Carver pm 1.5 for sl3s

[ck102020]

Hello everyone!

I understand there is a post meant to help guide people on amps and I’ve read through it. However I am quite inexperienced when it comes to powering electrostatic speakers and want to learn in more detail from any answers I receiver from this post. I currently am powering my SL3s with an emotiva bass xa2. It puts out 250 watts at 4ohms. Through reading and posting on this site is has lead me to believe my emotiva isn’t cutting it and it may be damaging my speakers. What is your opinion? I’m now leaning towards upgrading to a carver or sunfire amp. I am in college so I do not have thousands to spend on amps. I ran across a carver pm 1.5 locally for a nice price. What type of amp do you recommend I go for with a tighter budget? I have no interest in bi-amping as it would add to the cost of my system. My goal is to get the most out of my speakers for the lowest price possible without damaging my speakers. I want to keep my system simple. Any guidance would be really appreciated.

 

[Robert D]

This amp is being used by some of us on our electrostats. I'm using one on my Focus center channel and it's great. Someone else is using it for all three front speakers. It manages well with low impedance. If you want to buy new and get a warranty, I think this is a great option. It does appear now however that the amp is not available, but I'd call and get more information.
https://emotiva.com/products/hc-1
For my Prodigy speakers I use an Aragon two channel amp, and it does great. I bought it new, but maybe you can find one used.

Carver made great gear, but I can't lend any advice about that amp. The only Carver I ever owned was a subwoofer.

 

[ck102020]

This amp is being used by some of us on our electrostats. I'm using one on my Focus center channel and it's great. Someone else is using it for all three front speakers. It manages well with low impedance. If you want to buy new and get a warranty, I think this is a great option. It does appear now however that the amp is not available, but I'd call and get more information.
https://emotiva.com/products/hc-1
For my Prodigy speakers I use an Aragon two channel amp, and it does great. I bought it new, but maybe you can find one used.

Carver made great gear, but I can't lend any advice about that amp. The only Carver I ever owned was a subwoofer.

Do you think the bass xa2 isn’t safe to use with the sl3s? The a2 and hc1 are both recommended 4 ohm minimum.

 

[ttocs]

Do you think the bass xa2 isn’t safe to use with the sl3s? The a2 and hc1 are both recommended 4 ohm minimum.

I have experience with BasX amps, I still use one of them for my Surrounds/ATMOS channels. I also have an HC-1 amp for my Center channel. I tried a pair of HC-1 amps for my 13A speakers and they worked very well, but since they weren't better than the Krell amp I had at the time I kept the Krell in use for the 13A speakers.

With that being said, the BasX amps are just not as good as the HC-1 for ML speakers. They rolloff the upper end of the frequency spectrum, and I doubt they would last very long if used daily with our speakers.

If the HC-1 is sold out at the moment, it'll be in stock again soon.

edit: Regarding the BasX amps with ML speakers,

Yes, ML says their speakers are 4ohm compatible, but that’s simply not accurate. These speakers can go below 1ohm which is a situation that many amps like the BasX series just can’t cope with for very long at very much volume levels.

In an example I’ve shown, when the frequency approaches 7kHz is when the impedance drops to the point of being difficult for amps like the BasX series. There’s a lot of sounds in music between 7-10kHz. So it’ll be a balancing act of how much volume level you expect.

For fun this coming weekend I’ll test my BasX A-800 amp with the 13A. But I can’t push too much because it’s out of warranty and I don’t have its replacement till Emotiva releases some new amps they said would be coming towards the end of this year.

 

[upshift]

I have a pair of ESL Xs, using a pair of refurbished Carver Silver7ts to drive them with a new Icon Audio LA4 MKIII preamp driving those. The best thing I can say of the amps are I don't notice them. They appear transparent, which to me is a high complement, the clarity is fantastic. I'm in nirvana for now, I am considering upgrading to 11a or 13a.

 

[Robert D]

Do you think the bass xa2 isn’t safe to use with the sl3s? The a2 and hc1 are both recommended 4 ohm minimum.

It's probably not going to damage the speakers as long as you don't turn the volume way up to where the amp starts clipping. If you have it loud and hear distortion, then that's bad.
Like ttocs said, the amp you're using isn't going to produce great full range sound on your speakers. You're probably safe using it until you find something that sounds better. The improvement should be noticeable once you upgrade. I mentioned the Emotiva hc-1 because it's good on a budget, and it does really good on my ML focus center channel which has a panel in it.
Personally, I'm paranoid and don't like buying used stuff if I can help it. Two HC-1 amps will be about $2000 with tax I think, and that's a great price for that quality. They are actually built in the USA. The basx I think is built in China. Big difference in build quality between the two.
Prices on audio equipment have gone way up, like everything else especially that last few years. The Aragon amp I bought about 8 years ago was $4200 new and now costs $14,000. The Emotiva HC-1 is an unusually good value IMO.

 

[Robert D]

I have a pair of ESL Xs, using a pair of refurbished Carver Silver7ts to drive them with a new Icon Audio LA4 MKIII preamp driving those. The best thing I can say of the amps are I don't notice them. They appear transparent, which to me is a high complement, the clarity is fantastic. I'm in nirvana for now, I am considering upgrading to 11a or 13a.

Does Carver still service their equipment? A long time ago something went out on my Carver Sunfire subwoofer and I sent it to them to refurbish. The cost was about 1/3 of what I paid for the sub and they replaced everything in the sub. I was very happy with Carver. Because of the refurbishment, that sub lasted me longer than any other.
If they'll still fix their amps, that would be an incredible value.

