[upstateguy]

We all site the Carver Challenge..... 
 
If anyone is interested in actually hearing Bob Carver explain how the Challenge went down, how Sonic Holography works, why headphones have a flat sound field, how he started out with sub woofers, magnetic field amplifiers, and a bunch of other things, I bumped into this youtube interview from 2010.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ9USqpclWc

 

[watchnerd]

  We all site the Carver Challenge..... 
 
If anyone is interested in actually hearing Bob Carver explain how the Challenge went down, how Sonic Holography works, why headphones have a flat sound field, how he started out with sub woofers, magnetic field amplifiers, and a bunch of other things, I bumped into this youtube interview from 2010.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ9USqpclWc

 
That's old school.
 
These days there are multiple DAW plugins that can be used to emulate various types of tube gear, either at playback or to encode into the mix.
 

 

 

 

 

[upstateguy]

 

  We all site the Carver Challenge..... 
 
If anyone is interested in actually hearing Bob Carver explain how the Challenge went down, how Sonic Holography works, why headphones have a flat sound field, how he started out with sub woofers, magnetic field amplifiers, and a bunch of other things, I bumped into this youtube interview from 2010.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ9USqpclWc

 
That's old school.
 
These days there are multiple DAW plugins that can be used to emulate various types of tube gear, either at playback or to encode into the mix.
 
<snip>

 
Btw, that's not how he did it.  Aren't you curious about the Carver Challenge?
 
Btw, have you ever listened to Bob Carver?  Think he might have some insights into things you never thought of?
 
I'll bet you have no idea how Sonic Holography works or why the sound field in 2 channel stereo collapses to a flat  band between the two speakers.
 
Why don't you give it a shot?
 

 

[watchnerd]

   
Btw, that's not how he did it.  Aren't you curious about the Carver Challenge?
 
Btw, have you ever listened to Bob Carver?  Think he might have some insights into things you never thought of?
 
I'll bet you have no idea how Sonic Holography works or why the sound field in 2 channel stereo collapses to a flat  band between the two speakers.
 
Why don't you give it a shot?
 

 
Dude...
 
It's the same stuff Bob Carver was saying the late early 90's when I was in college.  I'm well familiar with how he did it.  Transfer function modification of amps has been around for decades.

 

[watchnerd]

Also, regarding Sonic Holography:
 
Yes, you can manipulate stereo signals to effect imaging.  Cross-talk reduction / cancellation (which is all "Sonic Holography" is) is one way of doing so.  You can also muck around with phase.
 
But it's a gimmick (it also sounds pretty fake to my ears) and, more importantly, the role of an amp isn't to play games with the signal.  The role of an amp is to amplify a signal as transparently as possible.

 

[upstateguy]

  Also, regarding Sonic Holography:
 
Yes, you can manipulate stereo signals to effect imaging.  Cross-talk reduction / cancellation (which is all "Sonic Holography" is) is one way of doing so.  You can also muck around with phase.
 
But it's a gimmick (it also sounds pretty fake to my ears) and, more importantly, the role of an amp isn't to play games with the signal.  The role of an amp is to amplify a signal as transparently as possible.

 
I agree with you completely.

 

   
Btw, that's not how he did it.  Aren't you curious about the Carver Challenge?
 
Btw, have you ever listened to Bob Carver?  Think he might have some insights into things you never thought of?
 
I'll bet you have no idea how Sonic Holography works or why the sound field in 2 channel stereo collapses to a flat  band between the two speakers.
 
Why don't you give it a shot?
 

 
Dude...
 
It's the same stuff Bob Carver was saying the late early 90's when I was in college.  I'm well familiar with how he did it.  Transfer function modification of amps has been around for decades.

 
 I found it interesting to listen to Carver and get a window into his thought process.   Thought you might be interested too.  Didn't mean anything more than that.

 

[watchnerd]

   
I agree with you completely.
 
 I found it interesting to listen to Carver and get a window into his thought process.   Thought you might be interested too.  Didn't mean anything more than that.

 
I find Bob Carver than man more interesting, in an eccentric way, than his engineering.  
 
