The system I used to evaluate the Silver Seven-ts included a VPI HW-19 Jr. turntable with an AudioQuest PT-5 tonearm and Sumiko Boron vdH cartridge, Marantz CD-94 CD player, and an Audio Research SP14 preamplifier. Interconnects were Magnan and Expressive Technologies, both of which made obvious audible improvements in the system. The Silver Seven-ts drove MartinLogan Sequel II loudspeakers and my trusty Vortex Screens through AudioQuest HyperLitz Clear speaker cable. The Martin-Logans were bi-wired, with the woofer polarity reversed to reduce the midbass suckout (…
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Sidebar 2: Measurements
The Carver Silver Seven-t was the most powerful amplifier I have ever measured, exercising my dummy-load resistors to their limits. Maximum power output at clipping (1% THD) was a whopping 608.4W into 8 ohms (27.8dBW), and 878W into 4 ohms (26.4dBW). I could not, however, measure the Silver Seven-t's clipping point into 2 ohms because the amplifier became unstable and oscillated when driven even moderately into this low impedance. An input voltage of 50mV (a very low value) caused the amplifier to oscillate when connected to a 2 ohm load. In addition, a spurious…
J. Gordon Holt, October 1990 (Vol.13 No.10):
Editor's note: In this year's January issue (Vol.13 No.1), Robert Harley reviewed the Carver Silver Seven-t monoblock power amplifier and was not impressed with its sound. Yet just one month earlier, in his December 1989 "Final Word" column, Larry Archibald had reported that the Silver Seven-t had produced a good sound when used to drive the midrange/tweeter panels of the Infinity IRS Beta loudspeaker system. In view of this disparity of opinion, I had appended a footnote to RH's January review—"I feel a 'Followup' is definitely in order"—and…
Sidebar 2: New Measurements
Both in order to ascertain whether the samples of the Silver Seven-t that J. Gordon Holt auditioned were ostensibly the same as when Robert Harley had reviewed them, and to see if there were any measured reasons for this disparity between our writers' opinions, I carried out a set of measurements similar to those that Bob had done to support his original review.
The measurements were performed with Stereophile's Audio Precision System One, using high-power resistive loads built by Robert Harley. The distortion vs frequency graphs were made with the SS-…
Sidebar 4: Specifications
Description: Solid-state monoblock power amplifier. Power output: 575W RMS into 8 ohms (27.6dBW), 900W RMS into 4 ohms (26.5dBW), 1000W into 2 ohms (24dBW), specified from 20–20kHz, both channels driven, with less than 0.5% THD (FTC). Frequency response: 3Hz–60kHz, –3dB. S/N ratio: >100dB, A-weighted into 8 ohms. IM distortion: 0.5%. TIM (transient intermodulation distortion): unmeasurable. Input sensitivity: 2.3V RMS. Power consumption: 1400W at full power.
Dimensions: 11.5" (29.2mm) W by 7" (17.8mm) H by 14.5" (36.8mm) D. Weight: 17 lb.
Price: $2000…
Stereophile’s moment-to-moment coverage of the largest audio show in North America is about to begin.
When the 3-day AXPONA, aka Audio Expo North America, opens this Friday, April 12, in Chicago’s spacious Renaissance Schaumburg Hotel & Convention Center, the team of Editor-in-Chief Jim Austin, Technical Editor John Atkinson, Senior Contributing Editor Herb Reichert, and a lowly Contributing Editor with the initials JVS will be posting reports throughout the day and eve on many of the most exciting and noteworthy displays in the show’s 197 active exhibit rooms.
AXPONA’s…
It's been a long time since we've seen a really new tweeter design. Only five basic types have ever been developed: cones, domes, panels, ribbons, and ionic plasmas. And the most recent of these—the long-defunct DuKane "blue-glow" Ionovac—was introduced 40 years ago. Since then, tweeter development has been more evolutionary than revolutionary, a series of refinements that has made them more efficient, more reliable, and smoother and more extended in response.
After 40 years of evolution, a new species of tweeter has appeared: the Linaeum TLS, which stands for True Line Source. This…
On the other hand, the imaging is extraordinarily stable, largely due to the almost total freedom from picket-fencing. Without the center channel, I detected only five small fluctuation cycles across the entire area between the speakers; with the center channel, I found three, and they were so slight as to be barely perceptible even on pink noise. (Of all the speakers I've reviewed, only the Tannoy lODMTIIs [Spring 1997] were comparable to the Linaeums in this respect.)
Everything stays resolutely where it belongs on the soundstage, including sounds located midway between each pair of…
Sidebar 1: Review System
Equipment used for this review included a Pioneer Elite CLD-99 laserdisc player, Sony DTC-2000ES DAT recorder, Lexicon DC-1 THX surround processor, and three Boulder 102AE power amps.
The video display included a Sony 1252 line-doubled video projector and 84"-wide 16:9 Stewart Ultramatte 150 screen. Software included a handful of recent CDs and blockbuster laserdiscs, a compilation of digitally copied music and soundtrack excerpts on DAT tape, and some stereo LPs of varying vintage.—J. Gordon Holt
Sidebar 3: Specifications
Model 10: Floorstanding two-way, fullrange speaker. Driver complement: 1 Model TLS-1.5 soft-ribbon dipole tweeter; one 8" cone woofer in ducted-port reflex enclosure. Frequency range: 32Hz–20kHz. Sensitivity: 89dB. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms.
Dimensions: 34" x 10" x 15" (HxWxD) Weight: 82 lb each.
Price: $2500/pair, black or maple; $2700/pair, cherry (1997); no longer available (2019).
Center-Channel Speaker: Low-profile horizontal configuration. Driver complement: 1 Model TLS-1.5 soft-ribbon dipole tweeter; two 5.25" cone woofers in sealed…