 

[ck102020]

I have experience with BasX amps, I still use one of them for my Surrounds/ATMOS channels. I also have an HC-1 amp for my Center channel. I tried a pair of HC-1 amps for my 13A speakers and they worked very well, but since they weren't better than the Krell amp I had at the time I kept the Krell in use for the 13A speakers.

With that being said, the BasX amps are just not as good as the HC-1 for ML speakers. They rolloff the upper end of the frequency spectrum, and I doubt they would last very long if used daily with our speakers.

If the HC-1 is sold out at the moment, it'll be in stock again soon.

I was wanting to stay away from mono block amps to keep my system as simple as possible. I understand it’s a good sign if manufacturers state that wattage is doubled from 8 ohms to 4 ohms. However, when looking at used amps, especially the carver and sunfire ones, I can’t seem to find any info on if they can handle 4 ohms, 2 ohms, or 1. What’s a good way to tell if these used amps are capable for electrostatic speakers?

 

[upshift]

Does Carver still service their equipment? A long time ago something went out on my Carver Sunfire subwoofer and I sent it to them to refurbish. The cost was about 1/3 of what I paid for the sub and they replaced everything in the sub. I was very happy with Carver. Because of the refurbishment, that sub lasted me longer than any other.
If they'll still fix their amps, that would be an incredible value.

This was a couple of years ago, the Bob Carve Site referred me to Deltronics for the refurb. They did a great job at a reasonable price.

 

[Nuri58]

If you lean on ML's own pieces of advice you will have no issues. If the amp is not too old it will have circuitry that cuts it off before you damage the speakers. I myself am using bridged amp (only 8 Ohm rating for bridged mode) and have done so for +4 y without any issues. Mind you the panels impedance only drops to these low levels for the higher frequencies where the wattage is low, hence not drawing a lot of power. If you hear any sign of distortion then you're playing too loud. But do read MLs site about impedance (I do trust they are if any on top of this and would not risk be giving false advice here).

 

[Robert D]

I was wanting to stay away from mono block amps to keep my system as simple as possible. I understand it’s a good sign if manufacturers state that wattage is doubled from 8 ohms to 4 ohms. However, when looking at used amps, especially the carver and sunfire ones, I can’t seem to find any info on if they can handle 4 ohms, 2 ohms, or 1. What’s a good way to tell if these used amps are capable for electrostatic speakers?

I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one member on here saying they use(d) Carver/Sunfire amps.

Looks like they're still in business, perhaps try calling or emailing them with your questions.
https://sunfire.com/index.html

 

[ck102020]

I'm pretty sure I've seen at least one member on here saying they use(d) Carver/Sunfire amps.

Looks like they're still in business, perhaps try calling or emailing them with your questions.
https://sunfire.com/index.html

I am going to contact the carver website about this particular amp to see if it is capable and safe to run with electrostatics. The carver amps seem to come at a more reasonable price compared to the sunfires. I just want to ensure whatever vintage amp I choose that it will be stable at low impedances.

 

[Jazzman53]

It's a good idea to check the CarverSite Forum for opinions.

Ive never owned a Carver 1.5 but I drove my old hybrid perf metal stats (which were a bit larger than SL3's) for years with a Carver TFM-25 (225W/Ch) without issues.

BTW; the ESL impedance is frequency dependent and would only fall to rated minimum (1.5 Ohms) at 20kHz. In real life music playback the impedance would typically be much higher. In fact; I think you would have to feed in a 20kHz test tone before the amp would see such low impedance.

The Carver 1.5 has significantly more headroom than my TFM-25 so I'm thinking it wouldn't have a problem driving your stats.

 

[wallacefl]

I used a Carver PM 1.5 for my CLSZ2 for years with good result. I substituted a Sunfire Signature which I did not like and ultimately replaced it with a Bryston. The Carver had a really balanced presentation not unlike the Bryston. The Sunfire was just too syrupy for me on either output choice but for people who like tubes it would likely be a great option.

 

[ck102020]

I used a Carver PM 1.5 for my CLSZ2 for years with good result. I substituted a Sunfire Signature which I did not like and ultimately replaced it with a Bryston. The Carver had a really balanced presentation not unlike the Bryston. The Sunfire was just too syrupy for me on either output choice but for people who like tubes it would likely be a great option.

Good to hear. Question for you, how do I know for certain if the pm1.5 can do 1 ohm or lower? I tried finding info online and was unsuccessful. Also the carver forum site didn’t allow me to sign up. My emotiva sounds good with my electrostatics but is not capable below 4 ohms. New panels are in the future for my sl3s and want to avoid damaging the new ones. I’ve found online that most of the sunfires are stable at 1 ohm and lower, but not many carver amps. Would like to hear any input you have on this. Thanks for the response !!

 

[Nuri58]

I think you may rephrase "not capable" to not rated. Not capable it would shot down.

 

[Russr]

I've been using various iterations of he Bryston 4B-ST for my SL3's for about 20 years. They're solid as all heck. They originally come with 20 year warranty, tho' most 4B-STs on the second hand market are well past that. You can find them on numerous auction sites (along with the rebadged Lexicon NT-225) for less than $1,000. If you ever DO need to have them serviced/recapped, Bryston offers than service (not free/cheap, but you basically have a new amp afterwards). 4B-SST's are newer and the 4B3 (cubed) amps are current models, and pricey as hell!