Carver was a clever engineer (but not even close to being a revolutionary inventor), but his marketing brand seemed to be tied into "look at these amazing things Bob Carver has made" in a way that had a weird PT Barnum / huckster vibe about it.  It always seemed like being famous as a smart guy was more important to him than anything else in his business.
 
An example:
 
The idea that amps can have a transfer function and that it would effect the sound of the amp had been known since at least the 1960s, if not earlier.  Carver sort of acted like he had invented the concept.  He hadn't. What he did do was realize its potential as a massive publicity stunt.
 
What was tragi-comic about Carver was how it all backfired:
 
1. He chose to antagonize the audio review press, expose their lack of engineering knowledge (they're not highly technical now, but they have a few guys like Robert Hartley who aren't bad), and generally make them look stupid.  Not exactly a smart business decision in a pre-Internet / pre-peer review age to anger a bunch of guys who can make or break your business (which they did).  All just to prove he was smarter?
 
2. Ignore the fact that selling a mid-fi amp that "sounds like a Mark Levinson/Conrad Johnson" is pretty cheesy branding, not far removed from an imitation Rolex sales pitch.
 
3. Ignore the fact that even if you duplicate the transfer function of the Mark Levinson amps, you're not duplicating their beefy performance.
 
4. The  net result: by 1988, Carver Corporation had a decline of $5 million in revenue compared to prior years and was operating at a $1 million loss.
 
I think Carver wanted to be the next Howard Hughes - widely regarded as technically brilliant, rich, and famous in his prime (before Hughes went crazy).
 
In the end, he really only succeeded in being famous.

 

[spruce music]

   
I find Bob Carver than man more interesting, in an eccentric way, than his engineering.  
 
Carver was a clever engineer (but not even close to being a revolutionary inventor), but his marketing brand seemed to be tied into "look at these amazing things Bob Carver has made" in a way that had a weird PT Barnum / huckster vibe about it.  It always seemed like being famous as a smart guy was more important to him than anything else in his business.
 
An example:
 
The idea that amps can have a transfer function and that it would effect the sound of the amp had been known since at least the 1960s, if not earlier.  Carver sort of acted like he had invented the concept.  He hadn't. What he did do was realize its potential as a massive publicity stunt.
 
What was tragi-comic about Carver was how it all backfired:
 
1. He chose to antagonize the audio review press, expose their lack of engineering knowledge (they're not highly technical now, but they have a few guys like Robert Hartley who aren't bad), and generally make them look stupid.  Not exactly a smart business decision in a pre-Internet / pre-peer review age to anger a bunch of guys who can make or break your business (which they did).  All just to prove he was smarter?
 
2. Ignore the fact that selling a mid-fi amp that "sounds like a Mark Levinson/Conrad Johnson" is pretty cheesy branding, not far removed from an imitation Rolex sales pitch.
 
3. Ignore the fact that even if you duplicate the transfer function of the Mark Levinson amps, you're not duplicating their beefy performance.
 
4. The  net result: by 1988, Carver Corporation had a decline of $5 million in revenue compared to prior years and was operating at a $1 million loss.
 
I think Carver wanted to be the next Howard Hughes - widely regarded as technically brilliant, rich, and famous in his prime (before Hughes went crazy).
 
In the end, he really only succeeded in being famous.

 
Actually I think the Levinson that Carver mimmicked was one his amp could match the beefy performance of in fact.  If your mimmicking amp doesn't have better specs or put another way a larger performance envelope than the target gear then it will fall short of emulating the sound.
 
I agree that at a minimum Carver was using this as PR, and that it backfired though perhaps not for the reasons you have written.
 
Carver believed if he could show his lower priced equipment could equal sound of the boutique expensive brands people would rejoice and purchase his gear.  He didn't count on how biased people are by the boutique aspect, and will not believe anything other than hand built esoteric equipment can possibly sound great.  Nor will they believe that carefully colored equipment can sound subjectively better than truly transparent gear.  Carver was simply showing his gear was transparent and if you preferred he could color it to your desires.  We still have all the same things in the marketplace today and you can't knock it out of people's head because they want to believe so badly. 
 
