Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hou5d.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!hogpc!houti!ariel!hou5f!hou5e!hou5d!mat From: mat@hou5d.UUCP Newsgroups: net.audio Subject: Re: request info on Carver amp Message-ID: <961@hou5d.UUCP> Date: Wed, 16-May-84 14:03:44 EDT Article-I.D.: hou5d.961 Posted: Wed May 16 14:03:44 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 17-May-84 03:22:42 EDT References: <40@mouton.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Holmdel, NJ Lines: 38 Well, I've had one of his original model (201W/ch for *significant periods*) boxes for two years now. I managed to drive it into safety shutoff ONCE but it has been trouble-free otherwise. His newer units are better at long-term reserve, although not as good as units like Haffler's or the (sigh) Perreoux. (you know, a few thousand dollars, and you get an amp whose power rating is simply ``adaquate for all musical needs'', with 4000 uf caps on the power supply and enough drive to put out over a hundred amps for short periods.) How did I drive the amp into safety? I had a TI thermal printer and a large window fan running next to me and I was listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony (Bruno Walter on Columbia Oddessey) through my bedroom speakers (Boston A40's) with the volume up quite a bit so I could hear it. The first movement uses massed strings for minutes at a time. Strings have lots of power in the high-frequency harmonics and the amp has a power-delivered integrator that is supposed to protect against overheated voice coils. It's weighted to be much more sensitive to the high frequencies, and it must have thought I was being bad to my speakers. The sound cut out briefly without so much as a click, and then came back on, and cut off again. I went into the living room where the stereo is and the power-indicator lamps were flickering ``randomly'' at half-brightness. I turned the volume on the preamp down just a little bit and the amp came back on line as magically as it had shut down -- and stayed on. This is the ONLY time is has done anything surprising. I can play back the Omnidisk demo tracks at wall-shaking levels and I can play the heartbeats on Dark Side of the Moon right up to about 1/4 inch cone excursion on my A100's (acoustic suspension 8" woofer). I don't know how the bigger Carver amps would have behaved. By the way, the poweramps in Carver's *the Carver Receiver* are more conservatively rated, and the unit has gotten at least two rave reviews. -- from Mole End Mark Terribile (scrape..dig) hou5d!mat ,.. .,, ,,, ..,***_*.