[SteveFord]

Last weekend I ended up with three well regarded amplifiers from yesteryear: a Bryston 3B Pro, a Carver TFM-55 and a Hafler XL280.
All amplifiers have recently been refurbished/recapped and the Hafler has some fairly extensive modifications as well (courtesy of AVNerdguy).  He actually did the work on the Bryston as well.
I hooked the amps up to my big system: deHavilland UltraVerve 3 preamp, Magnepan 3.7s, interconnects courtesy of AVNerdguy, Kimber 8TC speaker cables and the source was a Harman Kardon CD player run into a Pacific Audio DAC.  No subwoofer was used.
For the test material, I used Zappa's Apostrophe' as always because it's so well recorded and I know it note for note.
Normally I run VTL 300 deluxe monoblocks so that's my frame of reference.
Going in alphabetical order, the Bryston 3B



ran cool as a cucumber (as always), there was LOTS of detail, the upper registers were great, the midrange was so-so and the bass was anemic. 

The CarverTFM-55



ran cool and sounded well balanced from top to bottom.  Detail was very good and nothing really stood out as being weird - the bass wasn't over emphasized, the midrange was very good as was the treble. 


The Hafler XL280



ran warm (as always), had good detail, great bass, decent midrange and highs but the whole presentation was overshadowed by the bass - the whole presentation was pulled down to the overly warm end of the scale.
Of the three, the Carver was the winner by a fair margin - aside from no real 3D soundstage (which was expected), it did everything right.
The Bryston would be killer if you were biamping and wanted to do the top end or, as I use it, for a center channel.  You can adjust the level and it's clear as a bell.
The Hafler would be the ticket if your system/room was really bright or the way I use it: it drives wall mounted MMGs to counteract the brightness of the Bryston for the center channel. 
If I had to pick just one it would be TFM-55, no contest.

[werd]

Thats what i expected. 

[a.wayne]

Not surprised myself , Carvers are really underrated Amplifiers , Haflers were always soft and woolly sounding to me, Brystons from that 3b/4b generation sterile and unmusical...


Regards

[SteveFord]

It was really interesting to hear Apostrophe' done in 3 really different presentations - the Bryston was all top end and airy with great female vocals, the Hafler was all warm and wooly (as you said) but the Carver sounded like a 2D tube amp. 
I'd be real interested in hearing how the old TFM-55 stacks up against a modern solid state design as I know that time marches on.

[FullRangeMan]

Interesting final result, I surprised.

[MJK]

Does it make sense to try and assess/compare the bass performance of amps using a Magnepan speaker? This is a dipole speaker that is going to be bass challenged and very room placement dependent, this speaker's unique characteristics are going to be a huge influence on the listening impressions. If the bass is fading away, which is an inherent characteristic of a dipole speaker, it upsets the balance between low and high frequency response which will make the amps sound very different then if they were driving a more traditional cone driver in a box speaker. Your conclusions are problably valid in your dipole speaker system but I have to wonder what the results might be in a more common traditional multidriver bass reflex or sealed box speaker system.

[werd]

It was really interesting to hear Apostrophe' done in 3 really different presentations - the Bryston was all top end and airy with great female vocals, the Hafler was all warm and wooly (as you said) but the Carver sounded like a 2D tube amp. 
I'd be real interested in hearing how the old TFM-55 stacks up against a modern solid state design as I know that time marches on.

The Bryston i expect sounds more stiff? They sound stiff now except they got the bass and mids designed into it better.
Those Carver's had decent mids but bass and treble were always lacking.
And the haflers were like a bandaid amp. They control noise in high frequency by the tone. But it loosens the bass and its sounds less stiff compared to the Bryston.

Thats how I read this and I what I expected while  trying to reminiss over those amps. Its interesting how they have evolved. The Bryston has used more color to shape their highs. Thats relatively new in sst/2 amps too.
While the Carver stuff (which ive only read about ) seems to have come out of this (mids only approach) and put out excellent tube amps. 

This is an excellent thread

[nickd]

Nice info,
I have owned the Bryston and the Hafler but never spent any time with the Carver. To me Tone is the most important quality in an amplifier.

Sounds like a nice budget amp and makes me wonder what a system would sound like using the TM-55 with a processor like a BBE or something that expands soundstage might accomplish.

[SteveFord]

I couldn't tell you how they sound with box speakers as the only ones I have are some old JBLs which are in need of some repair and are languishing in the garage.  I don't think they'd be a real good audio magnifying glass, anyway.
I've had really good results with the BBE Sonic Maximizer but it won't play well with all preamps - it worked great with Carver and Sunfire preamps but when I switched over to Sonic Frontiers something went haywire and it drove the speakers crazy.  The mylar was buzzing back and forth like mad so the BBEs were sold off.
I wouldn't describe the old Bryston as stiff, it was more like all upper midrange and high end.  Tina Turner's background vocals were really pronounced as was the sound of the swirling snow on the opening track, everything else was kind of shoved into the background which sounded odd.
This Carver sounded very similar to my VTLs except for the soundstage depth - it wasn't there even with a good tube preamp.
I think it would make for a great summer amp when it's too hot to run a lot of tubes.
We had some discussion about this over on thecarversite and I think the 55 did so well with my speakers as it's more capable of handling low ohm loads than some of the other models from the Carver line.
For instance, I owned an upgraded M500 and an M500(t) and they both sounded rather thin on the Magnepans - not as much as the Bryston but the low end just wasn't there so up for sale they went.
As MJK pointed out, this is just how it sounded on my downstairs system - how it would be with anything else I can't say.
This is just my observations on how 3 older amps worked out for me.

[SteveFord]

One final observation: this TFM-55 really benefits from a sub with my 3.7s.
I recall my old M1.0t Mk.II Opt.2 (quite a mouthful) as having a LOT more bass output but it was a real powerhouse of an amp all around.