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Carver Crimson 275 Review (Tube Amp)

Rate this amplifier

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 379 95.0%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 5 1.3%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 6 1.5%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 9 2.3%

  • Total voters
    399
OP
amirm

amirm

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There is this notion that if someone has not seen anything happen before, all must be well. You all know we have had a flood in our house. In the midst of it all, I asked my wife for a power strip so that I could plug in more pumps in the bathroom. She gives me one, I plug it in, and bam, the outlet shuts off. I unplug the power strip and tilt it on its side and water pours out of it! Here I was standing in a puddle of water and holding a device that was full of conductive water. The GFCI circuit saved me my bacon. Never before had I seen a GFCI do anything useful (than trip when it shouldn't be). But here were were, it protecting me. So the statement from Bob that he has never seen an issue is neither here, nor there. Stuff happens as evidenced by a loose screw in the unit I tested. Surely the has never considered such a scenario.
 

whazzup

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Since Mr Carver has replied, I'd like to suggest adding a link to it in the first post of the review. At least in the nature of objective reviews, we now know for a fact the 15W spec'ed transformer is as intended and not some Carverfest abnormality, and his views on the safety aspects.
 

traderitch

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If that screw wedges itself between the mains hot lead and chassis there is no circuit in the amp that can do anything. Not that there is anything in there to mitigate such a problem.
Thank you for participating.

I am confused by your statement “Not that there is anything in here to mitigate such a problem“
 
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amirm

amirm

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Thank you for participating.

I am confused by your statement “Not that there is anything in here to mitigate such a problem“
There is nothing in any audio gear to protect against risk of shock. That is only mitigated through design practices such as earthing that we are talking about.
 

Cougar

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There is this notion that if someone has not seen anything happen before, all must be well. You all know we have had a flood in our house. In the midst of it all, I asked my wife for a power strip so that I could plug in more pumps in the bathroom. She gives me one, I plug it in, and bam, the outlet shuts off. I unplug the power strip and tilt it on its side and water pours out of it! Here I was standing in a puddle of water and holding a device that was full of conductive water. The GFCI circuit saved me my bacon. Never before had I seen a GFCI do anything useful (than trip when it shouldn't be). But here were were, it protecting me. So the statement from Bob that he has never seen an issue is neither here, nor there. Stuff happens as evidenced by a loose screw in the unit I tested. Surely the has never considered such a scenario.
I can't believe you used something like that from the house that had been flooded without checking it first and standing in water on top of it.
 
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amirm

amirm

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I can't believe you used something like that from the house that had been flooded without checking it first and standing in water on top of it.
I had no reason to 'check it first.' It looked fine/dry from outside. My wife had grabbed one from her room without realizing it had flooded too.
 

MakeMineVinyl

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I had no reason to 'check it first.' It looked fine/dry from outside. My wife had grabbed one from her room without realizing it had flooded too.
Suspicion is warranted. Have you checked whether your wife has taken out a life insurance policy on you without your knowledge? :eek:
 

Blumlein 88

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There is this notion that if someone has not seen anything happen before, all must be well. You all know we have had a flood in our house. In the midst of it all, I asked my wife for a power strip so that I could plug in more pumps in the bathroom. She gives me one, I plug it in, and bam, the outlet shuts off. I unplug the power strip and tilt it on its side and water pours out of it! Here I was standing in a puddle of water and holding a device that was full of conductive water. The GFCI circuit saved me my bacon. Never before had I seen a GFCI do anything useful (than trip when it shouldn't be). But here were were, it protecting me. So the statement from Bob that he has never seen an issue is neither here, nor there. Stuff happens as evidenced by a loose screw in the unit I tested. Surely the has never considered such a scenario.
See this is the kind of user you must have in mind when evaluating the safety of a design. To be kind we could say Amir is a natural born safety tester. ;)

Also why I've been saying use a GFCI with this amp. They don't nuisance trip nearly as often as they used to do that.
 

LTig

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See this is the kind of user you must have in mind when evaluating the safety of a design. To be kind we could say Amir is a natural born safety tester. ;)
There is a reason why those laws, rules and recommendations for safe design exist. They have been forged and fine tuned over many many years to prevent fatal accidents which actually occured. Therefore it's stupid to not follow them. Remember these final words: It cannot happen to me.
 

solderdude

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Yep mains voltage so that could be 330V peak if the mains is 240V as per other countries.

