amp repair. Looking forward to your pics. I love the Carver amps with Klipsch speakers. I'm a huge Klipsch fan. Again good luck and welcome to the forum... MCP :-)
PMAT 2,038 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Welcome NC. Hang around and surf the info here. Watch you wallet.
loner_t 2,568 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Welcome to the never-ending party@CS, nettlecreek! Looking forward to pictures, and Zumbini has a cheat sheet on how to post photos.
chiroacademy 833 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 A warm welcome! If you are a Carver fan this is the place to be!
nettlecreek 3 Posted October 8, 2017 Author Posted October 8, 2017 Hey all, thanks for the warm welcome! Regarding the speakers, I guess the company was in fact SpeakerLab. They were across the street from Magnolia Hi-Fi in the University District (Seattle). From my dim memory, the woofers were poloypro, there was a hard cone tweeter and the mid was a horn. I built the cabinets out of high density particle board and we never got around to skinning them with veneer. My friend moved away and as far as I know he probably still has them. They weighed a ton! Thinking on this project some more I recall a passive reflector on the back cabinet opposite of the polypro. The units were quite large. My CD player tray sticks, so I have to "tap" the top of the unit to get it to slide out, once warmed up it opens and closes with no issues but I don't like hitting my gear to get it to work, and the amp has a hum and I'm getting sound out of both channels even when I have the balance all the way over to one channel or the other. Could be the pre-amp, but I suspect the amp inputs are flaking out. I do custom home A/V and lighting automation and often I'm pulling good gear out of homes because the owner wants to update/modernize. I haul the stuff home to tinker with. Presently in my shop I have a full rack of Elan and fireball hardware that was integrated into a Crestron a/v system which was linked to a Lutron Homeworks Illumination lighting system, amps are SpeakerCraft BB1265 (3 of them!) all working just fine. I'm going to call the Carver repair outfit down in Oregon, I can live without my gear for a while since I have plenty of options! Will post pictures later today! Mike...
iamjohngalt 2,764 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Hello, NettleCreek, and welcome to the Carver Site. The people here have a wealth of knowledge about Carver gear and they are a very generous group with that knowledge, too. iamjg
zumbini 6,147 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 I used to spend hours looking through the SpeakerLab catalogs, and helped a friend build a pair of model K's (their knock-off of the Klipsch corner horn) in the late 70's/early 80's. Many of their kits featured ElectroVoice tweeters and horns. Your "sticky" CD player probably needs a new tray drive belt and you might as well replace the sled drive belt while you are in there. Belt sizes are listed in the CD Player/Changer Belt Size Database thread as is a good source for the belts (Studio Sound Electronics)
zumbini 6,147 Posted October 8, 2017 Posted October 8, 2017 Speaking of catalogs, here are 10 released between 1973 and 1986. Maybe you can find your speakers in one of them.
nettlecreek 3 Posted October 9, 2017 Author Posted October 9, 2017 Posted pictures of my gear over in the member systems forum. http://thecarversite.com/yetanotherforum/default.aspx?g=posts&m=311858#post311858 Correction on the CD player, turns out it is a SD/A-490t
nettlecreek 3 Posted October 9, 2017 Author Posted October 9, 2017 Posted some pictures of my gear in the members picture gallery
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