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Carver Crimson 275 Measurements

Larry B. Larabee

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Could be. But Bob has no excuse. He knows how to measure, and he knows circuits. He's based his entire audio career on innovation, and offering a certain value for the dollar (with the possible exception of his Silver Seven--but he used that as a transfer function model for his cheaper SS designs). Bob always tried to offer something you couldn't get in the marketplace, for less money than you'd normally expect to pay. With this, you get a lot less than you thought you were getting, for more money than you should be paying. Just the opposite of his history.

That's what makes this thing so unbelievable. It's just not something anyone would expect from him. At least I didn't expect it.
I'm pretty sure I'm dumbfounded.
 

warnerwh

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In the early 90's Audio magazine did a review of the Silver Sevens. I think it was the same issue when they interviewed Bob Carver. He gave most of the credit for the design of the Silver Sevens to David Hafler.
 

JJB70

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This is terribly sad as I'm another one of those who always admired Bob Carver and his Carver challenge stuff. I'd still like to hear his side of the story, but based on what we have been provided with here it's hard to avoid the conclusion he's pretty much blown his reputation with this amplifier.
 

anmpr1

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In the early 90's Audio magazine did a review of the Silver Sevens. I think it was the same issue when they interviewed Bob Carver. He gave most of the credit for the design of the Silver Sevens to David Hafler.
BTW, Bascom King's review of the Silver Seven is in the Feb 1991 issue. All the old issues of Audio, Hi Fi, Stereo Review and some others are available on line.

It would surprise me if Bob claimed that David Hafler influenced the Silver Seven. But, as we can see, Bob is evidently full of surprises. I know that he once told a story of meeting Stu Hegeman (designer of a lot of the Citation gear), and learning from Stu that it is best to avoid the Hafler (and Herb Keroes') ultralinear circuit.

For his part, it would definitely surprise me to learn that David Hafler could have ever been able to relate to the 'excesses' of Bob's Silver Seven. The S7 was about as far removed from Dave's idea of hi-fi as anything I can imagine.
 

anmpr1

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This is terribly sad as I'm another one of those who always admired Bob Carver and his Carver challenge stuff. I'd still like to hear his side of the story, but based on what we have been provided with here it's hard to avoid the conclusion he's pretty much blown his reputation with this amplifier.
Yeah. I'll admit I admired Bob for his long history and contributions. Waking up this Christmas Eve morning was kind of like when I was a kid, after I found out there was no Santa Clause. That it was my parents stuffing the stocking. What a let-down.

There's only one thing left that could possibly console me. That might cheer me up. I really need to have some egg-nog with Miss Hologram. Give and get a big sympathy hug. That could help. I'm sure she's feeling the same way, right about now...
 

mhardy6647

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BTW, Bascom King's review of the Silver Seven is in the Feb 1991 issue. All the old issues of Audio, Hi Fi, Stereo Review and some others are available on line.
Specifically, and just in case there be anyone who cares about such things who doesn't know: Audio, High Fidelity, Stereo Review, many issues of Stereophile and much, much, much more are available from:


The PDF databases are searchable, too -- an incredible resource.
 

tomlang

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Probably nothing will come of this, except perhaps increased sales for Bob. He planned it this way, and he has proved again what the "genius" he is in marketing.

For decades, there has been the huge 'measuring' vs 'ears' debate as to what better characterizes an amp. He's used this as well as his godlike admiration to sell these amps.

The amp Bob sells, while it does have "specifications" listed I doubt many of his fan boys care. Sure it measures bad and is off by a factor of five: 75w vs 15w. But they like the amp because it was built by Bob. End of story.

The audiophiles, especially the ones that respond to hype won't care. To them, it is a tube amp and the looks alone influences the listening experience. Many take specs with a grain of salt anyway and half probably don't trust any objective review.

The folks that think they care about specs will buy it based on that. But if they very likely never bench test it, and even if it sounds a little weird (or not), they will still like it because it has tubes or because they spent so much money on it or because they really think they like the sound.

The rest of the folks, i.e. the technically savvy, the amp was never marketed to them anyway.

