ZR1600 test bench results

warnerwh · « **Reply #80 on:** 9 Oct 2003, 01:41 am »

Now does this mean that since you and John Curl tested without the filter that this amp will not put out it's rated power in the real world or does it mean that with the equipment you and JC used you're unable to get an accurate power ouput reading without the filter?

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #81 on:** 9 Oct 2003, 02:17 am »

Good question. The behavior of this amplifier is unique in my experience. The manufacturer says that insertion of the brickwall filter and disregarding the RF oscillation and any flattening of the output waveform (they suggest looking for flattening of the residual distortion waveform), the real power output of the ZR1600 remains a matter of opinion. I will call it a 200W/ch (4 or 8 Ohms) amplifier for now. I may change my opinion later.

kent · « **Reply #82 on:** 9 Oct 2003, 07:32 pm »

Quote from: Jack

No competitive marketing mumbo jumbo or flawed test execution should deter interested parties in pursuing this amazing amplifier. Hearing is believing.

Jack,

Are you Jack Ewer, Director of Sales & Marketing at Carver Professional? I ask because it's helpful for an industry person to give a little bit of identification in their postings (ideally a last name, or at least a job title / company division -- something other than just "jack"). There should also be a link to your corporate website in your profile.

Best wishes.

wongstein · « **Reply #83 on:** 9 Oct 2003, 11:36 pm »

Kudos, Brian - your information and opinions are very valuable to us, particularily in the objective manner by which you present them. Now if only the amp makers would do their part to keep the cable makers honest

I have a lot to learn about electonics, so please consider this a question from a fool: Can anything be learned by testing amps on the bench with your speakers connected (without destroying your speakers)? Obviously this could never be a standardized industry practice, but perhaps VMPS owners (present and future

) would learn something from a comparison of two amps with one of your speakers. And what if you went further to test those same two amps with another kind of speaker?

Anthony

warnerwh · « **Reply #84 on:** 10 Oct 2003, 12:13 am »

wongstein: Possibly something could be learned from what you suggest but why bother. Different amps will sound different with different speakers and the only thing that matters is how the amp sounds with your speakers and your room to you! As long as both amp and speaker are functioning properly it's all left upto you. Both the speaker designer and amp designer have already done their job.

Sean · « **Reply #85 on:** 10 Oct 2003, 08:09 am »

Quote from: Brian Cheney

Good question. The behavior of this amplifier is unique in my experience. The manufacturer says that insertion of the brickwall filter and disregarding the RF oscillation and any flattening of the output waveform (they suggest looking for flattening of the residual distortion waveform), the real power output of the ZR1600 remains a matter of opinion. I will call it a 200W/ch (4 or 8 Ohms) amplifier for now. I may change my opinion later.

This amplifier is NOT EVEN a 200 wpc amp if it is going into oscillation at that point. As such, John was correct in stopping his testing at that point as anything beyond that point was nothing more than "electro-garbage". This is true regardless of how much out of band filtering one applied.

As for this amp NOT meeting spec, what's new about that ? The earlier Sunfire Cinema Grande amps would not meet spec either. With all 5 channels driven simultaneously, it fell short of it's RMS power rating ( 5 x 200 @ 8 & 5 x 400 @ 4 ) according to testing that i've seen. While i know that Sunfire has performed quite a few changes to these amps, especially the "Architectural Series", one has to wonder how closely these "Carver Pro" amps are related to Bob's Sunfire product line ? I also have to wonder if Bob has anything to do with these products at all or if he's simply farming out his name ?

Having said that and before all of these "Carver Pro" fans start jumping all over me, they should know that i currently own a Sunfire Signature, Sunfire 300, Sunfire Cinema Grand, Sunfire Cinema Grand Signature and a Sunfire Theater Grand Mk II. For sake of clarity, the Theater Grand Mk II is feeding the Sunfire Signature to drive my mains on my HT system and the Sunfire Cinema Grand Signature to drive the center, surrounds and two subs in that same system. The Sunfire Signature has had factory upgrades performed to it in order to better deal with the low sensitivity, low impedance speakers that i'm running. I was told that these upgrades are not available for their multi-channel units. The Sunfire Cinema Grand that i own is currently being used by my Father in his combo HT / 2 channel system and my Sunfire 300 is sitting in the box as a spare amp should i need one.

