Bob Carver Crimson 275

I bought mine in July this year. It’s all it is advertised to be. Love the sound. The only time you would want to experiment and touch the tubes is when it’s been running hard for an hour and even then you have to hold on for more that a few seconds to feel the burn. Other than that I’ve never felt heat from the tubes. I am driving GoldenEars Triton 2+ and drive them hard. I had 2 200 watt SS mono amps prior and the carver blew them away. I’m a believer in my Carver amp and not F1nut..

 

Well, you're a fool then because I think his tube amps are stellar. It's his SS stuff that leaves much to be desired.

 

How are his preamp and tuner? I have had one of each since the mid 80's ...

 

I can't speak to the tuners, but the SS preamps were never one of Bob's better efforts, no offense. However, enter the Silver 1 tube preamp. Only 2 were made. I've listened to one of them and like his tube amps, it's a winner.

 

Do you have any recent insights into this amp now? When I find few reviews about a product, I tend to assume it's not horrible, but it's just not great either. Do you still have it? Thanks.

 

I'm curious about this amplifier too. On paper, it addresses many of the shortcomings of conventional tube amps. To my mind, it could qualify to be in the mainstream of audio consciousness, especially being a USA made product. It's also priced quite well. Is there a history I'm not aware of? Very few owners are vocal on the forums.

 

Hey EAGLESFAN9! This is good feedback. Are you able to confirm exactly what speakers you are driving with this new Carver amp - and how large your listening room is? Appreciated.

 

Wyred 4 Sound Announces Exclusive Licensing Agreement with The Bob Carver Corporation and the formation of Glass Audio America, LLC

 

At the outset, I wish to apologize for my wordiness. I’d like to add a few random comments in response to some of these claims. First of all, the power supply in our tube type amps is not a tracking power supply. It’s quite simple and conventional. The key is in the execution, not the technology. There is no trick circuitry other than the DC restorer and, possibly heavily responsible for the character of the product, the unique separate feedback loop only for back EMF so the amp can listen to your room and preserve the ambience on the recording. Your loudspeakers are microphones people. They are also electric motors and because of that, they have to follow the theorem of reciprocity and send voltage back to the source. Considered destructive to linear frequency response, solid state addressed this perfectly except they discard some of the room sound. Most tube amplifiers preserve it to a slight degree enhancing Soundstage size and depth, but we are the only ones addressing it directly.

next, we have no service department and never have. We never have a defective. We may have had one but I can’t remember if it was user error or not. However, we feel a responsibility to the owners of phase linear, Carver, and Sunfire Brands. We found what we consider to be the best service center in the country and we funnel all the repairs to him. However, I do all the coordination and I supervise. I want everybody happy. I don’t want nasty remarks in forums. Bob would never let our company take income from this! The service facility enjoys the business. We transfer the funds. Until about nine months ago, we would get in maybe two carver-branded products per year. it was all Sunfire Subwoofers. Their power amps rarely broke. I never saw the Carver stuff. I assume the product was incredibly reliable. Like a light switch, in 2019 the flood began as Carver products approached 30 years old. Now we get in more carver-branded product than any of the others. If Roland, whoever that may be, has a large influx of Carver branded products for service, he is simply well-established in that area. I repeat. We are not a service facility. I can only judge by what we send over to Deltronics. I suppose that’s what Roland does for a living, he probably promotes with a website, we have no connection to him in anyway shape or form, and he does not have access to Bob if it’s a difficult repair or for the latest upgrade! If you do need service on legacy products, check the Bob Carver website. We worked out an arrangement with the service facility to extend the warranty at no charge, upgrade components at no extra charge, and burn in every repair before it’s returned to the owner.

look guys, I started this company with Bob. on December 30, 2015. At that time and until two months ago, the product was built in two different factories: Tasc—For the loudspeaker which I mistakenly dictated earlier as “light” source when I meant “line” source and the 275. The point to point models, hand built as is the 275 by the way, by Tubular Joe. Now, please pay attention: I’m going to make two statements.
1) at no time during my tenure, was any product under the Bob Carver Co. brand name manufactured anywhere else. Both of these entities are in the suburbs of Seattle Washington. Anything else you read is a misquote or an outright lie. As I’ve said repeatedly on many forums, they were efforts to form another company and a few pieces were manufactured elsewhere but it was long before I came on the scene and those products were not the same as our current lineup. The companies were stillborn and unproductive (wishful thinking?). They actually did not become real business entities. Next, I cannot count the times I’ve been missed quoted by the audio press. Remember, I started our kill USA in 1976, Integra in 1978 in the United States, and I worked with Yamaha for 17 years, never has an employee but independent contractor. Imagine the amount of times I’ve been interviewed! I participated in the launch of so many brands, from apogee, to AR (part 2), Advent, Meitner, REL and Sonus Faber with John Hunter, and nearly every receiver manufactured in the United States. I’ve been missed quoted many times. I’m sure each time it was an honest mistake.

