Carver 20/20 CF Tube Amp/Klipsch Forte/VHF of Pittsburgh

[Magnaryder]

I may have found my HolyGrail.

Each year I go to CarverFest and get totally blown away by the gear Janice and George Daniel bring to the party. This year it was the little Dared pre and some other stuff that I honestly don't remember, but, in years past he brought a little tube rig and some Tyler speaks that blew the roof off. The soundfield was ENORMOUS out beyond both speakers and WAAAY behind them. Treble was clean and uncluttered, mids were smooth. Female voices had a depth to them I didn't remember hearing in my rig. Snare hits carried weight and the bass was extended for a 'bookshelf' speaker. Count me way impressed.

Jesse(F1nut) preaches system synergy and I have to admit there's something to it, and 'that' is intuitive. You can buy it but it's some other individuals idea of what sounds right to THEM, or you can go out listen and try to find it yourself. Some can show you the way but it's up to you to follow the path. The BobFather started me on my journey long before I met him. He was the means to feed my need to hear TheGrail. My 1st Carver rig had most of the merits of a fine rig but became really a good listen when I installed the AN-9 silver LS cables. Lightstar took me there in a laser-flat-FR-to-the-basement kinda way. Georges' systems have this in spades and I want/need/lust after it in the worst way.

In come the CarverFest 20s and the Klipsch Fortes.

At Fest12 MBSKEAM modded my little 20s, lowering plate voltage and installing a soft-start. The lower voltage allows me to roll a broader range of tubes. Angelo burned them in for a good long while and Mr Daniel provided(sold) some very nice EL84s for my cause. We rolled alot of different tubes in the amps and gave them a listen. Each had a very different flavor. I was surprised, rolling tubes in my C-19 and 490t didn't achieve those kind of results. I'm currently running the EL84s I got from George.

The little 20s ROCK!!! I'm running them to pair of Klipsch Fortes and the system sounds great. I bought the Fortes on my last trip to Vintage HiFi of Pittsburgh. Tom has been making repairs on some of my gear and when I stopped in I saw the Klipsch's and a deal was struck. I got my 'new' speakers home and got them in the rig after I installed the C-11 Ton lent me while some other gear is getting repaired. All I can say is WOW These pieces were meant for each other.

I've listened to more music in the last week than I have in a really long time. The Fortes image well and with a little time taken in the set up have a very nice soundfield. These speakers allowed me place each of the Eagles across the stage while they were singing in harmony, something I hadn't noticed before or have forgotten I had. The Boss was up front and in my face during 10th Avenue Freezeout. Faith was right there singing to me, I could almost smell her perfume, opps wrong forum. I could place each of the Beatles in 'I am the Walrus'. Eddie's guitar wails on 'Running with the Devil' and 'Ain't talkin' 'bout Love' and Gary Hoey absolutely shredded 'Frankenstein'

I 'did' notice what appeared to be some treble roll-off at lower volume levels, but it could be my hearing. It was not an issue at more moderate listening levels.

Now I've heard the Fortes don't have bass...neither do Eddies Ohm 200s,,,bwahahaha....(guess you had to be there) I keep looking to see if my sub is on...oh wait it can't be, the amp is in Pittsburgh. The bass is not muddy, bloated or one noted it's just there and what seems to me to be correct (or at least how i like it, right or wrong). I LIKE these speakers, the 20s and the C-11. What a great little rig. Now all I need is a couple (4 or 5) of sets of CarverAudio interconnects and I'll be set.

ray

Got the 20s? Get your ass to a Klipsch dealer(or Tom's, whichever is closer). You might just love 'em.
Magnaryder

[Magnaryder]

Tonight Sherry and I sat down and gave a listen to some vintage vinyl on an old Technics SL-B92 TT. I had a problem earlier in the week with one of my CF amps being terribly microphonic. I found that all of my RCAs had worked their way loose. Tightened them up...no more problems. Cool. Let's do some listening.

 We dug through a pile of LPs she bought me for my birthday several years ago. I found a copy of Neil Young and Crazy Horse's 'Rust Never Sleeps', Van Halen's '5150' and 'Balance', Pink Floyd's 'Final Cut' and the Eagle's first album, Journey's 'Departure' and 'Raised on Radio' and a nice copy of Elton's 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road'.

 Several things became readily apparent, QC in the last days of analogue was worse than poor. As Radio Engineer 2(Mark) was expounding upon at CF12, not all recordings are created equal. Whereas the Eagles had great imaging and soundfield, this record was recorded very well. Raised on Radio was flat and compressed. The Van Halen was actually pretty good...much better than I expected. Rust Never Sleeps was pretty typical fair from 'live' albums of the day. I rediscovered my copy of Grand Funk Railroad's 'Phoenix' and 'On Time' and fondly remembered why these guys were my favorite band growing up.

I have something called a 'Direct Metal Master' of the Crue's 'Girls, Girls, Girls. This is a really good record...even if you don't like Motley Crue. The soundstage is broad and deep and the imaging is very good. Not what you expect from Heavy Metal. Vince isn't surrounded with that usual halo, he's in your face. Tommy's kit is really well recorded, you can feel the kick drums in your chest and this is probably the best rock recording of snare hits I've heard in a while.On 'Wildside' Nikki Sixx is plainly off to Vince's right and Mick Mars. Tommy's drumming is back a ways behind Vince, and that drum kit sounds huge.

