Bob Carver
Bob Carver is a leading American designer of audio equipment based in the Pacific Northwest. Educated as a physicist and engineer, he found an interest in audio equipment at a very young age. Later he has applied his talent to produce numerous innovative high-fidelity designs dating back to the 1970s. He was known for designing the most powerful consumer audio amplifier in the world at the time (PL-700) which he marketed under his first company, Phase Linear. After leaving Phase Linear, he went on to found Carver in the 1980s and Sunfire in the 1990s.
Bob is especially noted for his accomplishments in demand-regulated amplifier design (Magnetic Field Coil and Tracking Downconverter) and his ground-breaking (and now heavily copied) Amazing Loudspeaker and True Subwoofer.
Some products and technologies of note include:
Sonic Holography
Magnetic Field Coil Power Amplifier
Transfer Function Modification
Asymmetrical Charged Coupled Stereo Detection
Phase Linear PL-700
Carver M-400
Carver Silver Seven
Carver Amazing Loudspeaker
Sunfire Stereo Amplifier
Sunfire True Subwoofer
Carver caused a stir in the industry in the mid-1980s when he challenged two high-end audio magazines to give him any audio amplifier at any price, and he’d duplicate its sound in one of his lower cost (and usually much more powerful) designs. Two magazines took him up on the challenge. First, The Audio Critic chose a Mark Levinson ML-2 which Bob copied (transfer function duplication) and sold as his M1.5t amplifier (the “t” stood for transfer function modified). In 1986, Stereophile magazine challenged Bob to copy an Conrad-Johnson Premier Five (the make and model was not named in the challenge but revealed later) amplifier at their offices in 48 hours. Of note that in both cases, the challenging amplifier could only be treated as a “black box” and could not even have it’s lid removed. Nevertheless, Bob successfully copied the sound of the target amplifier and won the challenge. He marketed “t” versions of his amplifiers incorporating the sound of the Mark Levinson and Conrad Johnson designs which caused his some criticism by those who failed to understand the true nature of the challenge, that being simply that it was possible. Bob Carver therefore went on to design the Silver Seven, the most expensive and esoteric conventional amplifier up to that time and duplicated its sound in his M 4.0t and later models which sold for some 1/40th the price (around $600-$1500).
Also, Carver sued and won a judgment against Stereophile magazine for their perceived bias against Carver products.