Sunfire Cinema vs Carver TFM

I currently am considering a Sunfire Cinema Grand amplifier and was wondering how it compares to the Carver TFM series, specifically the TFM 55 and TFM 35.

I'm either going to run 2 TFM 55's to bi-amp my mains and a TFM 35 for my center. So my mains see 760 watts per channel. And my center sees 500 watts. Channels 4-7 will be powered by 2 TFM 35's so 250 watts per channel.

If I setup the Sunfire it would be to bi-amp the mains so they see 800 watts per channel, center and channels 4 and 5 would see 400 watts. Channels 6 and 7 would probably be powered by TFM 55.

My speakers are Definitive Technology
mains: BP7001
center: CLR3000
side surround: BP2000
rear surround: BP7002

70% HT use 30% music

please discuss, thanks

Welcome JBravo. Glad you found us. Which model Sunfire Cinema Grand amplifier do you have. The one I am thinking about is 200 wpc to all five channels driven into @ 8 ohms. That would be 400 to each FRT vs 700 to each from with the TFM.

Welcome to the Forum JBravo! Entgaz mentions the Sunfire 5X200, but the models you might be looking at should be the 7X200 or 7X400 models.

The Sunfires will drive almost any load even under 2 0hms easily and are much more modern power supply technology than the TFMs were; not that the TFMs were not fine amps. The Sunfires also allow you to bi-wire your mains using the current source and voltage source to separate drivers to get the best sound out of your mains. One other advantage of the Sunfire is that it is a 1 box amplification solution instead of 5 TFM amplifiers and the needed extra electrical circuits.

I don't know anything about your specific speakers so I will look into them later tonight and see if I can figure out some other possible scenarios. 1 last thing; are you looking at bi-amping (active or passive, horizontal or vertical) or bi-wiring your speakers?

The Sunfire's also allow you to bi-wire your mains using the current source and voltage source to separate drivers to get the best sound out of your mains. One other advantage of the Sunfire is that it is a 1 box amplification solution instead of 5 TFM amplifiers and the needed extra electrical circuits.

That's what I love about the Sunfire. Current for the upper freq. and voltage for the lower freq.

Good Luck and congrats on some fine amps.

thanks for the replies

I forgot to mention my speakers are 8 ohms.

The sunfire I'm looking at getting, if I go that route, is the 7 x 400
otherwise I will look at getting another tfm 55 as I have 1 already and a few tfm 35's

1 last thing; are you looking at bi-amping (active or passive, horizontal or vertical) or bi-wiring your speakers?

well if I were using the sunfire 7 x 400, I would at least be bi-wiring every channel with the exception of the mains where I would bi-amp to push the wattage up. Given this configuration I could only power 5 channels with the sunfire and would probably use the TFM 55 to power channels 6 & 7.

If using the TFMs, I would bi-amp the mains using 2 TFM 55's
The center I would use one TFM 35 with the right channel running the highs and the left channel running the mids at 250 wpc for a total of 500 watts
The 4-7 channels would get the remaining 2 TFM 35s and would be bi-wired
Now this mention of active or passive, horizontal or vertical I am not familiar with. So please explain.

I'm wondering what type of difference would I hear between the 2 systems. The sunfire is nice since it is only one piece of equipment and I hear that they run nice and cool as opposed to the TFMs which heat up so nice I don't have to run the heater in the winter time. But the sunfire will set me back a chunk of change Everything will be going into a seperate enclosure that will not be seen so that doesn't concern me. Although seeing a nice stack of TFMs with glowing and bouncing needles sure looks nice.

I have a 400 ~ seven and biamp my AL-IIIs using it (they're 4R, so I'm getting 800 watts into both the ribbons and the woofs). I use the remaining channels for the rest of my 5.1 setup (powered sub), like you said — 800W into a 4R center, and 400W apiece into my 8R back speaks. Sounds great.

Active bi-amping = completely bypasses the speakers internal crossovers by using an active crossover unit between the preamp and amplifiers. Requires precise setting of the crossover frequencies and slopes.

Passive bi-amping = uses the speaker's internal crossovers with 1 amplifier channel per pass band

Horizontal bi-amping = uses 1 amplifier for L and R channels for either the low frequencies or for the high frequencies

Vertical bi-amping = uses 1 amp per channel with 1 of its channels per pass band

I do passive-aggressive bi-amping. I left the crossovers intact (albeit separated) in my AL-IIIs (primarily to take care of the ribbon notch), but have an active crossover in front of the amp channels driving them, so the amps are only amplifying the frequencies being reproduced by the speaker/ribbon. If I ever replace my woofers, I might bypass the low-pass filter for them, but I have enough power that I really don't need to. Moreover, I've often wondered about removing crossovers and the phase relationship that might change. I know that crossover designers are very cognizant of phase shifts introduced by the passive components in a crossover, and work very hard to get them the same in both the low and high (and, in three-way or more, band) pass filters. Therefore, removing one part of the crossover w/o removing it entirely might screw things up badly.

it would be passive bi-amping for my setup

You can get a good active crossover for about $100 used. I have a Rane AC-22 that I got for, I think $65 in a Dutch auction on eBay (the guy had a bunch of them that just were replaced in a big concert setup). Works great — the guys that formed Rane all worked at Carver before it went belly up.