Meeting Bob Carver Tomorrow!

[amirm]

Excited about this even though it will be a 130 mile round trip:

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Starting in 2017 our meetings will be held at the former Mercer Island location, the Congregational Church at 4545 Island Crest Way. Meeting begins at 1:30PM.

January 14 - Back to our old digs on Mercer Island for a Saturday afternoon event many have been waiting for: Bob Carver will bring his renown ALS (Amazing LoudSpeaker) columns plus subwoofer, a pair of his 350 watt mono-block amplifiers, his preamp and a Mytek Brooklyn dac fed with files from his laptop server. This is the same system that blew them away at the Chicago Audio Society and at the New York audio show. You don't want to miss this event! Show starts at 1:30PM sharp. Seating is limited, on a first come, member preferred basis, so be sure you have paid or will be ready to pay your annual dues for 2017.

 

[RayDunzl]

This one?

http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/290carver/index.html

 

[garylkoh]

That was the original "Amazing" Loudspeaker from the 1980's and 1990's. This is his new "Amazing" loudspeaker:

http://www.bobcarvercorp.com/als

 

[Kal Rubinson]

That was the original "Amazing" Loudspeaker from the 1980's and 1990's. This is his new "Amazing" loudspeaker:

http://www.bobcarvercorp.com/als

When I heard it in NYC this past fall, Carver said it was new and his final statement.

 

[Sal1950]

Excited about this even though it will be a 130 mile round trip:

Kool, never met up with Bob over the many shows etc I attended back in the day. He's been a true innovator in the industry, always bringing something new and controversial to the plate. Besides my Phase Linear 700B amp, I had a model 1000 Autocorrelator-Noise Reduction-Dynamic Range Expander rig the was very successful at curing many of vinyls ills without adding too much bad in return.
And to think we were concerned about the dynamic range compression that was being used on LP's back in the late 1970s LOL

 

[tomelex]

The thing about Bob that I always thought was that he truly loved music and wanted to reproduce it better, he was not an electronics engineer first, but a music lover first, and that drove him to develop some of the coolest stuff, and highly original circuits, he is a thinker, an imaginer, and reasoned extraordinaire in all things audio and many things electrical. I would love to hear his entire set up.

 

[amirm]

Here is my first Carver product circa 1982:

Still sitting my garage some place. 200 watts/channel with an excellent FM tuner.

 

[Sal1950]

I'll never forget the 1985 Carver Challenge and how he send the Golden Ear Stereophile crew spinning in dis-belief.
For you youngsters who may never have read it, take the time and see what you can take away from this lesson.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#tFZbPAyvslrr551m.97

 

[watchnerd]

I'll never forget the 1985 Carver Challenge and how he send the Golden Ear Stereophile crew spinning in dis-belief.
For you youngsters who may never have read it, take the time and see what you can take away from this lesson.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#tFZbPAyvslrr551m.97

The episode always reminds me of Orson Welles making 'Citizen Kane' in defiance of Hearst.

Carver may have scored points with this amplifier challenge.

But did he ultimately kill his business by pissing off the press?

 

[Thomas savage]

I'll never forget the 1985 Carver Challenge and how he send the Golden Ear Stereophile crew spinning in dis-belief.
For you youngsters who may never have read it, take the time and see what you can take away from this lesson.
http://www.stereophile.com/content/carver-challenge#tFZbPAyvslrr551m.97

Reminded me of uri geller and James randi

 

[Blumlein 88]

Here is my first Carver product circa 1982:

Still sitting my garage some place. 200 watts/channel with an excellent FM tuner.

I owned a Carver the Receiver. First electrostats I owned were Acoustat Two's. Ad in the local paper. I show up with my Carver asking if I could try it. Fellow already told me I needed a big amp. He let me listen with his amp. Then told me the Carver would never do. I finally said, "look if this comes close to playing them I will buy them otherwise no deal. I can't afford an amp right now". So I hook it up and it plays them better than his McIntosh SS amp. Sound was a little crisp in the transistory sense, but real power. Fellow sat there and said, "Damn, I mean DAMN! I wouldn't have believed that if someone told me about it".