Soooo...make a low cost POS amp, put tubes in it, market it as high end and count your money based on your reputation. That's it. I don't think anything much else matters anymore... Maximize the Art (of The Deal), minimize the Science, that's all you need to do.
 

warnerwh

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I agree with your points tomlang. However the dishonesty in performance here is not minor. When the output is only 20% of what's been advertised it is dishonest. Do that with any car and there'll be national news of a large class action suit. I had a lowly Craftsman lawnmower that didn't make claimed power and Sears paid for it with a class action lawsuit. The fraud that goes on in audio is ignored but it is still fraud imo.
 

mhardy6647

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I agree with your points tomlang. However the dishonesty in performance here is not minor. When the output is only 20% of what's been advertised it is dishonest. Do that with any car and there'll be national news of a large class action suit. I had a lowly Craftsman lawnmower that didn't make claimed power and Sears paid for it with a class action lawsuit. The fraud that goes on in audio is ignored but it is still fraud imo.
It's only 7 dB!
:cool:
 

Schollaudio

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The real genius is BOSE take a $10 woofer and 79 cent tweeter and sell a $650.00 in 1980 speaker pair. Of course, make no claims whatsoever.
 

sarumbear

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The real genius is BOSE take a $10 woofer and 79 cent tweeter and sell a $650.00 in 1980 speaker pair. Of course, make no claims whatsoever.
Where do you get those prices?
 

Jim Clark

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I tried posting this information to a different forum, and it caused a HUGE stir and got taken down very quickly, but I think this information is important to put out for public consumption and thankfully I saved a copy before it was removed.

OK, here we go! So a friend of mine brought one of these over just for me to check out casually along with a completely different project he wanted some help on. I would not have really considered even bench testing the amp, but when I picked it up, I nearly smacked myself in the face because I was expecting a lot more weight. I crinkled my brow a bit and got out my equipment to measure his amp, and the results were surprising. The results were unexpected enough that I decided not to publish them without collecting a little more data, so I asked around and managed to borrow a second Crimson 275 and I have a fresh quad of KT-120s from Jim McShane.
View attachment 174163
Let's review the specs from Carver:
View attachment 174164
These are really impressive. 75W at 20Hz and 1% THD is something I've only seen from much larger tube amps (The MFA M-120s I repaired somewhat recently could do that, but they were pushing out 130+ watts!).

Anyway, let's get into the meat of the post. What kind of power do these amps make? I'll measure these all with an 8 ohm dummy load, ARTA as the FFT, and an OWON SDS-7102 scope. These tools have accurately measured a dozen or so vintage Mac amps (which all do slighly better than their specs), as well as some larger amps over 100W.

For the unsigned amp with one channel driven:

Right Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. At around 5.5W, the noise coming out of that poor output transformer is too unsettling to continue the test.
15W at 35Hz 0.99% THD. At this power level, the transformer rattling is just starting to happen.
16.8W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. This output transformer did not exhibit the gnarly noises.
0.03W at 35Hz 0.99% THD. This is usually where I look for close to full power to quantify reasonable power bandwidth. (Note that a bad solder joint I later found and is pictured later contributed to this result and fixing that made the left and right channels almost the same)
15.7W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

For the unsigned amp with both channels driven:

Right Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD.
11.7W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
16.8W at 1Khz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD.
0.04W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
15.7W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

For the unsigned amp with brand new output tubes and the driver tubes from the other amp:

Right Channel
17.1W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
16.8W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

So tubes obviously aren't a problem here, but maybe this amp that doesn't have its face plate, is missing a signature on the cover, and has an output transformer that's prone to rattling just needs repairs and isn't a good sample? Well let's try the other one!

For the signed amp with one channel driven:

Right Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. Unpleasant noises started happening around 9W.
17.4W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
17W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. Unpleasant noises also happening around 9W.
11.7W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
16.8W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

At this point I don't really think I need to try driving both channels on the second amp to see what/if anything improves.

Another question is what things look like if you push past 1% THD, and you can certainly get to 75W with this amp and THD is 2.5% at 1kHz. At 35Hz, this amp makes 37.5W at 55% THD hard clipped.
View attachment 174166
Here's a scope trace at 32W/35Hz, THD here is 27%.
View attachment 174168
Here's a scope shot at 8W/20Hz, THD here is around 22%.

