Carver Power Amps

The Carver is also a limited bandwidth amplifer too if Im correct. I doubt it could put out real world reactive loads of sustained wattage of even a quarter of its rated power.

One flaw Ive found is their output wattage rating. They rate their output using the lame IHF dynamic power rating. Basically their telling you what it can output with a 1khz test tone for a millisecond. 380 watts at the IHF rating could very well mean that its true RMS value be at least 3-6db(1/2-3/4 less output power)or even more below its listed spec. My guess is that the amp is realistically capable of putting out about 50-100 watts of true full bandwidth power at best. And looking over its power supply and output components on some online white papers looks to confirm this. Never been a fan of ANY "Bob Carver" product myself though. I dunno, I cant do a product you see in a Cambridge Soundworks retail store that you know has a 60-65 point markup.

Paulwp: I dont think anyone here was trashing it to begin with. But the ORIGINAL THREAD STARTER asked a question about why the amp sounded weak and thin. Myself and a few others who have actual experience with Carver amps gave honest opinions. Or in this case I should say honest facts. First off, its not a true 380 watts per channel amp. Its more like a true 100 watt per channel amp. Lacking bass? Could be depending on the reactive load. If Carver is going to exaggerate its true RMS output, whose to say he isnt going to exxagerate of performance aspects as well?? Then you get a guy who comes onto the thread up in arms about how great the Carver product is, but at the same time that same poster has more money invested in EQ's and sound shaping equipment than proabaly the rest of the BB combined. I dunno bout that.........

Danvetc: "typical audiophile bullshit".

Typical audiophile bullshit is in fact a company like Carver. They are almost soley responsible for leading the pack on false advertising,super point markup and "power ratings". When I used to work for Lechmere back in the late 80's we had alot of Carver products for display and sale. We used to get bonus spiffs everytime we were able to sell a Carver product to the tune of an extra 15% on an items retail tag(if we sold a $1000 Carver amp we got an extra $150 in our paycheck). We even had a rep. come in who distributed Bob Carver products to help us sell the stuff. He was doing a demonstration on some of their amplification and pre amp products and told one of the employees to get a Similiary priced Sony(Sony recievers were big into "effects" and "surround modes" at the time, probably still the same way) receiver to show the difference in clean power output between the 2 products. The salesman wouldnt use an Onkyo product though when one of the older salesman offered him to use that. We later found out why when the Rep. left. A small basic no frills Onkyo reciever rated at around 60 watts per channel was able to drive a pair of 4 ohm speakers with a much fuller sound and with much better output than a Carver product that was 4 times the price with an advertisement of 10 times the output power into the same impedance. That Philosophy still holds true today folks. Something I dont buy into. And people here know that I have no problems with amplifiers with "lower price tags" over alot of the Mega Buck Levinson or Rowland equipment. Im the first to admit that pricetag doesnt mean jack and that great sounding amplifiers can be had more minimal money, but Carver isnt one of them. Least not with the Audiophile speakers I have alot of familiarity with. Fast forward 10 years to when I worked with the Tweeter Home Entertainment Group. Our store was the first to get a pair of Sonus Faber Amati Homage speakers in the country. We had just sold off our last floor demo Adcom product, and a B&K amp we had had some serious noise in one of its channels(Typical for B&K)and needed to be sent out. So the Store Manager actually pulled down a Carver amplifier that was up in the luch room to temporarily power it for the evening until we could get a transfer in from another store. The amplifier was rated for around 4-500 watts into 4 ohms. Once hooked up to the speakers, we were more than dissapointed. The amp could barely drive the Amati's to normal room volumes. And it did it with an "out of phase thin sound". Very poor to say the least. I always question a product though when on the back of the unit it states maximum power consumption of about 3-400 watts, then has power ratings of at least twice that per channel in the manual. If something consumes only a few hundred watts of power going into the amp, how does it produce more than twice or 3 times that amount coming out of the amp?? Gotta love Carver......... If Im going to get into Proaudio gear, Ill stick with companies like Ampeg, or Line6. If Im going to stay in hifi audio, Ill keep to my guns and stay away from Bob Carver products.

Put up a similiar priced and "rated" Rotel RB-1090 against ANY current Carver product with similiar designations, I know which I would choose....

