Carver Crimson 275 Review (Tube Amp)

[voodooless]

My home was built in 1963

The amp was not.

before the codes changed

So you think you could still build the exact same house now?

My house is from 1928, I still have cotton wiring in on place (very hard to reach place)… That doesn’t mean it’s still fine to use now, is it.

 

[DanielT]

Okay, it seems dangerous, so the dustbin for that reason alone, but one thing I wonder about is the 3rd ton harmonic distortion. Surely it's a push pull tube amp? With so little power. Would it not have made more sense in that case, given the low power, to design a Single End class A tube amp and thus reduce (or it gives better opportunities, potential) that type of distortion? If I understand it correctly, that is, how it works with distortion in different amplifier classes and tube amp? 15 W push pull vs well maybe 7-15 W Singel End tube amp. What is best?

Moreover. Have you managed to figure out what it is listening to? See attached picture.

Crimson 275 Stereo | bobcarvercorp.com

www.bobcarvercorp.com

 

[Holmz]

I suppose I could modify the Crimson to have a ground, but I don't know if that will affect performance.

Silver

Really?
Can the performance get any worse?

Wow! What a bad little sucker.

I love germany. I think the most poisenes creature we have are honeybees.

I thought montsano killed most of them?

 

[PeteL]

Really?
Can the performance get any worse?

Sure it can, and it will. This is absolutely not an excuse to put out an unsafe product, that said, being an electrical engineer myself, but not an amp designer, I did in the past played for fun with common tube classic reference designs, and to quite frank I got really tired of messing with grounding scheme, whatever I would do there would be audible hums. Yes OK I will not pretend I had all the necessary experience and knowledge and I still don't have, but I did give up on that and move to other things. Surely there are very competent people here that will rightfully say it can be done, and well, it must be done, no argument here, but anybody that will come and say it's trivial and just bring the ground to chassis and it's done are not those competent ones. If this thing is not grounded, it's for this reason, they couldn't make it work. Again, not an excuse, try harder or don't throw something dangerous out there, but the designer, whoever he is, knows full well why this ground is disconnected.

 

[SIY]

Slightly irrelevant thought: When we moved to Phoenix a few years ago, I put away all my tube gear in boxes in the garage- it's just too damn hot there for such things. Now I'm in the Finger Lakes region, and we just got about 45 cm of snow dumped on us. I've taken the opportunity to see if I can unearth (no pun intended) some of my tube power amps- it's too damn cold for the Class D gear.

And that's the answer to, "Why tubes?"

Unlike these frauds, my gear is safely wired, grounded, and far exceeds the ratings I put on them. If a fraud is worth $2.5k, I ought to sell mine for $5k.

 

[restorer-john]

My house is from 1928, I still have cotton wiring in

Lucky guy, you have a perfect synergy going on there. Cotton-sheathed natural fibre sounding wire. Vintage, aged pure copper for that rich warm tone. All too easy to destroy the air and soundstage with a whole-house rewire.

 

[restorer-john]

Slightly irrelevant thought: When we moved to Phoenix a few years ago, I put away all my tube gear in boxes in the garage- it's just too damn hot there for such things. Now I'm in the Finger Lakes region, and we just got about 45 cm of snow dumped on us. I've taken the opportunity to see if I can unearth (no pun intended) some of my tube power amps- it's too damn cold for the Class D gear.

And that's the answer to, "Why tubes?"

Unlike these frauds, my gear is safely wired, grounded, and far exceeds the ratings I put on them. If a fraud is worth $2.5k, I ought to sell mine for $5k.

I've often said audiophiles need winter and summer amps. Class A/Tube and Class D. I guess Autumn and Spring can be SS Class AB. That's my excuse for having lots of amps and I'm sticking to it.

 

[voodooless]

Lucky guy, you have a perfect synergy going on there. Cotton-sheathed natural fibre sounding wire. Vintage, aged pure copper for that rich warm tone. All to easy to destroy the air and soundstage with a whole-house rewire.

Sadly, it only powers a vintage chandelier with some very modern LED lights in them .. Luckily they are warm white

 

[Walter]

Sadly, it only powers a vintage chandelier with some very modern LED lights in them .. Luckily they are warm white

That's ok. The cotton-sheathed wire makes the sound soft, anyway. It should only be used for audio if your speakers are overly harsh sounding.

 

[Holmz]

Sure it can, and it will. This is absolutely not an excuse to put out an unsafe product, that said, being an electrical engineer myself, but not an amp designer, I did in the past played for fun with common tube classic reference designs, and to quite frank I got really tired of messing with grounding scheme, whatever I would do there would be audible hums. Yes OK I will not pretend I had all the necessary experience and knowledge and I still don't have, but I did give up on that and move to other things. Surely there are very competent people here that will rightfully say it can be done, and well, it must be done, no argument here, but anybody that will come and say it's trivial and just bring the ground to chassis and it's done are not those competent ones. If this thing is not grounded, it's for this reason, they couldn't make it work. Again, not an excuse, try harder or don't throw something dangerous out there, but the designer, whoever he is, knows full well why this ground is disconnected.

I meant in response to @silverbot01 saying that he would he his ground cord up, but was worried that the performance of the amp would regrade.

Degrade to what?

• 10W from 14W?
• or high distortion to even higher distortion?

It was supposed to read as sarcasm, because it seems difficult to make the performance go down… (as the bar is already pretty low.)

But I can see that the hum may have been a problem that started it.

 

[Lupin]

Inside looks like a first revision of a hobby project, still figuring out what should connect to what and where instead of a $2750 retail product.

 

[Jukka]

Glow picture please.

 

[KxDx]

Honestly, it's just an image Australians seem to enjoy perpetuating. You guys have cougars and bears and some really fast things with big teeth.

I'm not really scared of any of our creatures except the Irukandji jellyfish. And they are coming slowly down the coast. We lose a few tourists every now and then up north to those tiny little buggers. You can't see them in the water, they are too small and clear.

The sting has been described as "100 times as potent as that of a cobra and 1,000 times stronger than a tarantula's"

View attachment 179873

Naw man, I draw the line at drop bears.

 

[KxDx]

I figured audiophile-approved speaker cables cost >>> than audiophile-approved interconnects, so it is cheaper to have the amp(s) closer to the speakers.

If only people who spent 4 or 5 figures on speaker cables would look at the wires inside of their amplifiers and speakers....

 

[restorer-john]

Naw man, I draw the line at drop bears.

We have a couple of male Koalas making a helluva noise at night, calling for females in trees outside our bedroom (we have a pole house).

I'll be dropping the trees soon enough if they don't be quiet.

 

[Holmz]

We have a couple of male Koalas making a helluva noise at night, calling for females in trees outside our bedroom (we have a pole house).

I'll be dropping the trees soon enough if they don't be quiet.

So they’re looking for pole dancing koalas?

(We only have Quokas dancing here.)

 

[Canuck57]

We have a couple of male Koalas making a helluva noise at night, calling for females in trees outside our bedroom (we have a pole house).

I'll be dropping the trees soon enough if they don't be quiet.

Wow very cool! I hope you're sunburn healed quickly!

 

[Martin]

My amps are on low stands I built myself between my speakers.

My 17W dual 300b SET amps weigh 46lbs. each.

Martin

 

[traderitch]

Might not be a bad idea to pop the base plate and have a look at the IEC jack.

John,

Thank you for taking the time to produce your post!
Pictures are extremely helpful.

 

[tomtoo]

If only people who spent 4 or 5 figures on speaker cables would look at the wires inside of their amplifiers and speakers....

With many so called Audiophiles its easy.

The less they know the more they have to believe.