There is also another thing for EU countries. In a lot of EU countries you can put the mains plug in the wall socket 'upside down'.
In the case of this amp the designated 'neutral' becomes 'hot'.
As the neutral is connected (via a high resistance) to the chassis the chassis itself will have 230V on it. That 230V drops to a much lower (safer) value. However, that resistor creates a leakage current which can make the audio system hum as it passes through the RCA to the rest of the system.
Only using the safety ground would be the better option. When B. Carver would fear ground loops he could add a ground lift switch which can connect the audio ground to the chassis or not.

The fact that some manufacturers 'always' did it this way and no-one got hurt (how to know) is putting your head in the sand. There are safety rules. These have not been invented for nothing.
And... are really easy to comply to.
 

DSJR

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No. But my company did have an evaluation unit and I found them to subjectively sound distorted (this is 10 to 12 years ago).
I believe Stereophile have measured these and/or others from that family. Best avoided as the very high output impedance acts as a graphic equaliser into a typical loudspeaker crossover - ugh! The output seems to ring ar 40 odd kHz too on the models I saw tested.

Ahh - dougi beat me to it...
 
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restorer-john

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The GFCI circuit saved me my bacon. Never before had I seen a GFCI do anything useful (than trip when it shouldn't be).

Glad it saved you.

RCDs/GCI/ELCBs are incredible. Situations where they have tripped and you think, WTF is wrong with you?! Until your realize there was a leakage, through a path or appliance. My favorite ones are heating elements- the insulating ceramic clay becomes porous and ovens, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers all leak to ground.
 
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tomtoo

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Never let a german TÜV EE in here.
He would get crazy about that safety discussion in here, and would shut the whole site down. ;)
There is nothing to discuss about a not groundet metall case if its not in another way secured. This is not, so nothing to discuss. Nada, absolutly nothing. I dont know the laws in Ruanda or Asserbeitschan. But in Germany one call to TÜV and this Product would be out of the Market.
 
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restorer-john

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You are absolutely certain that their is nothing in the circuit design that would prevent this from happening?
Seriously, why don't you try it yourself? See what happens and report back here. (if you are still alive). Regale us with your survival...

There's been a bunch of experts here, trying (clearly in absolute vain) to explain what an absolute disaster these products are, both from a techincal and safety perspective. And you want to play silly games? :facepalm:

None of us are stupid enough to buy this unsafe, poorly constructed junk. You clearly were duped. Whatever. Accept it and move on.
 
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mhardy6647

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I had no reason to 'check it first.' It looked fine/dry from outside. My wife had grabbed one from her room without realizing it had flooded too.
We had a power strip some years back that started to smoke after one of our (two, in those days) much-beloved kitty-cats (late in his life) had chosen to whizz on it.
Fortunately we were home and its on-board breaker popped.



Sofa king cat.

We relocated all on-floor power sources for the remainder of said kitty's life... just in case.
 

Larry B. Larabee

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Why does BC insist on saying that the product is safe? If it won't blow the (main) fuse with 120v on the chassis then the current level available under that fault condition would have to be < 10ma to not kill you. How is possible to limit the leakage current on the chassis in this case? I don't get it.
 

jjptkd

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Why does BC insist on saying that the product is safe? If it won't blow the (main) fuse with 120v on the chassis then the current level available under that fault condition would have to be < 10ma to not kill you. How is possible to limit the leakage current on the chassis in this case? I don't get it.
So assuming you buy one of these amplifiers and there is no loose screw from the factory and no shipping damage to the chassis, how exactly is the amplifier going to short out? A wire falling off? How common is that? It sounds like from everything I've read something physical has to happen for there to be a danger, is this correct?
 

tomtoo

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So assuming you buy one of these amplifiers and there is no loose screw from the factory and no shipping damage to the chassis, how exactly is the amplifier going to short out? A wire falling off? How common is that? It sounds like from everything I've read something physical has to happen for there to be a danger, is this correct?

Its not importend how often this happens, it happens. Vibrations, bad soldering...,..,. Thats why there are safety regulations.
There is NOTHING to talk about.
 
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