The FM tuner was a good design too. A college station all the way across town had a 100 watt transmitter. Basically good on campus and maybe a 5 mile circle around it. Played nice Jazz. I called in requests pretty often easy to get thru on the phone. They always asked if you were on or off campus and where. I was like 30 miles away which they never believed. I did have an outdoor yagi, but still the receiver could pull in some stations. I seem to recall channel separation on the tuner was only 15 db which was part of the secret. Looked awful on the spec sheet, but 15 db between channels is enough for full subjective left and right imaging. So it sounded fine.

EDIT to add: I just remembered you don't have the rack mount handles on yours in the pic. Mine had those and I took them off and put in the box immediately. Would have been fine if I had a proper rack, but I was using a coffee table for gear at the time.

 

[Blumlein 88]

The episode always reminds me of Orson Welles making 'Citizen Kane' in defiance of Hearst.

Carver may have scored points with this amplifier challenge.

But did he ultimately kill his business by pissing off the press?

No this had nothing to do with killing his business. It didn't really piss off the press. What it actually did among readers of the Absolute Sound and Stereophile was...............a ...............big.................fat.................nothing. Didn't fit with people's world view and was simply ignored. Audio magazine and Stereo Review regularly reviewed and gave good commentary to Carver's gear and discussed the innovative circuitry. John Gordon Holt et al were revered and trusted like no other reviewers. They were agreeing he fully met the challenge. Yet people just overlooked this. A year later no one much mentioned it or would bother to discuss it. Just too far out for them to accept in their view of things. Just like the Acoustat owner who initially wouldn't even let me hook up the Carver to them. Yet sat stunned at how well it played them.

People forget prior to the Stereophile challenge he did one for the Audio Critic. Made his amp sound identical to the then $7000 Mark Levinson ML2 amps. I guess that mag had less circulation, and wasn't a subjectivist stronghold. Plus the idea of mimicking a SS amps with an SS amp didn't get noticed as much as an SS amp mimicking a top vacuum tube amp of the day.

Similar to when I connected a triode VTL amp to power resistors and fed the result to a Spectral and it sounded just like a triode amp only with more power. People just don't wrap their head around it and don't really believe it happens. I have told numerous people who prefer triodes or even SET amps they could do this and feed the thing to a good SS amp and have all the SET power they need. They don't believe the SS amp has an envelope of performance larger than the SET and the SET can do nothing the SS amp can't amplify with good fidelity. The sound of those vacuum tube units are all a coloration a good amp can reproduce fully.

 

[Thomas savage]

Similar to when I connected a triode VTL amp to power resistors and fed the result to a Spectral and it sounded just like a triode amp only with more power. People just don't wrap their head around it and don't really believe it happens. I have told numerous people who prefer triodes or even SET amps they could do this and feed the thing to a good SS amp and have all the SET power they need. They don't believe the SS amp has an envelope of performance larger than the SET and the SET can do nothing the SS amp can't amplify with good fidelity. The sound of those vacuum tube units are all a coloration a good amp can reproduce fully.

Simpler to just chose a tube pre amp and use that to 'flavour ' your sound then SS amp afterwards.. That's hugely popular in the u.k..

A good SS amp should just amplify the signal it's fed faithfully, I guess folks like additives tried a few tube pres and such but they just aren't 'right' to my ears. Each to their own though

 

[Blumlein 88]

Simpler to just chose a tube pre amp and use that to 'flavour ' your sound then SS amp afterwards.. That's hugely popular in the u.k..

A good SS amp should just amplify the signal it's fed faithfully, I guess folks like additives tried a few tube pres and such but they just aren't 'right' to my ears. Each to their own though

You know I like the sound of good push-pull triodes. I mostly can overlook it and relish what it sounds like. SET's are too colored for me.

