Anyone use Carver or Sunfire amps with their electrostatics or maggies?

[Audio Adrenaline]

I just bought a carver pm 1.5 to hook up to the xlr output of my Nad dac/ preamp-im running a set of Magneplaner 2.7qrs and apparently the more power the better-anyone used one of these or something similar? from my limited understanding the pm 1.5 is similar to a lot of bob carver's models

 

[wallacefl]

I used to use the PM 1.5 /Adcom GFP-750 in passive mode to drive my Martin Logan CLS Z2… no complaints ie: sounded very good to me and my speakers are considered difficult to drive…the fan can be noisey though.

 

[CharlieM]

Yes,

I drive my bi-amp'd homebuilt hybrids and subs with a trio of Carver TFM-25's (225W/Ch) amps. However, a friend whom I built an identical pair of hybrid ESL's for, drives his with a Sunfire 400 X 7 (400W/Ch).

The Sunfire sounds great and has tons of power!

 

[AVWERK]

Using a modified Sunfire 300/2 on Apogee 1 ohm Scintillas and runs cool as a cucumber and left on 24/7

Imagine doing that to almost any other amp

Is it the best amp out there ? I would have to say no but it has a smooth balance of strenghs and overall a fun amp
combination to listen to over time with insane power and doesn’t cost a fortune to operate

 

[dab]

I just added a Carver m 4.0t into 3.7i maggies. Had an NAD 2400. The higher power seems to control everything better.

 

[seifreit]

I've run the infamous Infinity RS 9 Kappas (sub 1 ohm dip at 37hz) with a single Sunfire 300 and it never even got warm.

 

[GNWT1]

I have been using carver 1.5 t for many years to drive me Acoustats with full sound stage and clean sound. About 15 years ago I started to use macintosh mc600 and then 12 years ago went to the Sunfire signature grands 5 channel 405 watt per channel and never have had a second thought and enjoy the clean neutral wide sound stage with a pair of 1 ohm scintillas where the amps never broke a sweat. I have been using the Sunfires with my Spectra 6600 2 plus 2 etc and the second Sunfire with a pair of Soundlab A1 PX.

 

[planet10]

We used one of the original Carver cubes to drive Magnepan’s. Rated at 200w it audiably clipped into the quite resistive load, sooner than the 20w NAD 3020. I think it was the only one we ever sold.

dave

 

[Davey]

Clearly a malfunctioning amplifier. You didn't bother to troubleshoot it and/or send back to Carver???

Dave.

 

[planet10]

No, functioning perfectly fine. It was bench tested.

Just shows how important the nature of an amplifiers clipping is.

dave

 

[Davey]

You understood how those amplifiers worked, yes? The two channels being opposite polarity, and all the other idiosyncrasies of that design???

Dave.

 

[mcspack]

I Used a M400t cube Carver amp for 15 years to drive my old Dahlquist DQ-10s. Worked fine. I do think the combo had a slightly smaller sound stage than normal, yet very 3D and accurate.

 

[chuckw]

I use a Sunfire 300 on Acoustat 1+1 electrostats. It barely gets warm after listening for hours. The dynamic range is better than my Hafler 9505. The Hafler is smoother sounding, but the Sunfire is more revealing of detail.

 

[planet10]

I not sure of the genererations of the Carver Cube, but the first generation was a disataer on Accoustats, Hafkler wasn’t any good either.

dave

 

[chuckw]

I owned a Carver Cube 400a for a couple of years. This was the 'A' version so I assume a lot of the issues with the first version were fixed. I experimented and drove PA cabinets with it, it didn't compete with a Crown DC300 we had but it got loud on midrange cabinets, never tried it at a gig though. A friend has a Hafler DH500, it always struggled with his Acoustat 1+1 electrostatics. I loaned him my Hafler 9505 and he didn't want to give it back.

 

[mcspack]

The M400t cube was much again improved over the 400a. Used one to drive a pair of DQ-10s for 15 years.