I decided to also check the claim of the amp being flat from 20Hz to 20KHz and at 1W nominal the amp is -1dB at 16.5Hz and 20.2kHz.

Output impedance measured to 2.7 Ohms, not 1.7 Ohms.

At this point I was DYING to pull the covers off the iron on this thing, and so I did!
View attachment 174169
View attachment 174170
Seeing this is a little relieving in terms of what I've measured, as my numbers and Edcor's numbers agree pretty well. In the first picture of the center OT, one of the white wires was loose and this was causing measurement problems in one channel. Upon resoldering them I found the channels were pretty well matched.

View attachment 174171
I pulled the PT cover off too, and for the ~8A of heater current required for a 6.3V winding, 5.5A seems to be pushing things. Similarly, the power supply is a full wave doubler with around 110mA of DC current drawn between the output tubes and the driver stage. With 330uF doubler caps, estimated draw from the HV winding is 440mA AC. More current means more heat, and this is under a transformer shroud.

I have these loaners for a few more days, so if there are other measurements anyone is curious about, I'm happy to take them. I probably should evaluate output at 4 ohms, since the specifications also claim 75WPC is available in that configuration as well.
 

Jim Clark

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I tried posting this information to a different forum, and it caused a HUGE stir and got taken down very quickly, but I think this information is important to put out for public consumption and thankfully I saved a copy before it was removed.

OK, here we go! So a friend of mine brought one of these over just for me to check out casually along with a completely different project he wanted some help on. I would not have really considered even bench testing the amp, but when I picked it up, I nearly smacked myself in the face because I was expecting a lot more weight. I crinkled my brow a bit and got out my equipment to measure his amp, and the results were surprising. The results were unexpected enough that I decided not to publish them without collecting a little more data, so I asked around and managed to borrow a second Crimson 275 and I have a fresh quad of KT-120s from Jim McShane.
View attachment 174163
Let's review the specs from Carver:
View attachment 174164
These are really impressive. 75W at 20Hz and 1% THD is something I've only seen from much larger tube amps (The MFA M-120s I repaired somewhat recently could do that, but they were pushing out 130+ watts!).

Anyway, let's get into the meat of the post. What kind of power do these amps make? I'll measure these all with an 8 ohm dummy load, ARTA as the FFT, and an OWON SDS-7102 scope. These tools have accurately measured a dozen or so vintage Mac amps (which all do slighly better than their specs), as well as some larger amps over 100W.

For the unsigned amp with one channel driven:

Right Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. At around 5.5W, the noise coming out of that poor output transformer is too unsettling to continue the test.
15W at 35Hz 0.99% THD. At this power level, the transformer rattling is just starting to happen.
16.8W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. This output transformer did not exhibit the gnarly noises.
0.03W at 35Hz 0.99% THD. This is usually where I look for close to full power to quantify reasonable power bandwidth. (Note that a bad solder joint I later found and is pictured later contributed to this result and fixing that made the left and right channels almost the same)
15.7W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

For the unsigned amp with both channels driven:

Right Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD.
11.7W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
16.8W at 1Khz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD.
0.04W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
15.7W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

For the unsigned amp with brand new output tubes and the driver tubes from the other amp:

Right Channel
17.1W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
16.8W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

So tubes obviously aren't a problem here, but maybe this amp that doesn't have its face plate, is missing a signature on the cover, and has an output transformer that's prone to rattling just needs repairs and isn't a good sample? Well let's try the other one!

For the signed amp with one channel driven:

Right Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. Unpleasant noises started happening around 9W.
17.4W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
17W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

Left Channel
0W at 20Hz 0.99% THD. Unpleasant noises also happening around 9W.
11.7W at 35Hz 0.99% THD.
16.8W at 1kHz 0.99% THD.

At this point I don't really think I need to try driving both channels on the second amp to see what/if anything improves.

