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Carver M-1.5t Review (Vintage Amp)

Rate this amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 102 48.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 83 39.7%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 13 6.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 11 5.3%

  • Total voters
    209

EJ3

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Thank you Amirm so much!: For including vintage gear in your reviews. It allows some of us who have some of this gear (or a lot of this gear) to see if our choices were good (perhaps even good enough). It helps (at least some of us) decide: SHOULD we refurbish what we have, or step up to a different unit or even a modern unit when we are adding more modern sources to our gear. I have added Bluetooth capability (APT-X), a DAC (via my oppo 205 UDP) and the ability for my TV audio to go through my 2.2 stereo, due to finding out that my main system gear is "good nuf" (for me, anyway). Otherwise, I would have been starting from scratch again & wasting resources (in more than one way). The financial resources I have been able to put toward buying and renovating a home instead of stereo gear (making my wife happy that she has a new gas cooktop).
She is unaware that the new kitchen came from money that I had formerly allocated to stereo gear.
 

capslock

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The problem is IMHO, should such devices be "panthered" in absolute terms, or relative to their age - this one is 42? years old. In its "market" time, ist was probably on par with most of the competition?

Just look at schematics from Kenwood, Onkyo, Sanyo, JVC, etc. from back then. Also, Ring Emitter Transistors achieved bandwidths that are no longer speified in today's top transistors. I recently bought a few vintage amps specifically to see if those transistors were that good and if modern transistors are maybe better than spec or as bad as their data sheets say they are. I will certainly measure the odd amp, but most need work on caps and switches before that.
 

JayGilb

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Right when Japenese companies, many of them gone or taken over now, were competing for lowest distortion and far outdid what passes for a decent stereo amp or AVR today. Small wonder engineers with Japanese semiconductor companies were worried that their products were not being used properly in the hands of Western engineers. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if this one was full of American made TO-3 dinos.

Absence of power switch is telling, too. What is the idle power consumption of this beast? Freedom is the freedom to waste. Yeah!
I believe the M1.5t used Toshiba TO-3PL BJT transistors. Other models used TO-3, mostly Japanese made.
 

restorer-john

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Just look at schematics from Kenwood, Onkyo, Sanyo, JVC, etc. from back then. Also, Ring Emitter Transistors achieved bandwidths that are no longer speified in today's top transistors. I recently bought a few vintage amps specifically to see if those transistors were that good and if modern transistors are maybe better than spec or as bad as their data sheets say they are. I will certainly measure the odd amp, but most need work on caps and switches before that.

Get hold of a pair of Kenwood LO-7M/mk2s or a Pioneer SA-9800 integrated. RETs/diffused emitter/LAPTs in another guise (Sanken and later Toshiba). The Fujitsu RETs were amazing when it came to high frequency, high power linearity when implemented well.
 

restorer-john

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Wonder how much deterioration due to age affected the measurements?

Mostly, that is in the imagination. I have plenty of absolutely stock standard 40+ year old amplifiers that not only meet their specs, but exceed them.
 

perdido34

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The m1.5t was used in a 1982 "challenge" in Audio Critic. Carver claimed he could adjust the transfer function to match a pair of very expensive Mark Levinson amps, and the publisher agreed that he had accomplished this. To the satisfaction of some Stereophile writers, Carver succeeded at matching another of his amps to a top of the line Conrad-Johnson amp: https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge. Carver then marketed the result as the m1.0t. Neither of these "challenges" included any measurements.

I bought a Carver m1.0t amp new in the late 1980s and used it (for a while) with the original Carver "Amazing" loudspeakers. Just before Carver went out of business, I sent it back to the factory for repairs, where they recapped it and brought it up to factory specs. I used it until recently (with other speakers) until it started to hum; it's been replaced by a Parasound 2125 v2 amp, which is much better. The Carver speakers were sold long ago to a happy buyer who carted them home in the back of his pickup during a snowstorm.
 

Gorgonzola

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I was a live and well in the '80s, (maybe more so than today). In the day I never gave any serious though to a Caver amp; I was always suspicious of them you might say.

OTOH, through the '80s and '90s I was running a Phase Linear 400 amp, a very well-measuring amp for the day. At the time I was very confident that I had a amp that was as good as any. It took me 20 year to understand that the PL 400 was a truly hideous sounding amp. I'd had the PS capacitors replace at one point but that help. It was amps like the 'Phase' that gave solid state a bad rep for many audiophiles. :( Not only were the highs shrill & glassy but detail and transparency were totally lacking; "opaque" would be an appropriate adjective.

blog-PHASE%2BLINEAR%2B400-5.jpg
 

Walter

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The problem is IMHO, should such devices be "panthered" in absolute terms, or relative to their age - this one is 42? years old. In its "market" time, ist was probably on par with most of the competition?
My thoughts, also. I gave it headless for failing to even come close to its stated power output and for distortion that even $200 receivers of that time could beat, with the assumption that if the caps have been replaced, it probably has not degraded substantially from new performance. I was a bit hesitant only because I'm not certain that assumption is valid.
 

PierreV

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"In an era where house curves ruled supreme, one guy realized golden-eared reviewers were over-estimating their abilities and staged a marketing coup."

That's my summary of the Carver challenge. And that is not meant to be disrespectful about Carver's abilities as it certainly required a lot of skill to do the matching.
 

Walter

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The m1.5t was used in a 1982 "challenge" in Audio Critic. Carver claimed he could adjust the transfer function to match a pair of very expensive Mark Levinson amps, and the publisher agreed that he had accomplished this. To the satisfaction of some Stereophile writers, Carver succeeded at matching another of his amps to a top of the line Conrad-Johnson amp: https://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge. Carver then marketed the result as the m1.0t. Neither of these "challenges" included any measurements.
The m1.0 was used in the challenge, not the m1.5t, and the competitor was a Conrad Johnson, not a Mark Levinson, but you have raised a good point. Were the "t" series amps intentionally designed to have distortion levels that matched the Conrad Johnson? If so, that sheds a new light on this amp's performance, although not the lower than specified power. The CJs I heard were not good sounding amps, in my opinion.
 

CDMC

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They worked and lasted a long time. Would love to see someone send in the competition: Adcom GFA-555, Proton D1200, and a Hafler DH-500. A 1980s high power shootout.
 

Steve Dallas

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My father had this amp when I was a teenager. We both thought it must be the pinnacle of high fidelity at the time. Then we heard my best friend's father's Yamaha. Minds blown. Much sadness was had afterwards.
 

perdido34

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I was a live and well in the '80s, (maybe more so than today). In the day I never gave any serious though to a Caver amp; I was always suspicious of them you might say.

OTOH, through the '80s and '90s I was running a Phase Linear 400 amp, a very well-measuring amp for the day. At the time I was very confident that I had a amp that was as good as any. It took me 20 year to understand that the PL 400 was a truly hideous sounding amp. I'd had the PS capacitors replace at one point but that help. It was amps like the 'Phase' that gave solid state a bad rep for many audiophiles. :( Not only were the highs shrill & glassy but detail and transparency were totally lacking; "opaque" would be an appropriate adjective.

blog-PHASE%2BLINEAR%2B400-5.jpg
Bob Carver was one of the designers on the PL400, by the way.
 
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