One beautiful example is the relatively vigorous niche of analog LP lovers who also eschew any digital process like the plague.  You can record an LP carefully and when done sighted they always opine the digital copy suffers from digititis.  Make that recording, play it while a TT spins a platter they believe they are listening to while you in fact play the digital recording and all is bliss.  When the gig is up and you reveal your subterfuge it does not make a difference.  Excuses are always made not to endanger the belief in the primacy of analog.

 

[watchnerd]

Yeah, he didn't really understand that luxury good / exclusivity / snob appeal was a core part high end sales.

 

[upstateguy]

 

   
I agree with you completely.
 
 I found it interesting to listen to Carver and get a window into his thought process.   Thought you might be interested too.  Didn't mean anything more than that.

 
I find Bob Carver than man more interesting, in an eccentric way, than his engineering.  
 
Carver was a clever engineer (but not even close to being a revolutionary inventor), but his marketing brand seemed to be tied into "look at these amazing things Bob Carver has made" in a way that had a weird PT Barnum / huckster vibe about it.  It always seemed like being famous as a smart guy was more important to him than anything else in his business.
 
An example:
 
The idea that amps can have a transfer function and that it would effect the sound of the amp had been known since at least the 1960s, if not earlier.  Carver sort of acted like he had invented the concept.  He hadn't. What he did do was realize its potential as a massive publicity stunt.
 
What was tragi-comic about Carver was how it all backfired:
 
1. He chose to antagonize the audio review press, expose their lack of engineering knowledge (they're not highly technical now, but they have a few guys like Robert Hartley who aren't bad), and generally make them look stupid.  Not exactly a smart business decision in a pre-Internet / pre-peer review age to anger a bunch of guys who can make or break your business (which they did).  All just to prove he was smarter?
 
2. Ignore the fact that selling a mid-fi amp that "sounds like a Mark Levinson/Conrad Johnson" is pretty cheesy branding, not far removed from an imitation Rolex sales pitch.
 
3. Ignore the fact that even if you duplicate the transfer function of the Mark Levinson amps, you're not duplicating their beefy performance.
 
4. The  net result: by 1988, Carver Corporation had a decline of $5 million in revenue compared to prior years and was operating at a $1 million loss.
 
I think Carver wanted to be the next Howard Hughes - widely regarded as technically brilliant, rich, and famous in his prime (before Hughes went crazy).
 
In the end, he really only succeeded in being famous.

 
I think you're being a little too hard on Carver. 
 
It's easy to criticize him, but 30 years later, we're still talking about the "Carver Challenge" and  the amps he produced that came out of the challenge.
 
But yeah you're right, it's not a profitable endeavor to fight the establishment.
 
nwavguy antagonized the establishment  in a similar way, and with similar results, and left us with the O2 amp and DAC.
 
But who are we to judge them?

 

[watchnerd]

 
It's easy to criticize him, but 30 years later, we're still talking about the "Carver Challenge" and  the amps he produced that came out of the challenge.

 
Nah, we're not talking about the amps at all, actually.
 
We're spending more time talking about the PR stunt and the tragic impact it had.

 

[swspiers]

Regardless, Carver is one of my idols. Thanks for posting this!

 

[watchnerd]

Reagardless, Carver is one of my idols. Thanks for posting this!

 
Curious: why is he one of your idols?

 

[swspiers]

Reagardless, Carver is one of my idols. Thanks for posting this!

Curious: why is he one of your idols?

Regardless of the debates over his science or the PR tactics, his gear has consistently been some of the best I have ever heard. I bought a used TGP 5 about 3 months ago, and the difference in my system vs. the emotiva UMC-200 I had was so startling, so engaging that I still haven't gotten over it.

His CRM-2 speakers still remain in my memory as one of the best experiences I have ever had in audio. I didn't buy them at the time, and instead went with Ohm Walsh speakers, which are omni-directional.

In any case, I don't care about his persona or the perception of him. His gear has given me immense enjoyment so far. The Carver Challenge did as well: that was a fun time!

 

[upstateguy]

 

 
It's easy to criticize him, but 30 years later, we're still talking about the "Carver Challenge" and  the amps he produced that came out of the challenge.

 
Nah, we're not talking about the amps at all, actually.
 
We're spending more time talking about the PR stunt and the tragic impact it had.

 
Why are you so down on Bob Carver?