I need to update all of you who have any interest whatsoever in what’s happening with my company. Bobby and I have never taken any income. We supported our tiny group of employees and the rest of the money went into building the product. The loudspeaker was severely underpriced accidentally by Bob. and we lost money on every set. It was a drain on our resources. The error was a $10,000 mistake! Therefore, I reluctantly decided to close down the speaker business 30 day days ago. Naturally, we will continue to cover the warranty on the loudspeakers that are out in the field but we will not make another.

in order for this company to generate serious income, we need about five more models. Bob, basically semi retired, sold the rights to the name to EJ Sarmento and me. The new company started around January 2020. We are doing business as the Bob Carver corporation and Bob is our chief designer but an employee, and he is no longer involved in the business itself. We now have far very own factory in California and we also manufacture many other famous brands that you guys are aware of but nondisclosure agreements but that’s me telling you there. I can aim four or five if you’re interested.

it could cost as much as $50,000 to prototype a new model. This is no time for Bob to be laying out $300,000. Now he doesn’t have to. Here’s what’s coming: 2180i integrated amplifier as shown above. I think it will be available in black as well. Next, we will rip the power amplifier out of that unit and introduce the 2180a basic amplifier as a step up from the 275. Double the power. That should be easy. And then, in no particular order, all tube, the headphone amplifier with built in simple preamp, a standalone high-performance preamplifier with a killer photo section; we are studying the new galium- based high speed transistors daily. these things can switch at 1 million cycles. There are one or two units in the field from other companies and we’re watching their reliability carefully. If our research is correct, and we have one of the top digital guys in the world on our team, who all of you know, it will take us down two paths – – an all tube (Input and output stages) DAC with no over the counter DAC, and hybrid amplifiers with the front end from the 350 series mated to an 800 W per channel solid-state output stage.

Two comments from yesteryear: it cost us $1.40 to do the modifications that Bob did to match the sound of the Conrad Johnson Premier tube type power amplifier. It only involves changing the values of a few parts. The production model had that modification and a cost the same to build as the original model. The parts cost nothing. They cannot degrade except perhaps over 30 years—an outright intentional lie, and as a result the people who printed it were sued and we prevailed. I cannot go into more detail because of the agreement mandated by the settlement. check Wikipedia for my veracity because they feel that it was one of his greatest accomplishments.

finally, and I have no horse in this race having no connection to the Carver brand, I’ve never seen such loyalty in my 50 year history. People contact me weekly now requesting service on the Carver units. I never saw this coming. If it’s going to be expensive, I warn the owner and provide an estimate at no cost. In every single case, since February 2019, over one year, every single owner said that they didn’t care what it cost. They had to have the product back. The brand was a serious thorn in my side when I was working with Onkyo. I later competed with him when I launched Adcom. I have no special feelings for Carver brand other than the fact the two things happen with each conversation: each owner has to tell me their life story as it involves Bob. I made my son listen on hands-free to prove it to him. This happens every other day of my life. I try not to be rude but it’s getting to be pretty difficult! Each conversation starts with, “well it all started after college...” and so it goes for the next 20 minutes! It’s like a religion. The second thing is, unit after unit, person after person, it’s always the same. They claim the product sounded better than what they had before. I’ve never heard a Carver product and have no interest in doing so but the Sunfire stuff sounded pretty good. Sure, for every individual who claims his solid-state products did not sound good, there seems to be about a quarter million people who disagree around the world. Personally, at that time, it was all Audio Research/Linn and Quad ESL for me.

Please keep in mind, that there’s a strong happy hobby aspect to this endeavor for all of us. If any of you need to discuss this further with me personally, you can find my personal phone number on the Bob Carver website and I welcome your calls.

