Carver M400

[Eric at Svetlana Electron Devices]

This Challis guy sounds just like the American equivalent: the great and
holy STEREO REVIEW magazine. Never saw a piece of Japanese junk they
didn't like, so long as it has lots of flashing lights on it.

And that's another thing about the M400: it's noisy! I mean, REALLY noisy.
Switching noise ends up in the signal output due to the small filter caps
in the power supply. And you can't put bigger caps in---people have tried, and
they have been rewarded with destruction and flames. :)


At 09:37 AM 10/16/97 +0930, you wrote:
>Y-ellow Y'all.
>        Whilst looking for something entirely different I happened to run
>across a review of the Carver M400 magnetic field power amplifier. I don't
>wish to type out the entire article but needless to say, in hind sight I was
>tempted to roll on the floor laughing.
>
>The review was in the november 1981 issue of ETI. The Australian version and
>was reviewed by Louis Challis who was at the time, a very respected audio
>research company. Reviews by Louis Challis were always considered gospel but
>I always found them a bit crap. It seemed to me that they toadied to the
>highest bidder and it looks as though I was right.
>
>In summery it reads.
>The M400 amplifier has a potency out of all proportion to it's size, and at
>a recommended retail price of $820 (AUD ED.) is approximately or slightly
>better than other amplifiers in the same performance range, but this
>amplifier is smaller, very much neater and as we found, virtually impossible
>to destroy. The carver amplifier is clever, innovative and very powerful. It
>achieves the majority of the parameters claimed for it, only falling short
>in terms of the `active, or dynamic, signal to noise ratio'.
>
>The article intimates that whilst it's capable of pushing 200 watts, you
>really wouldn't want to do it for long. I wonder why? I also use to wonder
>why I didn't see too many of these guys around in second hand stores. If I
>do see one, don't worry I won't buy it.
>
>Be absolutely ICebox.
> _ __        _                              
>| "_ \      | |         batzman at dove.mtx.net.au / aek at gist.net.au
>| |_)/  __ _| |_ ____           ALL ELECTRIC KITCHEN               
>|  _ \ / _` | __|___ |  The new AEK CD, Elementary Urban sanity    
>| |_) | (_| | |_  / /   is out now on Transmission Communications from
>|_,__/ \__,_|\__|/ /    http://brisbane.dialix.com.au:80/~com11
>                / ,__   and check out http://www2.gist.net.au/~aek/
>Goodfortune    |_____|       Get your SANITY and wear it out.
>
>
>