Peeking inside a Carver Crimson 275 Tube Amplifier
Absolutely +1. Charles |
I'll suggest some evaluation at this point. IMO, the amp is cleverly designed to provide 17wpc continuous across the bandwidth at low distortion, with some pretty fair peak power into 8 ohms. It's a "concept" amp, and as such it succeeds, IMO--a clever design, light weight, large under-biased output tubes that will last for years, current feedback to adjust for low-frequency speaker impedance swings. Many people say it sounds great--and it probably does in many circumstances. My old ProAc Response 2's only need 15 wpc to sound really nice in my room. With the peak reserve, they'd probably be very happy with the Crimson (now Raven, apparently). The problem is that the amp is sold at 75wpc 20Hz-20kHz at less than 1% distortion. The amp clearly cannot meet those specs. Jim Clark claims that only the sound matters--and he's right in some respects, but audiophiles aren't stupid. Sound matters, but so do honest specs. So Jim is in a terrible position. An example of honest marketing from the days of yore was posted above, with an eye on the intelligent buyer (and he had to have some deep pockets back then) who valued technical competence as well as sound. jbhiller, the only answer is, does the amp work for you at the price you paid? Many years ago, I built a pair of single-ended 845 monoblocks for a friend. He uses them with some old Gallo towers (remember those?) By any technical measure they shouldn't have worked--but they do, and he still uses them with great pleasure. No less than David Berning actually paid me a compliment on the amps. So there are anomalies in this world of audio.
|
OMG! I just noticed you have a Doge DAC 7! I LOVE mine. I only know one other person who has one. What tubes are you using in it? But regarding the Crimson, I'll bet a case of nice Oregon wine that a classic Williamson--like the Heathkit W2, W3 or W4--would beat that Carver hands down on your Cornwalls. |
@grovergardner , You are the voice of reason and a wealth of knowledge. Many folks hop in to spew diarrhea of the mind with no point, or only to criticize. This is, after all, a passionate hobby for most of us! Thank you! I'll take you up on that bet--just for fun. I'd love to hear and nice W2, 3, or 4. My 300 B (Elekit) sounds great on the Cornwalls, but at 8 watts it could use a bit more in my room--and I don't listen that loud. While the C-Walls are super efficient, I do think they like a bit more wattage than flea or minimal SET to get moving---that's only based on listening. Yes, the Crimson does sound very good with the C-Walls. It's just sad that they did what they did with it. Maybe I'lll fix the problems: add a chassis ground, install a backlit meter, and upgrade a few other things, including isolating the transformers a bit. And finally, I do own a Doge DAC 7. People don't believe me how good it sounds. It is stellar. The build quality on it crushes things people pay $5k for and then some. I've mated it with all sorts of preamps and integrated. It plays well, always. I also own the Doge Clarity preamp. All Clarity caps throughout the signal side of things. Doge sources parts from all over the world and surprisingly few are Chinese. Most are German, Swiss, British, Japanese, and US. The build quality here is stellar too. There's a few nits to pick but at $2k it can play with preamps costing twofold its ask. I think my real woe with the Crimson is (a) not likely being able to pair it with less efficient speakers; and (b) a sadness that Bob Carver's swan song is a bit blemished. I feel sorry for him, but more sorry for the folks that made the actual misrepresentations. They played the short game.
Thank you Grovergardner! You pass the audiophile "beer test" and then some!
|