I wonder what this rig will sound like with a decent TT?

ray

[tinpan]

I think you would enjoy a turntable on this rig and I think it would sound great. Those Carverfest amps pack a great sound and a lot of power for an efficient speaker like the Klipsch. I have the smaller cousin to the Forte's, the KG4s. They grew up living on a Phase Linear 400. I like the 2 way design and the fact that they would play louder than I needed.

A couple years ago I put them on a Sophia Baby tube amp and was stunned how nice they sound. The tube amp gave them a warmth I hadn't heard before. They have a bass reflector on the back of the speakers and you can get quite good bass out of them by putting them up against a wall or in a corner. Try moving them around and see what you think.

[wkhanna]

A great read, thanks Ray!
Enjoy the music.

[ajaye]

The one thing I miss about the DJ oriented record stores was having at least some decent listening stations to use before shelling out for wax. Even my local Record & Tape exchange (back in VA) would let me play whatever I dug up on the house system once I got to know them. Especially for the common rock stuff like you mentioned, most used places will have several copies of alot of those, unless all but one are completely rinsed I would have to at least drop through them before I could live with taking any home, or I'll lose sleep wondering about leaving behind the gem. 

Used LP shopping gets even more painful once you get accustomed to newer 12" singles having the A side cut at 45. I'll almost always jump on a single even at 33 of something I already have on LP, assuming I like the track of course.

BTW I have some extra 1200s I'm going to let go of, interested in trades.

[Magnaryder]

Week before last BOTH of my CF amplifiers took a shit. Neither of them would work. f**k f**k f**k me thinks. I called Tom and asked what to try first before I send them to Pittsburgh for repairs. He suggested checking B+ voltages. My amp had been modded by MBSKEAM(thanks Mike!!) lowering the B+ voltages so it would run plain ol' 6BQ5s. I checked along the run of diodes and found nothing...WTF. I looked around and found nothing in the fuse holder. Damn...It was running a minute ago. Replaced fuse and it's up and running. KEWL

The second CF amplifier had lost a channel. Tom suggested taking tubes out of the running amp and substitute the known good tubes and place them in the other amp. Today I thought why do all of that when changing the tubes out of the good channel should work just as well. No Joy...damn. Poking around under the amp I noticed some bad connections. I re-flowed them and gave it another shot. No Joy again. Well this is a pain in the ass. Turned it back over and poked around a little more and found the culprit... A loose positive signal line running from the input jack to the first tag board. Resoldered it, replaced the tubes and still No Joy!!!! WTF!!! I moved the tubes from the other channel in and it works. Hot Damn!! I started replacing the tubes one-by-one and discovered one of little tubes in front had failed. I slapped another one in and I gotz tunes.

I installed a power switch and a bridging switch on the rear panel of the amp that Anders built for me. Both of them work just fine. I'm back in business.

ray 

[Kingman]

Glad to hear you solved the problem Ray! 

[SunnyDaze]

Are you running these with the Fortes?

Glad to hear you got everything back up and running. Losing an amp is a worse feeling than forgetting your cell phone at home.

[Magnaryder]

Are you running these with the Fortes?

Glad to hear you got everything back up and running. Losing an amp is a worse feeling than forgetting your cell phone at home.

I lost a Lightstar Direct pre everal months ago. Its a doorstop. Got a Sunfire Classic Tube Pre in its place. Not the same though.

I'm running them on a set of Alesis Studio Ones. The Fortes are running on a Lightstar 2.0. Doesn't sound bad.

ray

[Magnaryder]

I think you would enjoy a turntable on this rig and I think it would sound great. Those Carverfest amps pack a great sound and a lot of power for an efficient speaker like the Klipsch. I have the smaller cousin to the Forte's, the KG4s. They grew up living on a Phase Linear 400. I like the 2 way design and the fact that they would play louder than I needed.

A couple years ago I put them on a Sophia Baby tube amp and was stunned how nice they sound. The tube amp gave them a warmth I hadn't heard before. They have a bass reflector on the back of the speakers and you can get quite good bass out of them by putting them up against a wall or in a corner. Try moving them around and see what you think.

I acquired an Ariston TT from Tom(OCCD here) this past weekend. After some tweeking it sounds great. Installed a Shure V-15 type III G I bought new in 1976. After playing it alot in the past 2 days it has warmed up alot. IIRC it's been sitting for a decade or so. Sounds great on the CarverFest amp I modded. I'm running a Sunfire Classic Tube Pre in front of the CF amp.

[mbskeam]

I lost a Lightstar Direct pre everal months ago. Its a doorstop. Got a Sunfire Classic Tube Pre in its place. Not the same though.

in what way?

[Magnaryder]

I lost a Lightstar Direct pre everal months ago. Its a doorstop. Got a Sunfire Classic Tube Pre in its place. Not the same though.

in what way?

If I could quantify it I'd say the lower registers lost some 'weight/slam/impact' but since the Lightstar Direct doesn't work I can't say for certain. The Sunfire is NOT the preamp the Lightstar is. That said the Sunfire can be repaired, has a very nice phono stage and it does sound damn good!

ray

[Magnaryder]

I was getting some 60hz hum from the Ariston TT. I 'thought' I had it fixed. Inadvertently I had mover the wall wort to close to the Cardas RCA block. With a little experimentation I found where I get the hum below audibility. I have several other PSUs to try. I wonder if I can install a variable speed control, maybe something pulse count modulated? I have one on my motorcycle that controls the temp of my electrically heated clothes. Hmmm...