Comments on this Mono Amp ?

[wire]

http://cgi.ebay.com/CARVER-Silver-7-Vacuum-Tube-Amplifiers-vintage-30-KT-88-/140400767925?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b089b3b5
Has any here heard this set up before ?

 

[Seth=L]

I haven't heard the setup before. It's more a collectors item than it is an item that you would or should use. Bob Carver released the Silver 7 and it was the most expensive monoblock amplifier you could buy at the time. In order to prove a point he duplicated the sonic signature of the Silver 7 with a solid state design in the M 4.0T, which is considerably more common and far more cost effective. It definitely doesn't look as cool as the Silver 7, but in double blind testing it is reported to be sonically identical to the Silver 7.

 

[itschris]

I first saw this amp... and you're not gonna believe this... in the PX at McDill Air Force Base when I was a kid and used to shopping there with my dad. They had a lot of stereo stuff and Carver was their premier brand and I remember they had a Silver 7 sitting in a glass case on a pedastal. There was a big Carver banner in the room and they had some other tube amps there as well. I remember how much I loved the Carver stuff back then and always said to myself when I grow up that's what I'm gonna get. It lookeds so cool with the little handles on each end of their other pieces. I've never heard the amp, but it's about one of the coolest things on planet.

 

[wire]

I haven't heard the setup before. It's more a collectors item than it is an item that you would or should use. Bob Carver released the Silver 7 and it was the most expensive monoblock amplifier you could buy at the time. In order to prove a point he duplicated the sonic signature of the Silver 7 with a solid state design in the M 4.0T, which is considerably more common and far more cost effective. It definitely doesn't look as cool as the Silver 7, but in double blind testing it is reported to be sonically identical to the Silver 7.

Hi Seth , i think the 4.0 was 375 per channel , these monsters are 575 wp mono of tube . I have a TFM 35 , its softer than a regular SS but still not close to a tube amp and with all solid state my ears get fatiugue after awhile . With my little tube amp i can take a snooze and keep on listining .

 

[wire]

I first saw this amp... and you're not gonna believe this... in the PX at McDill Air Force Base when I was a kid and used to shopping there with my dad. They had a lot of stereo stuff and Carver was their premier brand and I remember they had a Silver 7 sitting in a glass case on a pedastal. There was a big Carver banner in the room and they had some other tube amps there as well. I remember how much I loved the Carver stuff back then and always said to myself when I grow up that's what I'm gonna get. It lookeds so cool with the little handles on each end of their other pieces. I've never heard the amp, but it's about one of the coolest things on planet.

Yeh Chris
I would love to see the monos and hear the monos live . Still looks to be abit pricey , even these days for that setup , i rarely see them go on sale . I have a little tube amp 38 x 2 and love sound of it , i rarely listin to my Bryston 4b anymore ( hehe ) .

 

[jamie2112]

Those Baby's are SUH-WEET for sure Holy moly they are expensive though.I could buy my dream speakers and then some with that cost

 

[Seth=L]

Those are dream amplifiers for dream speakers. They assume if you have that much coin to drop on speakers, you have that much coin to drop on amplification. In reality the ratio of cost on amplification compared to speakers actually gets much smaller the higher you go up the chain. Take the Wilson Alexandria for example (waste of money IMO) and you will often see people powering them with amplifiers that cost 1/10 of what the speakers do. Of course these aren't cheap amps, but for some reason amps just don't command that kind of price since there's a lot less involved.

 

[its phillip]

I first saw this amp... and you're not gonna believe this... in the PX at McDill Air Force Base when I was a kid and used to shopping there with my dad. They had a lot of stereo stuff and Carver was their premier brand and I remember they had a Silver 7 sitting in a glass case on a pedastal. There was a big Carver banner in the room and they had some other tube amps there as well. I remember how much I loved the Carver stuff back then and always said to myself when I grow up that's what I'm gonna get. It lookeds so cool with the little handles on each end of their other pieces. I've never heard the amp, but it's about one of the coolest things on planet.

I never saw anything cool like this at any of the BXs/PXs/NEXs I've been to :/ All I ever saw was the regular yamaha/sony/panasonic/jvc/pioneer stuff and of course the special "bose" section. Some BXs had extra crappy electronics sections, and EVERY one had terrible computer sections, where you could pay $100 over street price on a radeon 9200 2 years after they were EOL.

 

[blueone]

I've never understood the tube amplifier crowd. I guess I'm not looking to have some low-order distortion mixed in with my audio signal, or have my frequency response altered in some way because the amp's output impedance is high relative to modern speaker loads. Then there's current limitations into low-impedance speakers, massive power consumption, heat generation... yuck. If you must spend that sort of money on amplifiers, and I understand the admiration of great engineering, I'd rather have a pair of Mark Levinson 33s.

Bob Carver has got to be one of the most innovative people in the industry, and I have a huge amount of respect for him, but his infatuation with tube amplifiers and their "transfer function" is something I can't identify with.