As far as the sonics of the Sunfire amps go, they aren't bad but they lack liquidity, air, separation of notes, blackness of background and bass impact. If you have one of these amps or are thinking about running one, i would HIGHLY recommend taking advantage of their balanced inputs. They really are much better sounding and quieter using this approach. Other than that, having the low impedance mods performed to the big 2 channel amp REALLY helped out the bottom end, but the amp still isn't going to win any contests for "sweetness". What these amps do REALLY well is to present a consistent presentation regardless of how hard you are driving them. While most amps tend to fall apart with complex recordings during high level playback, these amps retain their "composure" even when hammering out massive SPL's. It is almost like they have a never ending lung capacity, regardless of how long or loud of a listening marathon that you are willing to run. For the record, i have sent my Sunfire Signature into thermal overload two different times, so you know i was standing on the throttle HARD !!!

As mentioned above, i know that they have made many upgrades to these amps outside of what i've had done at the factory. The funny thing that i noticed is that many of the areas of performance and design that i questioned Sunfire Technical Support about via phone conversations seems to have been addressed after i brought them up. While their initial responses to my questions and comments were always "that's not necessary" or "you don't understand how this amp works", i've been told that many of the specifics that i've brought to their attention have been "dealt with" via revisions and upgrades in newer production models. While i think that this is great for those looking to buy an amp, i just wish that they would perform these "upgrades" to the amps that their customers already own as requested. After all, i ( and i think most other owners ) would be willing to pay for these upgrades just to bring the amps up to current production standards. As such, i have to wonder how many similarities there are between the Sunfire amps and the Carver Pro amps and if the two "different" companies have similar product support policies.

As a case in point, my original Sunfire Signature ( 600 wpc @ 8 / 1200 wpc @ 4 ) only had two 10,000 uF caps in it. Quite honestly, this is a ridiculously low figure for an amp this size. As mentioned in this thread, the Carver Pro is utilizing 60,000 uF's, even though it is rated for HALF the power that my two channel Signature is rated for. Unlike the Carver Pro though, my Signature will meet and beat its' published specs and do so with ease. As Brian noted, it appears that the Carver Pro amps have had some corners cut in order to increase profit margin for the manufacturer and make it easier for them to produce.

As such, i would have to agree with Brian and John in saying that this amp IS a horrid mess in terms of specs and that John did test the amp under "real world operating conditions". As such, his results are probably closer to what one would experience during normal operation since nobody i know uses an active 20 KHz low pass filter between their preamp and power amp. What this means is that this amp "may" sound good but it probably doesn't even sound as good as the Sunfire amps that are current production models. Not only do they offer more power, but they deliver it in a much cleaner fashion using better quality parts. This is not to mention that their based on an 800+ KHz switching frequency, which is even faster / further away from the audio spectrum. Sean
>

PS... Yes, i've heard some of the other amps of this nature and was not "blown away" by any of them. None of these "high efficiency" amps has ever come close to delivering the sweetness and impact of a high quality Class A or high bias AB amp in my opinion. This includes the Acoustic Reality amps also.

doug s. · « **Reply #86 on:** 10 Oct 2003, 11:29 am »

hi sean,

Quote from: Sean

While i know that Sunfire has performed quite a few changes to these amps, especially the "Architectural Series", one has to wonder how closely these "Carver Pro" amps are related to Bob's Sunfire product line ? I also have to wonder if Bob has anything to do with these products at all or if he's simply farming out his name ?

==========
afaik, the carver corporation & bob carver have nothing to do w/each other, & haven't for years - at least since the sunfire corp was founded, if not before...

doug s.

RussKon · « **Reply #87 on:** 10 Oct 2003, 12:13 pm »

sean....

do yourself a favor and read what brian wrote under the comparative listening test in which he listens to this amp and compares it to some very expensive amps.....

and as doug has mentioned....bob carver has nothing to do with carver professional...the phoenix gold corporation bought the name back in 1996

Brian Cheney · « **Reply #88 on:** 10 Oct 2003, 03:22 pm »

I guess I will be elaborating on the ZR test measurements for some time to come.

As has been mentioned, the Carver Pro and the Sunfire companies have no relation to each other and Bob Carver had nothing to do with the ZR series amps.