Another question is what things look like if you push past 1% THD, and you can certainly get to 75W with this amp and THD is 2.5% at 1kHz. At 35Hz, this amp makes 37.5W at 55% THD hard clipped.
View attachment 174166
Here's a scope trace at 32W/35Hz, THD here is 27%.
View attachment 174168
Here's a scope shot at 8W/20Hz, THD here is around 22%.

I decided to also check the claim of the amp being flat from 20Hz to 20KHz and at 1W nominal the amp is -1dB at 16.5Hz and 20.2kHz.

Output impedance measured to 2.7 Ohms, not 1.7 Ohms.

At this point I was DYING to pull the covers off the iron on this thing, and so I did!
View attachment 174169
View attachment 174170
Seeing this is a little relieving in terms of what I've measured, as my numbers and Edcor's numbers agree pretty well. In the first picture of the center OT, one of the white wires was loose and this was causing measurement problems in one channel. Upon resoldering them I found the channels were pretty well matched.

View attachment 174171
I pulled the PT cover off too, and for the ~8A of heater current required for a 6.3V winding, 5.5A seems to be pushing things. Similarly, the power supply is a full wave doubler with around 110mA of DC current drawn between the output tubes and the driver stage. With 330uF doubler caps, estimated draw from the HV winding is 440mA AC. More current means more heat, and this is under a transformer shroud.

I have these loaners for a few more days, so if there are other measurements anyone is curious about, I'm happy to take them. I probably should evaluate output at 4 ohms, since the specifications also claim 75WPC is available in that configuration as well.
Hello,
My name is Jim Clark. I'm a Bob Carver dealer. These amplifiers in the photo look terrible. The trim plate is missing on one and the signed amp has the trim plate in the wrong location . Obviously one was damaged. It took quite an impact to bend the tranny mount on all 4 corners. The amp with the signature appears to have the 2- 12AT7 and the 12AX7 not positioned in a straight line. I would be curious to know what dealer these units were purchased from. I suspect these are Carverfest project amps. That is how the one unit was signed by Bob most likely.

Each year Bob Carver fans from around the country gather for a 2 week long event. Its similar to the Burning amp festival that Nelson Pass fans have. A few years ago before the production 275 was released about 70-80 Carverfest amp kits were built by attendees. Guys put the trim plates wherever they chose, and trim plates were in short supply at the event. Some had no trim plates. Many attendees amplifiers left before being finished. Some guys bought more than one kit. Many would not make the 75 w rated power as wired with the kit schematic. Guys bring truckloads of gear and test equipment to these events. Its not like Bob to try and sell a 15w amp as 75w. I had seen an early prototype model tested on a HP8903b that was making 60 watts. There was a transformer change after that to bump up the production version. The amp I seen making 60 watts, still had the small 15 w Edcor output transformers. Often I use a production 275 to drive older Magnepan MGIIIAs with no problems. Some 250 w solid state amps have issues with those speakers.

I'm not a electronics designer but Bob has a Physics PhD. I can't explain the smaller output transformers making 60w let alone 75w but I've seen them make 60w and don't doubt the production units make 75w.
A factory tech told me they can make 90w with one channel driven at 1% THD.. I have sold many dozens of these. Customers rave about them. They don't limit speaker choices like many tube amps. I offer a satisfaction guarantee with no restocking fee on returns. I encourage people to have a Carver amp shootout in their home, against whatever they own or have on trial. Its almost unheard of to get a return. Most get protective and tell me "you can't have it back!" No way amps would leave the factory looking like those. As a dealer, I've never seen any that looked substandard like those do. I'm almost positive these are not factory built units. Very sad that Mr Bottlehead joined your site 2 days ago for such a deceptive purpose. Its no wonder he gets removed from sites.
Thanks,
Jim
 
Last edited:

Jim Clark

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Probably nothing will come of this, except perhaps increased sales for Bob. He planned it this way, and he has proved again what the "genius" he is in marketing.

For decades, there has been the huge 'measuring' vs 'ears' debate as to what better characterizes an amp. He's used this as well as his godlike admiration to sell these amps.

The amp Bob sells, while it does have "specifications" listed I doubt many of his fan boys care. Sure it measures bad and is off by a factor of five: 75w vs 15w. But they like the amp because it was built by Bob. End of story.