Now tube pre's really don't do it. They don't have the same transfer function or basic sound coloration as the xfmr coupled tube amps have. Just because they have tubes in them doesn't make them have the same sound. One could build what would amount to a little 2 wpc 12ax7 based xfmr coupled power amp to use as a pre-amp. I had something like that at one time which was called a headphone amp. That would do the full trick. Tube pre's as usually built aren't nearly so nice as the power amps are in my opinion.

Yes, a good SS amp should amplify the signal faithfully and good ones do just that. So if you like a coloration just feed that to the SS amp and you'll get it.

 

[amirm]

I owned a Carver the Receiver. First electrostats I owned were Acoustat Two's. Ad in the local paper. I show up with my Carver asking if I could try it. Fellow already told me I needed a big amp. He let me listen with his amp. Then told me the Carver would never do. I finally said, "look if this comes close to playing them I will buy them otherwise no deal. I can't afford an amp right now". So I hook it up and it plays them better than his McIntosh SS amp. Sound was a little crisp in the transistory sense, but real power. Fellow sat there and said, "Damn, I mean DAMN! I wouldn't have believed that if someone told me about it".

Funny you should say that as I had a similar experience. A friend had a pair of Maggies, driving them with Bryston amp which I think was 80 or 100 watts. And of course he had paid a ton more than my carver for it. So I took my Carver to his house and hooked them up to the Maggies. For the first time they had decent bass now! The extra power really came in handy. On the other hand though, I thought the highs sounded a tad batter on his Bryston in that sighted test though. Still the Carver did me proud.

 

[watchnerd]

Simpler to just chose a tube pre amp and use that to 'flavour ' your sound then SS amp afterwards.. That's hugely popular in the u.k..

A good SS amp should just amplify the signal it's fed faithfully, I guess folks like additives tried a few tube pres and such but they just aren't 'right' to my ears. Each to their own though

This is what I do: feed SS mono blocks (Class D) with a tube pre.

@Sal1950 accused me of doing something @fas42 would do.

 

[Thomas savage]

This is what I do: feed SS mono blocks (Class D) with a tube pre.

@Sal1950 accused me of doing something @fas42 would do.

He's (sal) from Chicago so...

Iv been to where most of you live, yes you watchnerd and sal and amir .. Frank has it better! Regardless of his supposed imaginings. He lives in the blue mountains that frankly shits on where we live . .. ( possibly not where I'm from but certainly where I now reside)

 

[DonH56]

I met Bob Carver many times in the primordial past (I was a kid and it was long ago). Quite a guy. I had a Phase 700 (original) for a while but it kept blowing output transistors, and the failure mechanism usually put the supply rail on the speaker terminals. Great when it worked but I was happy to get rid of it. A friend's 700B never failed. I hated the Cube and surprised my boss/store owner by walking in while it was playing and asking what the heck was hooked up to &*^^ up the sound. OTOH a friend of mine, owns B&W 803D's now, had and loved his Cube. Heard the Amazing Loudspeaker many times and came close but didn't have the funds (and my IRS 2's and Maggies were doing me well). What I would love to hear now is that big tube amp of his...

 

[Sal1950]

He's (sal) from Chicago so...

Iv been to where most of you live, yes you watchnerd and sal and amir .. Frank has it better! Regardless of his supposed imaginings. He lives in the blue mountains that frankly shits on where we live . .. ( possibly not where I'm from but certainly where I now reside)

Are you kidding, I left Chicago 6 years ago for good. I come out every day to swaying palm trees and warn temps. Pretty much a year round paradise here.

 

[Thomas savage]

Are you kidding, I left Chicago 6 years ago for good. I come out every day to swaying palm trees and warn temps. Pretty much a year round paradise here.

Ya still from the car capital sal, that never leaves you.