The manufacturer (and other makers of switching amps) should have mentioned that the technical specs in the owner's manual require use of the AP type 20kHz filter at the output of the amp. I will repeat the manufacturer's technical comment that the observed oscillation is an artifact of the "overload-reset" circuitry and not a parasitic or spurious oscillation.

Still the question remains: how much power is available into 4 and 8 Ohms for the rated 0.1% THD at clipping, how exactly does the amp clip, and are measurements through the brickwall filter a necessary expedient to make the amp measure well, or a cosmetic patch that serves to improve measurements while ignoring listening quality? It is the latter that counts, IMHO, so I refer you to my comparitive listening tests of the ZR.

Sean · « **Reply #89 on:** 10 Oct 2003, 07:37 pm »

Thanks for the clarification folks. I knew that Bob had "assumed" Carver Corporation again but did not know for certain if Carver Pro was actually a division of Carver Corporation. As such, Carver's name is basically being marketed by someone else. My comments pertaining to the Sunfire product line have little to no bearing on this thread other than that they may share somewhat similar designs in specific sections of circuitry.

As Emily Latella used to say, "Nevermind"

Sean
>

BrunoB · « **Reply #90 on:** 11 Oct 2003, 10:41 pm »

Knowing that the zr600 is a digital amplifier, which, as far as I known, Tripath based amps do not accept direct digital input, I wonder how the analog signal is converted to digital? Is it PCM? If yes what is the sampling frequency and the number of bits?

Digital amplifiers that accept digital input directly such as the Sony and Panasonic HT receivers, might be a step above the Tripath based amplifiers in term of sonic details. See, for instance the Panasonic discussion in Audiocircle http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=4991&start=31

Bruno

JCC · « **Reply #91 on:** 13 Oct 2003, 12:47 am »

Quote from: BrunoB

Knowing that the zr600 is a digital amplifier, which, as far as I known, Tripath based amps do not accept direct digital input, I wonder how the analog signal is converted to digital? Is it PCM? If yes what is the sampling frequency and the number of bits?

Digital amplifiers that accept digital input directly such as the Sony and Panasonic HT receivers, might be a step above the Tripath based amplifiers in term of sonic details. See, for instance the Panasonic discussion in Audiocircle http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=4991&start=31

The Tripath approach it's a spread spectrum switching amplifier swithing at up to 1.5 megahertz. There is no relationship to PCM.

Both Sony and Panasonic are Tripath customers, and are including the units in some of their products.

ABEX · « **Reply #92 on:** 24 Dec 2003, 11:57 pm »

Quote

Digital amplifiers that accept digital input directly such as the Sony and Panasonic HT receivers, might be a step above the Tripath based amplifiers in term of sonic details. See, for instance the Panasonic discussion in Audiocircle http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=4991&start=31

I have had the Panasonic unit and have kept abreast of the threads pertaining to it which I find in some instances over critical, in some reviewers writings, and then over enthusiastic in others assertions of what the unit does bring to the table.

For any amount of $$ for under $1K it is a sweet piece no doubt about it. I was able to get better 2 ch. sound in the topend as far as Air and Soundstaging using traditional designs ,but the midrange and Bass it is really hard to beat for the $$ and having it modified should bring it further. Being that the midrange is the meat of the spectrum I think this is what the allure is to the unit.

After $1K the normal amount that can be spent for a consumer to get a taste of Highend I think that one can get more of a flavor to what the topend can produce as far as air and soundstaging buying traditional designs.

I give it a few years before the technology is mastered. These units shall be really mainstream which should be great for the digital domain side.

$300 for the average consumer to get this kind of playback in a total package is cheap and better than any cheap receiver I have ever encountered. Incredibly most will not realize it is there.

I cannot believe what Cnet had to say and a few others about it's capability.Either they did not have or use the right settings or their ears were closed I even had to go into the soundroom at CC to see weather what I was hearing was correct. Took me less than a minute to know that their supposed HiEnd Class AB junk could not match the clarity of this unit. There's always plenty of Sterile ,Glazed over sounding receivers for them to love I guess.

They can keep them,I'll keep the Panasonic!

I look forward to see what you and Phillips comes out with Bruno.I use to work for Sylvania and bought up a few good Phillips components when there.Should be a great New Year!

Good Luck!