The audiophiles, especially the ones that respond to hype won't care. To them, it is a tube amp and the looks alone influences the listening experience. Many take specs with a grain of salt anyway and half probably don't trust any objective review.

The folks that think they care about specs will buy it based on that. But if they very likely never bench test it, and even if it sounds a little weird (or not), they will still like it because it has tubes or because they spent so much money on it or because they really think they like the sound.

The rest of the folks, i.e. the technically savvy, the amp was never marketed to them anyway.

Soooo...make a low cost POS amp, put tubes in it, market it as high end and count your money based on your reputation. That's it. I don't think anything much else matters anymore... Maximize the Art (of The Deal), minimize the Science, that's all you need to do.
Hello,
My name is Jim Clark. I'm a Bob Carver dealer. These amplifiers in the photo look terrible. The trim plate is missing on one and the signed amp has the trim plate in the wrong location . Obviously one was damaged. It took quite an impact to bend the tranny mount on all 4 corners. The amp with the signature appears to have the 2- 12AT7 and the 12AX7 not positioned in a straight line. I would be curious to know what dealer these units were purchased from. I suspect these are Carverfest project amps. That is how the one unit was signed by Bob most likely.
Each year Bob Carver fans from around the country gather for a 2 week long event. Its similar to the Burning amp festival that Nelson Pass fans have. A few years ago before the production 275 was released about 70-80 Carverfest amp kits were built by attendees. Guys put the trim plates wherever they chose, and trim plates were in short supply at the event. Some had no trim plates. Many attendees amplifiers left before being finished. Some guys bought more than one kit. Many would not make the 75 w rated power as wired with the kit schematic. Guys bring truckloads of gear and test equipment to these events. Its not like Bob to try and sell a 15w amp as 75w. I had seen an early prototype model tested on a HP8903b that was making 60 watts. There was a transformer change after that to bump up the production version. The amp I seen making 60 watts, still had the small 15 w Edcor output transformers. Often I use a production 275 to drive older Magnepan MGIIIAs with no problems. Some 250 w solid state amps have issues with those speakers. I'm not a electronics designer but Bob has a Physics PhD. I can't explain the smaller output transformers making 60w let alone 75w but I've seen them make 60w and don't doubt the production units make 75w.
A factory tech told me they can make 90w with one channel driven at 1% THD.. I have sold many dozens of these. Customers rave about them. They don't limit speaker choices like many tube amps. I offer a satisfaction guarantee with no restocking fee on returns. I encourage people to have a Carver amp shootout in their home, against whatever they own or have on trial. Its almost unheard of to get a return. Most get protective and tell me "you can't have it back!" No way amps would leave the factory looking like those. As a dealer, I've never seen any that looked substandard like those do. Thanks,
Jim
 

mhardy6647

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Hello,
My name is Jim Clark. I'm a Bob Carver dealer. These amplifiers in the photo look terrible. The trim plate is missing on one and the signed amp has the trim plate in the wrong location . Obviously one was damaged. It took quite an impact to bend the tranny mount on all 4 corners. The amp with the signature appears to have the 2- 12AT7 and the 12AX7 not positioned in a straight line. I would be curious to know what dealer these units were purchased from. I suspect these are Carverfest project amps. That is how the one unit was signed by Bob most likely.
Each year Bob Carver fans from around the country gather for a 2 week long event. Its similar to the Burning amp festival that Nelson Pass fans have. A few years ago before the production 275 was released about 70-80 Carverfest amp kits were built by attendees. Guys put the trim plates wherever they chose, and trim plates were in short supply at the event. Some had no trim plates. Many attendees amplifiers left before being finished. Some guys bought more than one kit. Many would not make the 75 w rated power as wired with the kit schematic. Guys bring truckloads of gear and test equipment to these events. Its not like Bob to try and sell a 15w amp as 75w. I had seen an early prototype model tested on a HP8903b that was making 60 watts. There was a transformer change after that to bump up the production version. The amp I seen making 60 watts, still had the small 15 w Edcor output transformers. Often I use a production 275 to drive older Magnepan MGIIIAs with no problems. Some 250 w solid state amps have issues with those speakers. I'm not a electronics designer but Bob has a Physics PhD. I can't explain the smaller output transformers making 60w let alone 75w but I've seen them make 60w and don't doubt the production units make 75w.
A factory tech told me they can make 90w with one channel driven at 1% THD.. I have sold many dozens of these. Customers rave about them. They don't limit speaker choices like many tube amps. I offer a satisfaction guarantee with no restocking fee on returns. I encourage people to have a Carver amp shootout in their home, against whatever they own or have on trial. Its almost unheard of to get a return. Most get protective and tell me "you can't have it back!" No way amps would leave the factory looking like those. As a dealer, I've never seen any that looked substandard like those do. Thanks,
Jim
Interesting!

