Bob Carver Crimson 275

I know Bob, so I know the history. Thanks.

 

There are far more nefarious corporate shenanigans going on these days - just at companies that have a long-passed founder as their namesake.

m1.0t & 1.5t - indistinguishable tube amp emulation, but at 1000 watts. (They do buzz a bit with your ear to the speaker, but tube amps also rarely pass this test).

 

None of Carver's solid state amps sound anything like a tube amp.

 

My sunfire 600 Sig is a beast, any speaker, and ohm load, no issues.
Love both taps, one for tube sound, which is awesome!

 

The truth about the Carver challenge.

 

I have 2 CJ amps. both SS ...

 

The CJ amp in the challenge was a tube amp.

 

Yeah, I vaguely remember that ...

 

I believe the Crimson 275 is class AB.

 

You will not find a cool running Class A tube amp ...

 

I am Frank Malitz, CEO of the Bob Carver Company. Klipsch dealers recommend this amp because it’s dead quiet. Highly sensitive loudspeakers will show a hiss with any amplifier, solid-state or tube Unless very quiet. The 275 is as quiet or quieter than the amplifier we’ve ever made.

Now let’s discuss the truth about Bob’s employment: he started phase linear right out of college. It became quite famous. He was fired by the Board of Directors because they wanted to do car audio which they eventually did. He felt it would damage his image. They destroyed the image of the company But fortunately his firing created an opportunity.. Being unemployed, but with over $1 million in his pocket, he started the Carver company. When I was at Onkyo, we were doing $30 million and he was doing $65 million! It was a very successful enterprise. We rarely get in a Carver product for service even now.

After years of success, Bob. started to lean toward higher performance products, i.e. the light star project. The board directors fired him once again. It cost them a lot of money to do so and being unemployed again, with fresh ideas in his head, he started the Sunfire company. That’s the only company he ever sold willfully. For what it’s worth, Marantz is under its eighth owner. Sunfire wanted bob to stick around but the move to another state. They did change the product dramatically but they threatened me with legal action if I tell the truth. So he left and went to work on the amazing light source loudspeaker. We started the current company about four years ago. There are no other owners other than Bob. Jordon Gerber and me. Jordan has resigned to help Phillips, medical with their scanning machines. Bob and Jordan are both physicist as well as engineers. To me, the physicists are the Sherlock Holmes of the audio industry—The equivalent of internists in the medical world.

The closest thing he ever did to a class H amplifier was the magnetic field power supply which was an improvement of the classic class G design. Sunfire has never used a class a H architecture. We used the only patented tracking power supply that was 100% analog in the history of audio. It was more efficient than class D and sounded better. The Sunfire amplifiers were warm sounding, especially the two channel versions. They did indeed have a tube like quality and that was at the discretion of the user depending on the hook up scheme.

There were a couple of other stillborn companies that are not relevant because they did not actually develop into a real brand. At no time did the Bob Carver Co., which I own with Bob, manufacture anywhere but in Washington state. I own that name with Bob and it was never used in another company. We still build product by hand, even the 275.

finally, supposing you’re demonstrating an amplifier that is the only tube-type amplifier that you can touch without burning your hand on the tubes. Would you not demonstrate this? If you doubt my veracity or agree that I’m nothing more than a used car salesman, ignore everything I’ve written. For the rest of you, I make this personal guarantee: if you buy one of our products and you’re not satisfied, you get every penny back. There’s no restocking charge. Every dealer we have offers this. It’s our policy. I will compensate the dealer if he takes an amplifier back. So far, it’s cost me nothing.

I apologize if it sounds like I’m being provocative but I do not appreciate being attacked when I spent the last 3 1/2 years developing this brand without a single penny of income. It’s a labor of love. i’ve traveled the world demonstrating the product. I miss my family and my dogs. But working with bob has been an experience of a lifetime. All those who contacted me know what I mean. I’m available seven days a week. I publish my phone number and my email address. Truthfully, I love this ****.

Please introduce yourself at the next Axpona show. As of now, I also intend to do Tampa again as well. We are also tripling our advertising budget and as far as the product line goes, as they say, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

 

Correct!

 

First of all, Conrad Johnson makes some of the greatest amplifiers of all time. We love them. Secondly, if anyone knew how to do what Bob is doing, they would extend their warranties. It’s simple economics. If they were able to give a five year warranty including tubes on an amplifier under $3000, don’t you think they would? When bob told me, initially, we will give a lifetime warranty on the tubes, on all
Models, I asked him how that could be possible. Don’t forget he’s older than me and at some point I would own the company unilaterally. I didn’t feel like giving out tubes for free for the rest of my life. For marketing reasons, we eventually settled on certain time limits from five years to lifetime depending on the model.

