Running Carver Platinum Amazings again

ohskigod

I had these babies in storage for a while, since I just couldnt get the bass to sound right in my basement. I have since pulled them out of storage, running them on my Hafler 500 amp, Anthem Pre2l tubed pre, and Jolida JD100 cd player. Man, I forgot how well and open they sounded. imaging is just.....well.....amazing.

the sound treatments I did to part of my basement seems to help the overall sound and bring out the bass better than I remember it. maybe the lack of glare I was getting off the walls pre treatment was really what the dr ordered, but man, am I having a blast with these things. Like being reaquanted with an old friend. Bass is still not as present as I know it should be, and I know the room is the problem, but as I said, far better than I remember it pre sound treatments.

The Bozak Symphonies are getting a well deserved break, as are my Rogers LS-6 monitors I was playing around with for a while.

I cant emphasize enough the horror show my basement is for audio, its on the house "to do" list to rectify that.

F1nut

Lou, always good to revisit old friends.

Anthony and I have been talking about the lack of bass problem he's been having with his Plat's. The other day he called me with a possible solution. Get with him about what he did.

RuSsMaN

Why get with him, share it here.

Dude, if EIGHT 12 inch woofers open baffle make ZERO bass in any given room - you've got more than a few audio screws loose. You could lay those 12's on the floor sans any cab, hooked up with lampcord and get SOME bass.

Placement, and power. A Hafler 500 is THE amp to run a pair of original Advents, or even two pair, stacked. Carver Amazings? You need to kick it up a notch Lou, period. Placement is critical, but faak, start with the basics. That Haf, legenadary as it is, ain't gonna come close to throwing a hump into the Carvers.

Cheers,
Russ

F1nut

He did it, he gets to explain it.

Agreed on the power amp issue.

ohskigod

its not that there is no bass, I just know there should be more. There is a big improvement over what I was getting out of them last year, I assume the sound treatment has to have something to do with it. as far as I remember, its the only different thing besides interconnects.
I ran them with the carver 4.0t originally last year before switching to the Hafler, while I didnt notice much of a difference in drop of bass between the hafler and the carver, the hafler seemed to image more clearly, not by much, but it sounded a little clearer. again, this might change since I have added sound treatment to the listening area.

maybe I'll try the carver again, since it puts out more power into 8 ohms.

any other amp ideas? I know Carver silver 9's will get the job done. I know george does the 2 carver 4.0 (tfm42) bridged route, with rousing success.
am I missing any other options? dare I say a pro amp or 2? the lack of biwiring ability does not help.

reeltrouble1

Lou,

As you and I can attest go large or dont go at all.

I use pro amps for my guitars, keyboards and PA, not something I would like for my home audio, they are not refined by any means.

I would do some sweeps to start with, find out what is really going on with the bass in that room. Then you might have a better idea of what to do. My originals spec at 17hz -3db. You heard them at PF04 so I take it you know. The Plats are 89 effecient compared to 85 for the originals.

Had your hearing checked lately ole man!!!!!!!!! Maybe they are just not the right speaker for you.

RT1

schwarcw

My good friend "dipole" Dan has a pair of Amazing MK IV Platinums. He's using a Krell KSA-250. His Amazings produce a very deep response. I know crossovers and internal wiring can be an issue with these speakers. He has not upgraded or modified either. I've come to the conclusion that Krell amp will make a pair of swimming pool speakers sound good.

amulford

Well I thought I was going to have to get extreme with my Platinums.

When I got mine, the wire to the woofers was replaced with 11 Ga. Cardas wire, instead of the stock. but it didn't sound right. I found the the surrounds on the woofers was shot. We replaced all the woofers. But it still wasn't what I thought it should be. I attributed that to break in. So I worked 'em for a while. Some improvement, but not much.

Then my amp started cutting out. (I'm driving them with some Carver silver 9t's, 575 WPC @ 8 Ohms, stable to 2 and lower.) I narrowed it down to the crossovers. I sent them out to have them worked. One of the woofer's inductors, which are 22 Ga., shorted. I had them both replaced with ones that are 18 Ga and have the same specs. Since I was at it, I had the caps replaced, too. Put 'em back together and expected to be blown away. Nope.

So one day, I'm noticing the woofers aren't really moving right. (I don't have the grills back on yet) I know they have at least 13mm of excursion, but I don't see it. Plus it looks like they aren't in sync. WTF, I start to play with the wiring...

BAM!!! No ****!!!