I think it would be fantastic if you, as a Carver dealer, reached out to him/them and encouraged them to send a typical (i.e., representative, not cherry-picked) production 275 to @amirm to test. Heck, it could probably be delivered, or picked up, without even involving shipping!
 
OP
paulbottlehead

paulbottlehead

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No way amps would leave the factory looking like those. As a dealer, I've never seen any that looked substandard like those do. Thanks,
Jim
As I showed in my measurements, you can get far in excess of 60W out of these at 1kHz and higher THD. The signed amp has a socket saver in the center tube socket position for some reason or another, I'm happy to remove it and repeat all of the measurements if you believe that will make a difference. The amp with the face plate in a higher position appears to be there because it's signed by Bob on the front (as well as on one of the transformer covers). I would describe the cosmetic condition of this amplifier as near mint, though I will admit the other amplifier isn't in perfect cosmetic condition, which is part of why I went through the trouble of obtaining a second unit. After all, if the nicer one had measured perfectly, that would have indicated that repairs were necessary on the rougher one.
1640410567970.jpg

Here's the inside of the nicer amp. Underneath the board it is signed "2018 Bob Carver". You can see this by the meter.

Are there any indicators of a production unit vs. a Carverfest project? The insides of this amplifier look identical to all others that I could find photos of online.

I am very grateful to have a Carver dealer confirm that the 15W Edcor transformers are OE parts.
 

retro

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I probably should evaluate output at 4 ohms, since the specifications also claim 75WPC is available in that configuration as well.

Yes, please do!
 

Blumlein 88

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Not so much this amp, but look at the Silver Seven. Bob made Phase Linear amps that met spec. He made Carver amps that met spec. Pre, and tuners all met spec when I've seen them tested by Audio or High Fidelity. I had a Carver Receiver (those made spec too) when I purchased my first electrostats. Acoustat Two's and those are not an easy load. The guy selling it asked what I had, and laughed saying a receiver won't do. So I took it with me to try it out first. It played the heck out of them to his surprise. I would say it was a little bright sounding, but it did the job until I could get better amps.

When Carver did the challenge with Stereophile they picked their most revered amp, some big $5k Conrad Johnson tube amps. That would be about $14k in today's dollars. He had to add output impedance, tweak response at frequency extremes, and then the final thing to make the Stereophile people agree his amps sounded the same, he had to adjust the power supply so the amp had decreasing power below 100 hz. Then everyone was happy it really matched. This was his what $400 amp? Even then his amp was considered cheap junk and people continued to revere C-J's and similar amps. He ended up soon after making his Silver Seven's to be the even better amp than the C-J. It use tubes, and lots of them with a C-J like sound. It met it rated output of 375 watts. And cost $17,500 back then.

You want to know what happened to Bob Carver? He went from being an engineer to being a SMART engineer.
1640428674344.png


He also made a SS Silver Seven-T for $1700 which was said to duplicate the sound of his Silver Sevens and it had 575 watts (which it actually exceeded when tested).

So for those who were sheep for the shearing he made the $17,500 amps. For others who might want to know what those big tube amps sounded like he made the very muscular sound-clone Silver Seven T for $1700. Sort of a have your cake and eat it too situation for Bob Carver.

Why swim upstream when you have shown people the light about such amps and they don't want to hear it, when you can just as easily turn around and profit from feeding their fantasies?
 
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