Bob Carver tube amps

I've owned a lot of Carver gear since 1986 and they were excellent in both sound quality and reliability.  But it's fair to say that his products evolved and that his engineering genius and passion could occasionally outpace his business sense.

I've owned four Sunfire Signature amps running (now restored, they lasted over thirty years before requiring a rebuild of the Bohlender-Graebner Ribbons) a pair of Plat Amazing Loudspeakers (w/outboard custom-designed subs) multichannel system and they are the best Solid State amplifiers I've ever heard. (And I own a number of the Mac amps that inspired them.)  His tube amps are something with which I have no experience besides having heard them in other systems.  They sound quite fine, even on challenging Telarc Organ recordings with first-octave Bass.  The Carver Corporation A-series amps are close to the same designs as the Sunfires.  (I.E., "Light Star"...)  If I were seeking out a 75wpc tube amplifier, I'd probably look at a McInlosh MC275.  The hyperinflation in High-End Audio is doing serious damage to the future of the hobby.  The industry needs someone like Bob to bring the "knee in the price/performance ratio J-Curve" back down to Earth.

@mbrusso 

+1 

Carver was innovative but seldom produced gear that sounded great… although often different (seldom in a good way), and not very reliable.

After reading the Audio Science Review of the Carver 275 I had to question my aging hearing. A novice with measurements I respect Amirm's methods and opinions. 

I came to audio via owning a PA. Beginning with Marantz 8B's driving Altec A7's VOtT, Cerwin-Vega A1800 and a Phase Linear 700 to drive the bass bins. I had no idea who produced the 700. I can say it got the crap kicked out of it for years and sold it in working order.

For HiFi it was the 8B's, MFA D75, Ayre V1 and a number of switching amplifiers including the Ncore Hypex kits currently in the studio and a years long merry go round of dissatisfying speakers after the A7's. When I purchased a used pair of Avalon Acoustics Eidolons supported by two Velodyne DD-12 Plus subs I wanted to get back to tubes but economically.  

In 2013 I purchased a pair of Bob Carver Tube VTA 180's. Surprisingly they provided all the headroom I needed from the V1 and the ease of the 8B with a wider and deeper sound stage. They run cool and hold their simplified bias adjustment. When I accidentally broke a KT88 I upgraded to KT120's.

I'll stick one of the 8B's in and the Carvers are still killing it. I absolutely have to do direct in home comparisons before I change anything. With the extremely revealing Eidolons I'm perplexed by any measured performance issues, going on thirteen years of satisfaction.

In Dick Olshers's enthusiastic 2012 show review for Enjoy The Music I'm reminded that Bob Carver sought design advice from Stu Hegeman and Tim de Paravicini. Let's not forget Gordon Holt's tube vs solid state audible amplifier challenge. Bob Carver successfully voicing his solid state amplifier modifications in a hotel room during an audio show weekend.