Carver mk II series audio amplifiers

So the tops and bottoms are off all those amps?....

Yes, the top and bottom lids are removed. Now I have a pile of lids to store ;(

Just a post for a link inside the message (instead of my sig) so google analytics will count Carveraudio.com as a refferal.....

http://carvermk2.com

Cool

New to the site; a Forum......get to the forum through the 'contacts' tab

http://carvermk2.com

They are naked inside, and the entire cabinet serves as the 'chassis'. Three intake fans on the bottom and three exhaust fans on top, activated by thermistor.

Aha. I wondered about that when I saw your avatar. I had just a single pair of M-500ts stacked on top of each other for about 15 years, and I wonder whether the eventual problems which caused me to retire them were due to them 'baking' in their own thermal chimney for so long.

I bet your setup works very well! (And I'm jealous of your stack o' 500ts!)

Any plans/possibilities of performing your "Mk II" treatment on a 4.0?

Chuck

They are naked inside, and the entire cabinet serves as the 'chassis'. Three intake fans on the bottom and three exhaust fans on top, activated by thermistor.

Aha. I wondered about that when I saw your avatar. I had just a single pair of M-500ts stacked on top of each other for about 15 years, and I wonder whether the eventual problems which caused me to retire them were due to them 'baking' in their own thermal chimney for so long.

I bet your setup works very well! (And I'm jealous of your stack o' 500ts!)

Any plans/possibilities of performing your "Mk II" treatment on a 4.0?

Chuck

The 4.0 layout uses hard to work on vertical circuit boards instead of the nice, open layout of the M-1.0t, so there will be no mk II project from ME dealing with a 4.0

Now that saddens me.

Rich,
Are you running these things as mono amps or stereo? I know you've said in past threads that it takes away from the low end to bridge the amps. Can you run them off of one channel or the other as a mono amp and use their power sharing as extra headroom or what is the best way to do this? Also is there much of a sonic difference between these two amps? I have never been able to detect much of a sonic difference between any Carver amp. And I have listened to Sunfire amps alongside Mcintosh ones and there is not much difference either. They both have a relaxed and smooth sound. Rolland of Carver Repair has stated that he always preferred the sound of the M1.0 over all other carver products but I have never heard the 1.0. Any thoughts...

Rich,
Are you running these things as mono amps or stereo? I know you've said in past threads that it takes away from the low end to bridge the amps. Can you run them off of one channel or the other as a mono amp and use their power sharing as extra headroom or what is the best way to do this? Also is there much of a sonic difference between these two amps? I have never been able to detect much of a sonic difference between any Carver amp. And I have listened to Sunfire amps alongside Mcintosh ones and there is not much difference either. They both have a relaxed and smooth sound. Rolland of Carver Repair has stated that he always preferred the sound of the M1.0 over all other carver products but I have never heard the 1.0. Any thoughts...

I'm not very big on monoblocking a stereo amp; to me the low end gets mushy. Un my rig all the amps are running stereo (even the center channel, although I'm only using one channel of it).

IME, the best way to use a stereo amp for a single channel is as you said, run only one channel to one speaker; the amp will borrow unused curent from the common capacitor pool. It won't SPEC as high with a steady test tone, but it will throw every bit of dynamic current through the load, which is what music is anyway.

Everon'e s ears are different, but the M-500t and M-1.0t are my two favorite Carver amps.