Price Paid:  $1200.00 from hifihuset Norway

Summary:
Fantastic performance for its price, but did run hot and turn off every time I threw a party. Had to wait a little and then turn it on again, and then watch the volume a little so it would not happen again.

Strengths:
Good clear sound. Enourmous power. Nice pot meters. Gain control.

Weaknesses:
Did run too hot some times when pushed hard for more 30 minutes

Similar Products Used:
Sunfire Signature, Parasound 3500, Vincent 991, NAD 218

Price Paid:  $800.00 from Sound City

Summary:
You can already tell I'm a Carver enthusiast but this stuff really has historically always delivered more than it's price tag should've had the hubris to dare to. The truth is every time somebody,fearing for advertising revenue, backpedaled from listening based conclusions, Bob(or his hired guns,if only to throw off those that had personal vendettas against him) just went to the drawing board and started engineering them into silence. The only problem was it was a war of attrition.
To quote "Moses"(different movie though) "Damn you all to HELL!"(Professional audio reviewers that is). What does this have to do with the A-760? Plenty. It, along with the Lightstar gear, was part of the last, best generation of stuff and shares engineering DNA (if you will) with each other. A fair price at it's original $1500 Retail and stupid good at $800. Sold to dealers at that mark in a last ditch effort to stop the hemorraging. How do I know? I phoned the company and talked to what had to be the last two or three guys there as they were preparing their parachutes. Hope it was a soft landing. (Probably at Everette audio.)
One day I watched a friend's son bring over some overpriced detailless nightmare of a car subwoofer driver mounted in a home enclosure that was being elevated to "world beater" status by hordes of conceited deaf "megapuppies" and was told that "No amp can make this sub reach the endpoints of it's excursion." We put on Fennell's Trittico and the very first noise the thing made was that metallic "SPAAAACK" noise that I spend my life trying not to hear. Way too quick and transient to be clipping brothers and sisters. 160 amp mosfets will do that. Along with 120,000u + of Capacitors. I guess maybe Bob did learn a little something from those silver seven designs. If you see one for around my money BUY IT. If you don't like it e-mail me and I'LL buy it. I've been kicking my own butt for not buying 3 in '98.

Strengths:
Exonorates an unjustly villified nameplate.

Weaknesses:
Yellow audio journalism helped nail the coffin shut on the Mfr. (Even the imperfect early stuff didn't sound BAD, it just unnerved those pompous jackasses.)

Similar Products Used:
Krell, AR, C-J, Boulder

Summary:
I finally got around to replacing my Parasound 1000A for driving my Legacy Classic speakers. Thought the extra power would be helpful. It was. I got more tuneful bass with little or no boom, but in addition the highs seemed more extended than before and the overall sound was cleaned up. At first I thought it might be just a little thinner, then I realized that an extra layer of something (not music) was missing. I also got rid of a hum. Too bad about the hum, because it (Parasound) is a very decent sounding amplifier all in all. I generally think that the speakers are mainly responsible for the sound stage, and I still think that, however the Carver has made subtle improvements to both the size (width and depth) and, more important to me, the solidity of it (soundstage). No more wondering musicians. As you can tell I am very happy with this amp. Are there better? Probably. But for the price that this unit is available on the used market and the power it has, don't see how you could do any better. I have not owned this amp for very long, so I am hesitant to write this report, but I am so pleased, I just wanted to share. I wish there was a way to come back and revise at a later date if I find problems. I am concerned about maintenance as I am pretty sure that Carver is no longer making amps for personal audio use.

Strengths:
powerful, clean, solid soundstage

Weaknesses:
none yet

Similar Products Used:
CJ, Parasound

Summary:
The Carver is driving Martin Logan Monolith III panels mounted in CLS IIz frames. A active crossover gives then 120 kHZ and above, bellow that to a Rotel 985 THX and Vaf DCX{vaf.com.au}.Before the Carver a Krell 300i in thouput mode was providing a sweet but slighty thin sound.If you could call 150W-8 ohmn [300W-4 ohmn] thin! The Carver revealed layers of sound that were only hinted at before.On City of Angles HDCD soundtrack Sarah McLachlan literaly breathes life into this recording.The reissue of Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" bounces the needles up to 180 and beyond,But what a sound!!I have found the synergy of the A-760X and power hungery Martin Logans well matched.When driven by Arcam Alpha 8SE HDCD and Audible Illusions Modulus 3; BLISS.Considering the price diference of the loverly baby Krell [About half asmuch again].Five stars baby!!

Strengths:
Revealing of source

Weaknesses:
Revealing of source

Summary:
The Carver A-760X is a perfect match for my Carver ALS-III+ loudspeakers. Even though the speakers are power hogs, I can run them all day and the amp barely gets above room temperature. Very well built and well designed. I picked up mine for $720, and it is an incredible deal at that price.