Power amp

PS Wifey wouldn't go along with the electrostats, but they would have been in the room, somewhere, if I had the option and space...

 

PPS Just done a search and come across the Bob Carver amp 'challenge' thread and noted some negative comments from folks who'd never heard the Carver Cube amp. Well... I have the amp, refurbed by Sun Corp and I can tell you it will easily wipe away most things under a grand. So ner...

* Bought this amp in the eighties to drive Gales (the answer's yes, if you know Gales), as it was rated at 250watts per channel, and it lit them up: effortless, deep reserves, smooth as silk, detailed. If you come across one, snap it up. It's very special.

 

Bob Carver was very talented and made fine amplifiers.

I wouldn't worry about capacitors in a 909 yet - it's too young.
Get it checked over in say 5 years

I had an older but very similar 606 in for service recently and it's main caps were still in fine fettle, so they stayed put.

 

Hi Rob

Eh up, bit paranoid now about that serial number now but it sounds okay...

Agree 100 per cent re your comments about Carver. I (sort of) stumbled into Carver ownership when needing something to drive Gales (ie difficult loads) and ended up buying an amp that didn't like being used mono, as it went a 'bit unstable' (but that didn't bother me, as I wanted a ballsy stereo amp). End result was a baseball bat in your face bass amp with the silk glove and caress midrange. Very, very good. But I didn't appreciate that at the time. I thought they were all like this. Er no! Find one, buy one!

 

Don't worry about the amp Micky.
If the caps are going bad the amps tend to get noisy - hum in particular. But a 909 should't need any work for a good while yet. Just enjoy it.

Ah Gales..... down around 3 Ohms in the bass which is the killer. That needs something with real RMS drive capability into difficult loads, and that needs a solid supply and efficient cooling. Firing the odd high level peak into such loads is easy, cheap to engineer and cheating
The Carver is clearly a solid bit of kit and well engineered.

 

I love the 606 series and even a stone-cold mk1 sounded more natural than the then current Krell KAV power amp we had running at the time it was brought in (late 90's).

Rob, what about the Alesis RA500 for a couple of hundred notes? You told me it measures well, but does it allow the 'music' through unfettered? I echo the thoughts of the Kandy amp - all noise and no music - but the later ones are supposed to be better?

 

Have a look at the start of this thread, there is a link to some files so you can compare a direct CD rip to the music being played through an Alesis RA500.

 

The ONLY caution I have with later 909's is the possibility of the caps used not being of current commercial grade and not as good as earlier ones. There's a whole article on the Dada blog about this with measurement backup. This may ONLY apply to a few examples though and eventually can be easily sorted by a good solderer. I think if yours had been sub-standard, I reckon you'd have heard it, since it was audible apparently. The current version is also very good indeed according to my pal hifi dave...

 

...... Mr Wren (of Radlett Audio and a very fine dealer) wouldn't sell them otherwise.

 

Do you think this amp MickyP got was one of the few from that period with bad caps?

 

Nothing to compare it to, But I did quite a few A-Bs with my old amp and loved the Quad's midrange and detail but liked the low down punch and top end gloss of the Carver. Nearly bought American (Emotiva) then I took the plunge and bought a couple of Quad 909 monos. I figure they'll fill the missing bits which I don't like about the Quad 909 stereo amp. I'll sell the old stuff when I finalise which I prefer.

Watch this space!

* As an aside I've been chasing Bob Carver with emails across the States but he seems to have left more companies than I have ever worked for. I'm guessing his talent lies in electronics and he's no businessman and, maybe, a bit hard to work with. Who knows! Anyhow, as he built my old amp I was going to ask what he rated as comparable with a juicey midrange.

** As another aside, have you seen the power-price of those Emotiva amps? Anyone tried one? Was looking at a small one which weighed five stone-plus. Eeek! And cost 899 dollars! Five year warranty, 30 day money back, etc... We're getting ripped off, methinks.

 

PPPS Bit of a gamble as couldn't find any reviews on the monoblocs - none. But as the circuitry is essentially the same and they're have twice the power, I'm guessing they're gonna be reasonable. Maybe...

 

You certainly won't be lacking power!

 

Well, they're up and running and doing some warm-up hours. First impressions are effortlessly smooth, better separation and teensy bit more detail. Just sounding very 'right' at the moment.

I'll give it a few weeks, do some filter fiddling and speaker port bung tuning and go from there. I'm guessing, though, the 909 stereo amp will be on ebay real soon.

Glad I pursued it.