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Carver Raven 350 Review (Tube Amp)

Rate this amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 269 82.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 29 8.9%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 17 5.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 10 3.1%

  • Total voters
    325

hvbias

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The science has been settled on that for many decades. Most of what remains is in the realm of psychoacoustics and human psychology.

We have dozens of members on ASR that prefer the sound of a sharp rock dragging through plastic over digital, so I would indeed say that the area of psychoacoustics ala Toole's research on speaker measurement preference or Olive's Harman target curve preference (far from flat) for headphones is needed. And it could go far beyond that.

edit: I think people are being far too kind to even vintage McIntosh. I would bet good money that those amps, Sansui, Fischer, HK, etc would measure very poorly.
 
D

Deleted member 50971

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To be honest I don't know much neither but for me it opens on both safari and chrome so seams you don't need the purely Google environment.
This was linked from this post.

Thanks
 

PeteL

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edit: I think people are being far too kind to even vintage McIntosh. I would bet good money that those amps, Sansui, Fischer, HK, etc would measure very poorly.
Of course they would measure poorly, they are vintage. That would be very sad if we couln't do better today. In the case of Fisher it's more like antique than vintage. Truth be told though, with good speakers any of these brands have made products that could get you very close to a high fidelity experience, yes even with sometimes 0.1% THD or more. Bottom line, it was possible for a stereo system to produce great sound in the eighties. Yes even with vinyl records. But this here at 1% is just horrible in any era of Hifi in the last 50 years. All of those have models that would measure much better than this Carver.
 

Jimster480

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That happens to me all the time. It is due to knowing there is a change and focusing to hear it. Once you do, you notice detail, air, etc. that your brain was ignoring before. With that preconditioning, when you go back to the other sample it "sounds worse." Blind testing eliminates this issue.
Yep, there is "expectation bias". It is a powerful thing, so best to have no expectations!
 

Azathoth

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“A heat blasting element to produce sound” has the sort of functional artwork / anachronistic wonder that a mechanical wrist watch...
On a sidenote I've never heard of a watch manufacturer distorting time using mechanical movements(or digital for that matter) lol. Guess time is such a concept we have to obey without fail. Producing sounds we find pleasing however...
 

B&WTube

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Please define "good". Some people define "good" as ".... warm and creamy, with liquid mids and ineffable air between the blackness". Are you talking about that type of "good"?

Jim
Accurate reproduction of the recording. The VTA is faster and more detailed. It has these properties because of the improved hardware, gain stage, and tighter tolerances. Just waiting for someone to explain why a slower, muddier, worse design, with lower quality everything is ‘better’.

To be clear, while I like tubes for cafe/soft jazz music- SS is way better for anything dynamic. My current builds are all waiting on JLE Class D boards to come back in. I also think the future is Class D with Gan or some of the other faster switching tech that is emerging. So, I am not some die hard tube guy, even though I like some aspects of them.

In the case of these amps, I was able to find a local guy who had a lot of dynaco gear- so I have been able to hear these amps in the same room and on the same high efficiency speakers. I didn’t want to pay double for the VTA, unless it was significantly better- it was. It was obvious. So I built one, and still own it.

If that guy was still alive I would try to get some folks over and find folks to blind a/b for ASR.
 

Gary_G

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“I measured Rosie o'donnell and Scarlett Johansson and Rosie is actually more symmetrical, so she is more attractive.” I am gonna say, “I believe your measurements and methodology, however, I think there might be some factors to consider or weigh differently- because I have personally seen them, and I gotta give it to Scarlett and everyone who has seen them kind of agrees.”
I'm using this as the defacto statement on measurements versus pleasure !
 

GXAlan

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Exactly. I use a 12.5 watt SET 300b amp for jazz and acoustic music and a 215 watt solid state amp for rock and classical. Why ? Because I love how they sound and I am in the lucky position to be able to afford to run two amps. I am less concerned about fidelity to the "as the artist intended" argument as many artists like highly compressed shit versions of their own work. What concerns me is how they sound when I listen and some music just sounds better to me on tubes. I guess I am just a distortion junkie.

And I would wager that it is not just harmonic distortion. There is probably non-harmonic distortion, microphonics, crosstalk, etc.

All Dynaco Experts: VTA70 is clearly better
ASR: ST70 is better

But you are missing that the ST-70 here was running an Eico Mullard tube, GE driver, and “Apex matched” JJ Electronic tubes. The VTA-70 here had “NOS Mullards” which don’t look like any of the Mullards I am familiar with and could be counterfeit. Didn’t see what the other tubes were in the VTA-70.

So, either
a) ASR is correct and the original ST-70 is better
b) ASR and "Dynaco Experts" are correct and the VTA-70 is better if using the same tubes

I understand, and I don’t know a whole lot about them, even though their headquarters is only an hour away from me. But I see a lot of expensive gear going out their doors, I don’t think the passion is there anymore.

I never owned one but according to this list compiled by a member, the MC462 output 720 Watts in 4 ohms and achieve a SINAD of 108 dB I don't know but to me it's quite SOTA numbers, making it at Benchmark-Purifi-Hypex levels but with considerably more power. What's not to like? What makes them less legit than the old ones?


McIntosh is one of these weird companies for sure. They have to keep their lights on and even though some of their products don't measure state-of-the-art (MHA100 apparently isn't that great), their reliability is well justified. They have some really odd products like the lighted box, but the premium products actually measure really nicely.
On a sidenote I've never heard of a watch manufacturer distorting time using mechanical movements(or digital for that matter) lol. Guess time is such a concept we have to obey without fail. Producing sounds we find pleasing however...
Agreed. That part is silly. But there are expensive watches with poorly regulated best errors and the watch speed when fully wound is different than the watch speed when worn down.