The company is now about four years old with having given out maybe four tubes so far. Maybe not. I can’t remember. But here’s what you can tell the Conrad Johnson Tech: except for the DC Restorer diode, it’s all tube. With the model 350, its big sister, the tube and amp warranty is 60 times longer than audio research can give on their tubes! I think it’s a remarkable accomplishment and be sure to tell the technician that our amplifiers actually repair defective tubes. His response should be interesting, and talk about colorful! It certainly made my life easier.

 

Bob is a very comfortable millionaire. We have never suffered financially. The Carver product was more advanced than the Phase Linear product. It was fruitless to keep the older design. The Sunfire power supplies were the most advanced in the history of Audio so there was no reason to keep the old Carver designs. We’ve moved to tubes only because Bob likes the way they look, we are very romantic, and we can make any device sound like any other device anyway so why not enjoy the romance of tubes in the September of our careers? There are certain advantages to tubes but I don’t want to turn this into a sales pitch. This is supposed to be fun isn’t it? We’re having the time of our lives.

 

Bill, you are very astute; all Crimson 275s produce 90 watts RMS with very low distortion. The headroom is significantly higher due to Bob’s approach to the power supplies. If I let him do it, he would print 130 W per channel music power as if it were 1975! It will do it it under 3% distortion so he’s not exaggerating.

I should probably mention two other things: the amplifier can be paralleled to double power. Next, if you want to experiment with tubes, replaced the “little tubes”. We designed the amplifier so that the output stage has very little impact on the overall character. We do this so we can fuse the output stage without disadvantages. This allows our amps to repair defective tubes. The basic character is determined by the input tubes and output Transformers. Don’t waste your money rolling output tubes. Play with the little tubes . There is a difference. By the way, forgive the errors as I’m dictating while I’m driving.

 

First off, a shout out to Glenn Poor's in Champaign, IL (which popped up when I searched Crimson 275). They were one of the places that got/kept my interest in this hobby/career. As for the Carver product, I've posted the long story before but I got a rich Texan roommate who, concerned that someone else's stereo was almost as loud as my homemade PA-style speakers + little NAD, bought a Carver touring sound amp from August Systems (shout out to them for letting this then-budding loudspeaker engineer use their amazing hand-built measurement system!). It was one of the apparently rare ones where you could set short and long term power limiters. That sucker had POWER, we once drowned out someone else's stereo in their own room. A truly wonderous amp, weighed about the same as that NAD to boot and never blew our circuit breakers it was so efficient.

I'm curious and did not see spelled out exactly-is the Crimson 275 power supply tracking? And can I assume from the website blurb that the frequency response would be pretty similar with a resistor or an actual loudspeaker load? (Unlike many tube and class D amps).
I have a friend who is both tube-curious (due to sound) and tube-shy (due to fear of replacing tubes)...I'm gonna send him the Carver way.

 

Rolland at Hi-Tech Audio gets them in everyday. He also purchased all the inventory Carver had left to repair them.

Oh really!?!

From a published interview in Sound and Vision with Bob.

 

Well, that wrecks this thread. Nice going.....

 

Unfortunately!

 

Since when do facts ruin a thread? Unbelievable!!!

 

I've owned a number of Bob Carver amps over the years and still have six of them in daily use in my main HT.

The A-400x is an amazing combination of performance (very powerful, extremely quiet, distortion-free) and value. Other than one of them needing ~$200C worth of servicing more than a decade ago, they've been trouble-free. I use five of them in stereo mode to power my Koss CM/1030 stacks - one channel per speaker.

A Phase Linear 300 Series Two powers my rear surrounds. Granted it pretty much loafs along in that role, but sonically it has the same great characteristics as the Carver A-400x. Other than replacing the RCA input connectors which were coming loose, it has never needed servicing.

For me the Bob Carver name has been synonymous with great sound for a great price.

Jeff

 

I owned a pair of TFM-35x's for nearly 20 years. The only "issue" I ever had with either ofnthe was that the lights for the VU meters would dim ever so slightly during very big power draws. From what I understand, this "issue" was addressed in a design revision. I could have sent them in for modification but I rarely ever had the VU lights on anyways. They were great amps for the money.

 

Any new buyer of the Crimson 275 here?

 

Hey now,......the sunfire 600 Sig has the 1ohm tap, which has boomy bass, killer midrange, etc etc, they sound the closest to tube amp than mnay tube amps.
Carver is still a genius.

It’s like a 600 watt tube amp on steroids.
Incredible.

Carver makes amazing audio, CJ is jealous and trying to badmouth to get your business.
Carver gear is amazing, don’t let another company sway your decision.

 

Ummm.....no.