 

A few weeks ago I randomly came across this post. The amp looked intriguing so I figured, "hey why not?" Definitely a nice piece of kit.

Jim Clark Stereo is a great shop to work with.

 

Congrats on the pick up! What are your thoughts???

 

C'mon! Ya can't just leave us hanging like that!!

That is a very attractive looking amp!

 

OK no problem. So I've only had this for exactly one day, so I imagine I will learn more about what it can do as time passes. Anyway, the amp that got replaced, is shown below. It's by Audio Electronics, which was a division of Cary Audio. It was a nice amp, rated at 35 wpc. It always sounded too polite with the OEM EL-34's so I always ran it with KT-77's. Had it for some years and over time it was getting noisy and spitty even with new tubes. So I was kinda on the lookout for an amp, but I was never dissatisfied with the sound of it.


So, during the setup of the 275, there is a little bit of protective tape on the sides and front. Carver provides some car wax and a microfiber cloth so you can give it that lasting shine and remove any random residue. I suppose anyone interested already knows the basic specs, but it's rated at 75wpc and carries a 5 year warranty on everything, tubes included. You can set the bias in the back and it operates between 60-120ma, with nominal being 100. I found that to be a little aggressive sounding and liked it best at 70 or so.



Once I got it into my system, I literally couldn't stop listening to it. If I can describe it in one word, I guess I'd call it "Sumptuous". It just made me want to listen to music, and I heard details that I never knew existed and it's so quiet, you can barely tell it's on. So that alone, gave me more music and none of the hash I'd been dealing with. The first day, I played it non-stop for 7 straight hours. No ear fatigue, no unpleasant moments, even when things got loud. It never made any mistakes.

Tremendous sound stage. Now, my speakers are known for its sound stage and mid-range clarity, but with this amp, everything went up several notches. It's like my speakers were telling me, "Thank God you finally got us a decent amp. Now we can breathe."

Take David Crosby's, "If I could only remember my Name". If you're familiar with the record, you already know it has a big sound stage. With this amp, it was bigger and fuller than I can remember. It's was like there were no speakers in the room and the music was just coming out of the walls. My listening room has 12 foot vaulted ceilings and it filled it to the roof and them some. And listening to Joshua Redman's "Wish" CD, I was startled on one cut, because it was like he started playing right beside me.

So yeah... I'm digging this amp. I can't see any reason to get any other. The only thing I did do was swap out the OEM Tung Sol, for a Mullard in the input stage. I've never been a huge Tung Sol fan, but I guess they are fine in the power stage. They seem to be anyway. But if you guys are interested, do check out Jim Clark Stereo. Super nice guy, You have a month to audition it at home and if you don't like it you can send it back. He always answers the phone and is always willing to help.

 

This is an old question but to answer it, the amp is dead quiet at idle.

 

Frank Malitz:
Re. Crimson 275: leave on 24/7, turn on/off once per day or...you tell me? Please explain your answer.

If link exists to a Carver tube, pure analog, line stage preamp, please post same here.

TX!

 

Not Carver, but I thought I’d post it anyway. I have his LP-2 line stage preamp. It’s based on the Marantz 7C circuit. I’m running it with the Tung-Sol reissues.
Class IX Vacuum Tube Audio Equipment

 

Unfortunately, I still have not seen a TAS review for this amp. Perhaps with a price tag of ONLY $2,750, it is below the dignity of the TAS to do a review ...

 

Just out of curiosity, why do you care about that?

 