Remember, not every tube fan thinks it’s massive distortion that is desired. @SIY (and me)
 

Ken Tajalli

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And I would wager that it is not just harmonic distortion. There is probably non-harmonic distortion, microphonics, crosstalk, etc.
Remember, not every tube fan thinks it’s massive distortion that is desired. @SIY (and me)
Why on earth do you feel the need to burst his bubble?
He is happy with his SET amp, do you have to enlighten him that his amp is crap?
of all the silly Billys!
 

B&WTube

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Thank you for the clarification.



Adjectives such as "faster", "more detailed", "slower" and "muddier" are not quantifiable. The phrase "worse design with lower quality everything" is your opinion. You have every right to your opinion, but it's not a fact until you provide data.
When you have a higher slew rate, your amp will be faster and more detailed (to a certain extent). To get a higher slew rate typically you need higher voltage (VTA has this). It is also good to have some fast caps to store and discharge voltage for dynamic stuff (VTA has caps on VTA board, plus the ‘extra’ initial voltage tube provides a more controlled gain stage, and the quad cap is around double with faster discharge specs). The transformers are not only larger, they are wound with purer and smaller gauge copper (not sure how familiar you are with transformer design).

I say all this, because these aren’t opinions. These are design fundamentals (which I admit there is usually a trade off, at some point in everything audio). I will also admit while I have been studying circuit designs off and on for years - I am still no where near being able to build an original circuit from scratch that challenges anything like benchmark (and that will probably never happen). I do owe my interest in learning design and building to hearing the difference between the ST and VTA, which triggered me to buy the VTA kit and soldering kit- been hooked ever since.

IMO, either something is missing from tests, OR the tubes in the VTA were junk knock off tubes (as others have suggested)… If a designer/builder wants to point out issue(s) that the VTA created that weren’t problems on the original- I am happy to be educated.
 

SIY

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When you have a higher slew rate, your amp will be faster and more detailed (to a certain extent).
That makes no sense whatever. And it gets worse from there.
 

Multicore

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Wow, that's a lot more power than I expected. Not bad.

But I want a knob to dial in the distortion. "Tube rolling" to get the distortion I like is expensive and jolly inconvenient, given that Peter Brötzmann and Shostakovich call for different effects. So for a lot less $$ how about Buckeye Hypex stereo amp and a Source Audio L. A. Lady stereo overdrive, which also offers three styles of overdrive, plus bass and treble knobs, which so many of us miss on so much of the contemporary hi-fi gear.

1661104484162.png
 

Sokel

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Sometimes I feel like people comment the measurements (which is fine and the right way to go,I do measure stuff myself and it's fun) but having never listened to a tube amp they imagine that distortion will come up the speakers and eat them.

It's not like this.I just come from a listening of tube amps.It was fun!Wish I own a pair from time to time.I still have in my ears the strange sensation of David Bowie's Moonage Daydream,with it's strange recording.It was absolute fun,hey,it's music after all!By the way the amps was A.R.
I'm the first to believe that source is to be respected but so what?It's not written in stone.

Sometimes I think that's is not engineering gone wrong but this result is intentional.And if that's their goal is fine by me.
It's not high fidelity by today's standards but it's fun!
 

Sokel

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There's the right attitude! Tubes are FUN! They aren't more accurate, but they're FUN! People who like them enjoy them immensely! No one can take that away from you, and I don't think anyone should try!

The one and only criticism I have of tube gear is not the gear itself, but the purveyors. People who claim tubes are better, or that they have magic qualities, or that you will find it's "worth the price" (because they found that it's "worth the price") do a service to no one.

Jim
The fun is that everytime I go to my friend I first look like the strict professor with the serious look ready to criticize everything (I did by the way,the fan in the back when you have the lid on,but I had to stick my ear to it to hear it) and I end up with a smile I can't hide!
Music is the cure for everything!
 

mmuetst

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Is the ground in this amp also disconnected? If I see this, I think why $4750 per amp :facepalm:. Also why go for so much powertubes? Just use loudspeakers with a decent sensitivity. I fill my room with only SE 300B tube amp and loudspeakers with 92dB sensitivity.
1661106550765.png
 

Gorgonzola

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On another, audiophile forum I pointed ASR's negative reviews to a member there who was considering purchasing a Carver model, the Black Magic 25. This is what he told me ...

"I read these reviews the night after I ordered my amp and I called Carver the next day. They explained that their amps are designed to be run into a speaker load and not a resister load."

Is this bunk or what? Is it true that an amp might perform much better into a "speaker load" than a resistive load? Aren't most speakers resistive loads albeit impedances might vary with frequency?
 

RammisFrammis

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On another, audiophile forum I pointed ASR's negative reviews to a member there who was considering purchasing a Carver model, the Black Magic 25. This is what he told me ...

"I read these reviews the night after I ordered my amp and I called Carver the next day. They explained that their amps are designed to be run into a speaker load and not a resister load."

Is this bunk or what? Is it true that an amp might perform much better into a "speaker load" than a resistive load? Aren't most speakers resistive loads albeit impedances might vary with frequency?
A tube amp is more likely to perform worse into a speaker load than a resistor load. A resistor is easy. A speaker is a messy soup of back EMF and non-flat impedance curves. The relatively high output impedance of tube amps don't like varying loads and would rather loaf a long all day just powering a resistor with this nice constant 8 ohms.

Tube amps always were more appropriate with highest sensitive speakers. In their heyday almost all speakers were like this.

If I didn't use the Klipsch speakers I have now, with their their high sensitivity, my tube amp would not be appropriate. I really think that very powerful tube amps are kind of silly because the type of speaker a very powerful amp would be used with are not the type of speaker that would work best with a tube amp. The Carver falls into this category.
 
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