The way they are wired was it. When I got them, they were wired like this:

Out of the crossover, the leads to the to the first woofer on the bottom are red to positive and black to negative. Then that feeds the second woofer in phase. Then the leads switch. The red feeds the negative of the third, while the black goes to positive. This feeds the last woofer (the top one), in phase. the speakers would look like this:

C/O=O=OxO=O

I guess this was their parallel series deal, but it sent the top two out of phase with the bottom two. They were canceling each other out. I tried several different things, such as wiring them out of phase with the ribbon, going true series/parallel, etc. I found the way I like 'em. They are really kicking it now.

I know this will be a PITA, try to do it with two people, but try this out:

Take the front grills off. You have to get to the screws of the back grills. You won't have much spare wire, so be careful. Now look carefully at the way the woofers are wired. Change the wiring to look like this:

C/O=O=O=O=O

This puts them in phase with the ribbon and each other. everything is coming out in a wall. And it hits you, hard. I'm telling ya, what a friggin difference.

You need to have some juice for these pigs, man. No getting around it. Go big or stay home...

Now I'm still losing some to the room, but I've got an idea for that...

Lemme know how you make out.

Dennis Gardner

To check the polarity on an array of woofers, or stereo pair, use the old 9 volt battery test. Touch the battery terminals to your woofer leads. Woofers "in Phase" will respond in the same direction, any "out of phase" woofers will move directly opposite.

Small enough voltage to safely test polarity without tearing cabinets apart, but very effective.

Disclaimer Edit: This won't work on as a universal test on SDA models, since the SDA drivers are out of phase by design. I thought I should throw this in since we are on ClubPolk.;)

amulford

You have to take the grills off. They are screwed in from the back. But that's a good idea...

SCompRacer

Thats kewl that you got your bass back Anthony. Per old threads in the speaker forum at Carver Audio, there have been cases where folks have found woofers wired incorrectly on their Amazings. I had Silver Editions and found they were wired OK.

The crossed over wiring between the upper two and lower two mounted woofers on the Amazings is correct if the lower two woofers are mounted with the terminals pointed up and the upper two pointed down. If all the terminals are facing the same way, then the wiring should not be crossed over. The pic shows the OEM wiring on my Silvers before upgrading with thicker gauge. Note the orientation of the woofer terminals (and the red line next to the positive terminals). Positive is on the right of the upper woofer and to the left on the lower one.

EDIT: Now some of you sharpies will note that there is a black wire attached to the lower woofer positive terminal on the non-biwire Silver Edition Amazings. That is the ground from the ribbon. The woofers are factory wired out of phase from the ribbon at the crossover. Black from the crossover attaches to the positive terminal of the upper woofer, red to the negative. (Seen in the second pic). The color code is "normal" from there, red connects to positive terminals, black to negative.

According to the Carver Amazing Speaker Manual, the Silver Edition bi-wire crossovers had the same components as my non-biwire Silver Editions. They were just wired differently. I temporarily made the speakers bi-wirable by adding a second set of binding posts, and changed the wiring at the crossovers so the woofers and ribbons were in phase with seperate grounds. It made no difference so I removed the second set of posts and wired them the way they were from the factory. I only had a 60WPC tube amp to connect when the buyer came to demo them and he said "If they have bass like that in this huge room with that little tube amp, I can't wait to get them home on my SS amp."

EDIT 2: Add wiring diagram.

F1nut

The crossed over wiring between the upper two and lower two mounted woofers on the Amazings is correct if the lower two woofers are mounted with the terminals pointed up and the upper two pointed down.

That's exactly how they were mounted/wired when I had them.

ohskigod

I've been playing with placing, forgot how sensitive these things were to the slightest movement. sure enough, put them a little closer to the wall. spread em out a tiny skosh, slight toe in, found some bass.

I;ll check the wiring ala anthony, but from what I remember when I did the new drivers, thats how I did it.

now I gotta redo the grill covers, a project I havent done yet.

last 2 days, these things were sounding all kinds of right. will still try my Carver 4.0 again to see if it sounds better worse, or just different from the hafler.

In the meantime, just picture me with a **** easting grin

amulford

Look close, Lou. You have to check the polarity of the drivers. After I was playing with mine, I noticed one of them had the polarity wrong. It was wired backwards, the symbols were right. Quick switch and it was cool.
Pretty funny looking, though...

ohskigod

well, the Carver m4.0t amp is back in 2 channel rotation with the amazings. I can now safely say that with placement, amp, and sound treatments, the bass responce is vastly superior to when I first ran these nearly a year ago.

while the Carver drops a mear skosh of detail in the highs, everything else seems to blend better with the bigger power from the Carver. The bass is there, and more effortless with the carver over the Hafler. The Carver seems to have more control over the amazings, if that makes any sense.

my **** eating grin just got a little wider