I dont think its a matter of power amplifiers having a problem with low frequency reproduction, its a matter of low impedance fluctuations with lf drivers that are relatively inneficient compared to their hf counterparts. Most full range speakers have impedance dips in the lower octaves combined with low sensitivity which alot of times with an anemic amplifier will sound washed out or blurry,and/or less defined than amplifers that can truely control a hard load. Most hf drivers have very high sensitivity abilities combined with easy to drive reactive loads of a higher impedance. I dunno, I would question any amp that has a smaller power supply than my current CD player. LOL!

Danvetc: Its kind of hard for you to state if you got good lf extension or not since your using a pair of monitors with a seperate powerd sub wouldnt you say?Let alone the band-aid control RDP-1 I see you've got listed(why didnt you just invest the money spent on one of those for better monitors,amp and room treatments?Lot of money that could have been put to better sonic gains in your system if you ask me). Even so those speakers are easy loads to drive. You could get a radioshack amp to sound good with them Im sure in reality.

Paul, a Radioshack SPL meter is a really crude tool at best and is nowhere near a flat reading response. It requires a few mods just to get it to within +/- 3db which is still in my opinion very crude at best.

But to the subject, from many sources from what Ive dug up research on, the 760 cannot physcially output 380 watts continuously full spectrum, 175wpc isnt barely half that, and I bet those are peak measurements at best. THe fact that Charlie "measured" 175wpc on a pair of limited bandwidth monitors means absolutely nothing(plus I would like to know how he actually did measure the output to begin with)at all. Those monitors never drop below 6-7 ohms from my research. Regardless 175wpc is a far cry from 380 or 600wrms for that matter as the claims are. But again IHF ratings are 100% useless and that amp cant put out that type of wattage at any impedance full bandwidth. It doesnt even draw half that power.

As for my comment on the soundshaping equipment, you obviously didnt read my sentence. It all could have been done with diy home treatments.WHy spend $5k(or whatever)on putting more circuits in the signal path to color sound that you cant get right with the current equipment used? Backwards thinking from this perspective. With room treatments I am able to get a natural spectral curve without any type of tonal control, and I dont have any dips or valleys in my speakers spectral output.

Errivera: Wasnt actually ever reffering to you. My posts were towards Paulwp and Danvetc. Just a heads up.

Dalton: SO you went with the Parasound eh? Was I dead nuts on describing it accurately sonically and physically? Enjoy it, and make sure it stays on 24/7 for thermal stability. Shoot me an email if you want details on how to internally upgrade it to JC-1 sound quality potential. Take off the top plate when you get a chance too. Lots of quality parts and craftsmanship under the hood of that beast.

Paulwp: Actually, your the one not listening. That amplifier has already been tested. And it didnt put out anywhere near its rated output of 380 wpc. Here is how Carver them selves rates the amp: "Two channel power amplifier; THX Certified; 380 watts rms/ch into 8 Ohms, both channels driven, 20 Hz - 20 kHz; 600 watts rms/ch into 4 Ohms; 1,150 watts/ch into 2 Ohms - IHF dynamic power" Now gentleman look at the last 3 words, "IHF dynamic power" . IHF Dynamic power basically means that an amp can for a split instant hit dynamic peaks of X amount of wattage. It could mean anything too, whether it be a 1khz test tone(which is how Carver rates their amplifiers)or a full spectrum burst(pink noise from 20hz to 20khz)or just a basic random musical passage.

Also taken from Danvetc little review he posts in his system thread was taken this: "Using pink noise, an oscilloscope, and digital voltmeter, we measured 22.59 Volts and 3.79 Amperes just below clipping, left channel driven into one Carver Platinum. Keep in mind that this real world test takes into account the back EMF that is produced by the speakers. Back EMF counteracts the power delivered by the amplifier. The measurement corresponded with a readout of 180 watts on the A-760x analog meter. Wow. Even in the test review they only get half of the rated output, and we dont even know the impedance! It could be at 8,6, or 4 ohms for all we know, but regardless 180 watts per channel is ALOT less than what they rate. If you look up above even closer youll see that they only test one channel! The test should have been done with both channels driven, and on this amplifier, both channels driven would probably have meant another 2-3 db less of clean output. So my estimate from the parts used, size of the ps,capacitance and the review even conclude that the amp is realistically putting out about 100 watts of true rms power. 180 watts if one channel is driven is what the reviewer got. Im about as close to dead nuts as your going to get from a quick estimate/guestimate.

