mag amp audio

[Matthew S. Padden]

Hi..

>
>At 05:03 PM 10/8/97 CST6CDT, you wrote:
>>Carver at one point made an audio hifi amp 
>>that was a mag amp based item.  I believe the one I read about was 
>>about 8x8x6 inches or so and delivered a couple hundred watts.  I 
>>suspect it weighed a lot, but was very effiecient and physically 
>>small per power compared to the tube amps available at that time.  I 
>>think this was circa about 1955 or 1960 or thereabouts.
>>Can anyone elaborate on this?
>
>1955 or 1960???? You poor kid.....
>
>It was called the M-200 "Magnetic Field Power Amplifier".
[..snip..]
>I know more about this than I want to, having repaired many
>M-200s over the years (and having discarded even more, after
>finding that repairing them would be far more expensive than
>buying a new amp). Service technicians consider this product
>one of the great atrocities of the consumer-electronics industry.
>Many thousands were sold, and nearly all of them are in the
>trash at this time.
>
>They WOULD NOT TOLERATE overheating, overvoltage, overcurrent,
>excessive input signals, speaker-coil damage, power-line sags
>or spikes, and virtually any other kind of transient fault
>condition.
[..snip..]
>

Another thing about such switching amps (are these called 'Class G' amps?) 
is that they throw out radio frequency interference like a badly earthed 
Tesla coil. An audio company I worked for a while ago tested some, and 
found they could pick up the interference from a Carver amp from the other 
end of the factory!
	On the plus side, they are amazingly light; a 600W-a-side amp weighs under 
12lbs and is 2U high. I've heard that they don't like doing the bass and 
sub-bass duties in large PAs though; much better on mid and top. I assume 
this is due to heating considerations.
--
Matthew S. Padden
Computer Music Research Group
Room M5/14
Music Dept.
Huddersfield University
Queensgate
Huddersfield
England HD1 3DH
p: +44 1484 422288 x2402
f: +44 1484 472656
e: mattp at mindless.com
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