Carver Power Amps- good? (1 Viewer)

[Doug Craig]

I got my hands on a couple of Carver PM300 power amps. This is the magnetic field power amp rated at about 110 watts/channel at 8 ohms. Does anyone have any experience with these amps? Should I use the pre-outs on my H/K AVR75 to feed these and get better sound (hard for me to believe - I love the H/K).
Or, is this the beginnings of a good separates system?
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D.H.

 

[Brian Perry]

I had very good success with my Carver M1.5t power amp. Bob Carver was the first designer to use a switching amp to produce huge power without large amounts of heat. Carver claimed that his amps were Class-A biased up to about 35 watts, and then operated in AB above that.
The other thing I noticed with my Carver amp was that is sounded warmer than typical solid-state amps (the "t" in the model name supposedly meant "tube-like"). The different sound was somehow due to the difference in the way even and odd harmonics were reproduced. I don't know if it applies to your amp, though.
I wish I still had my Carver! (Stupidly sold it a few years ago.)

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Doug,
There has been plenty of discussion of Carvers PRO AUDIO amplifiers like the older PM series, which are excellent amps (a little lacking in flexibility, but sound very nice). Not to be confused with the newer PM stuff, which is now Carver's Midrange product: the older PM stuff (like the PM1.5t Brian mentioned) is one of my favorite pro amps made! Check out some past amp discussions from the advanced and hardware areas:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/uub/Forum17/HTML/001796.html