I've had my Crimson 275 for about a week now, and as I told Jim Clark, he's not getting it back! It's a wonderful sounding piece of hifi gear, it's build quality is immaculate, and it's just downright pretty to look at. I think it's important to point out that Bob Carver's 5 year warranty on the tubes not only comes from his DC Restorer circuit, but also the fact that the KT120 is specifically designed for longer life. Only time will tell if all this actually gels into longer time span between tube replacement.
I dipped my 70 year old toes back into the "tube pond" first with a Vincent SV-237MK, a great sounding hybrid. After a year with that, I picked up a chifi Muzishare X-7, a surprisingly competent KT88 fired integrated amp that even boasted 5AR4 tube rectification. I did try it as an integrated, but found it a little too neutral for my tastes, and as is the current trend in audio, it has no tone controls. Using the preamp in the Vincent fixed that short coming, and really brought the X-7 to life. I purchased it as a reasonably priced experiment to see if I really wanted to go full tube, and it convinced me that I did.
My criteria for a "final purchase" was fairly simple. American made, good reviews, and price no more than $6 k. The Crimson 275 quickly, and rightfully, jumped to the top of the list. Even though the 237MK makes a great preamp, I got it in my head that I wanted to go the full tube route there as well. I quickly discovered that there are very few tube preamps that have tone controls, and being old school, I just can't go down that path. I looked at the Luxman CL-38uc, and the Vincent SA-T7, and decided to stick with Vincent because of my experience with the 237MK. I ordered one up, and after running it with the 275 for a couple of days, I came to the conclusion that it just wasn't blowing my skirt up sound wise. The bass wasn't as deep as I like it, and the mids were kind of bland, so I put the 237MK in it's place and surprise, surprise, everything is back the way I like it. The SV-237MK has a three tube preamp stage vs the T7 with nine tubes. What the 237MK has that is missing on the T7 is a loudness switch. That makes all the difference in the world when most of your listening is at lower volume levels. It's also missing a headphone jack, which I didn't even notice until I got it hooked up. So, the T7 got shipped back for a refund, the 237MK is in control, and I'm a very happy camper.
I should also mention that a lot of tube amps now boast ultralinear/triode selectable output. With the Muzishare, I quickly discovered that I preferred ultralinear because it is more vibrant, and triode sounded a little muddy to me. During my research to purchase my final amp, I read that Bob Carver wasn't a big fan of ultralinear mode, and that kind of threw some doubt into the mix for me. I contacted Jim Clark and told him about my doubts, and he assured me that the Crimson 275 didn't have a muddy sound. Besides, if I didn't like how it sounded, I could send it back. He was right. The 275 manages to run right down the middle between ultralinear and triode sound, while maintaining the best of both. It's a keeper.

My system:
Bob Carver Crimson 275
Vincent SV-237MK
Sony HAPZ1ES
Technics SL-1500C/Ortofon M2 Bronze
Furman SPR-20i
Klipsch Cornwall III
Pangea Premier SE interconnects
SKW speaker cables (they are pretty, they are cheap, and they sound great)
Pangea and other brand oversized power cables just because they look cool!

 

Tried some tube rolling today in the 275. Swapped out all the Tung-Sol small tubes for NOS British made Mullards from Kevin's stash at Upscale Audio. Not a glaring difference, but still a noticeable difference, and a good one. The bass gained some deeper reach and now has some real oomph to it without becoming boomy. The highs seem a little more defined and crisp but thankfully did not become obnoxious. The real gain was in the mid range. Everything just sounds more "real". Voices and instruments have more prominence, and the presence and overall sound stage became more pleasing and full-bodied without sounding "muddy". I'm going to run these for awhile, and then maybe put the extra NOS 12AX7 Mullard I picked up from Uncle Kev in the Vincent. I also have a matched pair of 1980 date matched gold plate 6N1P-EV Voshkod Rockets coming from Russia to try out in the Vincent, just for S&G.

My System:
Bob Carver Crimson 275
Vincent SV-237MK (for preamp)
Sony HAPZ1ES
Technics SL-1500C/Schiit Mani/Ortofon 2M Bronze
Klipsch Cornwall III
SKW Speaker Cables
Pangea Audio Premier SE interconnects
Pangea AC/SE series power cables
Furman SPR-20i on dedicated 20 amp circuit with Pangea outlet

 

You need to give those old tubes a day or two to come alive. So you’re probably in for some additional improvement from them

 

I think Upscale does a 24 hour burn in on all their stock, but there's nothing to take the place of actual use, so I'll be listening for "new life". I also picked up some NOS JAN GE's , Sylvania's, and Tung-Sol's to try out down the road. As for the KT120's, I tend to agree with Frank Malitz in that rolling just the small tubes will net the most noticeable changes. Listening to The Rippingtons "Sahara" right now. Sounds sweet!

 

Mostly a tube amp thing.

 

I was curious about this. Prima Luna and Upscale Audio always stress the small tubes. But the Carver manual and Carver website really only talk about rolling the big tubes. I was considering rolling the two 12AX7 tubes to see if there was a real change. The 12AT7 is part of the "DC Restorer circuit" so I am not sure what kind of change that will make.