Hello ASR Forum! I'm a new poster here, but I have read copious reviews and posts over the last few years here and appreciate what ASR does. [That said, for full disclosure, I also put a ton of weight into how things sound; I don't care if a guitar amp tests that well--I want tone and features. Hifi is a bit similar and a bit different for me]. Getting my personal view out of the way....
I dropped in for a number of reasons.
1. First, I want to thank Amir and Paulbottlehead for their professionalism and courtesy. Paul dropped by my thread on Audiogon and was an absolute gentleman. I tore down the amp to confirm the presence of the Edcor OPT--to which Paul was ever so sweet and thankful. I didn't go further into the PT because I think I threw up in my mouth upon seeing that little guy.
2. I have nearly exclusively used this amp with super efficient loudspeakers (102dB), so before you or I call me an idiot for tweaking the amp (and also questioning its build quality early on, long before Amir's great work), I had no basis to even guess at its power output. If it could really put out 17w into an 8 ohm load, that's probably all that's needed to get my loudspeakers to sing.
3. I vote this amp not even worthy of ASR's voting system. It's despicable what the "Carver Corporation" has done in its marketing. I'm a lawyer by trade so I will say that there is just not enough evidence for me to find Bob culpable--at this juncture, based on what I've seen. I'll explain more below.
4. What the heck is going on with the lack of chassis grounding? I noticed it too and have been thinking about correcting it before Amir's review. That is totally inexcusable--note I'm a DIY hobbyist so keep in mind I'm not an authority on electrical safety, yet I do care about it and discharge caps when I go inside units.
5. Mine unit is clearly better built than Amir/Paul's unit--yet not by much.
6. The wiring to the output terminals makes me sad. Sad. Who would do such a thing? I've owned so much gear that I'm embarrassed to put out a number of units. I haven't seen anything like this since I took apart my JCPenny stereo in 1982. Note--my unit has nice heavy gauge wire running to the output terminals. What gives? This is inexcusable at this priceoint or any price where we are dealing with something that is supposed to be high fidelity.
7. The OPTs. Hmmmmm.... I have bought Edcors, Hammnonds and Lundhals. I had transformer hum (for OPT and PT) and talked with Malitz for a good bit on the phone about it. He said that they moved their sourcing of the transformers to another vendor and were having issues with some of them. Could it be that Bob Carver's original amp had better transformers and Malitz/Carver Corporation cheapened the whole design as an objective of making more money? I think that is a possibility.
8. Testing. It seems nearly indisputable that this thing as sold is not what the Company markets. Could it be that Bob Carver was, as Malitz said, sad and emotional about all the forum threads because Bob had no idea that the Company/Malitz changed the original design?
9. Quality of Parts. My unit does have some nice Dale resistors. The capacitors--especially where they. count in my book--were junk! I posted about that on my teardown last summer or so. The amp sounded great in my room and I thought someone made some poor choices. Even if you are someone who thinks coupling capacitors and the market for them involve snake oil, take a look at the size of the coupling caps made by Suntan in Hong Kong. They are the size of my fingernails! Some of the film caps are moving some serious voltage. I know, I tested them. So I put in some good stuff, which some may think is snake oil. But even a nice Wima or AMtrans would be affordable. Why cheap out for a price point at $3k?
10. Frank Malitz told me that they were building these so fast they didn't want to send one off to a publication for review. Hmmmm... I've heard of this actually happening when a product is first introduced, but we are years into this build. I don't and never believed that.
11. Why are no retailers actually selling this thing anymore? Hmmm... Why is Jim Clark, a dealer, defending the product, but there are circuitous and scant responses from Frank Malitz, Wyred4Sound, and even Bob Carver?
The whole thing is just sad. I have half a mind to go out to Washington with my amp and meet Bob. I wonder if he is aware or not of what these amps look like inside since Jordan put his name on the PCB.
12. Amir/Paul, any chance you can test the caps at C4 and C19 (going off memory as to the actual numbers) and let me know the values? My unit has nothing stuffed into the PCB in those slots. I raised that question when I first opened the unit. Malitz didn't know why and said on the phone he's not up to speed on the actual PCBs being used at that time.
Amir and Paul, thank you again.
-J
PS. I'm going back to throwing up in my mouth again. Sad. Just sad.