BTW Im not a big fan of TAS or Stereophile, alot of their own testing methods are flawed at best, especially "The Aboslute Sound". At least Stereophile gives a true rundown with complete analysis of the products they test and post it using proper equipment. Not just a but of hyped opinion, but still regardless its not what I base my decisions on.

Now telling me that room treatments can naturally contour the curve of the sound is just ludicrous!

There are 3 types of sound treatments.

A. The kind that absord (soft wall panels)
B. The kind that diffuse (room lenses so to speak)
C. The kind that reflect (Sonus tubes)

Just by strategically placing all of the above 3 in different combos you can absorb,diffuse and reflect sound reflections from the walls ceiling and floor. You can actually gain or lose up to 12db of different frequencies by the type of material used. Telling me that contouring the reflections naturally in the room is impossible tells me how much you really know about "hifi".

Do this simple test. Go up to a bare wall and shout over and over again "I am a silly boy". Now put up on that wall a thick blanket. DO it over and over again. Notice a difference?? I bet your voice sounds muffled talking direct into the blanket. You've effectively blocked out about 6db worth of frequencies ranging from about 400hz and up. Just a simple example of how room treatments are extremely important. Go to the Sydney Opera house in Austrailia on your next vacation. Check it out, come back and tell me what you learned.

As for the RS meter. Its physically impossible to get an RS meter with the current mic to be +/- 1db with an analogue guage. With the mods you can get it to within +/- 3db at best. Still a potential for a 6db swing. Step up to the plate and get an digital RTA meter with a properly tuned mic. The RS meter is good though for ball parking along with some setup disks from Stereophile and other sources no doubt, I have used it myself in the past with good results. But in the end, the only one showing his ignorance is you. Its not by any means or coincidence that myself, the threadstarter and many others have stated the same thing about Carver products.

Dalton, though Im glad to see your excited, I do have to say that just cranking the volume isnt a sure fire way to say ones better than the next, though Im sure its good for your own experimentation, others may find it a bit lacking! =) Did you know that it only takes 1 db for a change in perception between equipment comparisons?To do real fair comparisons you need a tuned mic that can allow you to level match equipment properly for true comparisons. In fairness to everyone else(like folks who do own and enjoy their Carver products)just having an amp with more wattage doesnt necessarliy make it better. Gobs of power is great for quick, full dynamics, or if your running really inneficient speakers(like low impedance speakers with low sensitivity etc)they are great too. But for speakers like Paradigm Reference speakers which are an easy load to drive and relatively efficient, your going to find that your only putting through 25-50 watts at "normal" listening volumes in reality. There are alot of great amps that put out relatively low wattage and have great sound potential too. Some people even argue that lower powered amps using less parts sound superior too(along with a million other arguments in this stressful hobby! LOL!). Even your room will dictate how much power is needed. If your in a bedroom though with those speakers and amplifier, youll be running less than 25 watts I bet. Which is a good thing anyway. That Parasound amp sounds best when its biased in class A operation, just so your aware.

Danvetc: I just wanted to add one thing towards you. I just feel that you shouldnt have interjected and defended the equipment in question when you yourself dont run the same piece full bandwidth. SOmeone who uses small monitors that dont have bass to begin with, shouldnt defend a product he may not have had complete familiarity with(hey maybe you do, but I am also familiar with that Carver amp and too many others unfortunately). You get your bass from your powered subwoofers, which in effect means your amplifier is now running limited bandwidth. I bet it does sound good with your setup too btw(even though I dont agree with the EQ), but again it proves my point further on the amplifier. You yourself actually tuned out its weakness running dedicated subs and allowing it to juice the upper frequencies. And btw, Im sure your system does sound great. Alot of hifi also has to do with equipment matching. In fact in many ways it can be the most important thing. And you dont need to spend a ton of money to get $40k sound (like me =P ). I can name a few systems Ive owned in the past where I spent a small fraction of the cost of my current system, and I still got 95% of the performance I have presently(but damn Fleetwood Mac and Tracy Chapman have never sounded better!)and had alot of fun putting them together too.