Tremendous Power! Compact chassis size. Deep reserve of power. Very dependable. Clean, clear delivery. Did I mention power?

Sometimes wonder if it doesn't have the depth of sound I've heard in some other quality units. Then again, I think I'm comparing it to amps costing 2 or 3 times as much.

Bought this unit in the early 80's. It has been rock solid dependable for almost 2 decades. Protection circuitry is effective. Used this with a Carver C-1 Sonic Holography Preamp. (which if set up properly was very cool-another story).

Used numerous speakers and even have taken to friends' houses to experiment with different speakers/combinations. This unit could drive anything we hooked to it to sustained high levels. Always clear. Very deceptive to look at with respect to its reserve of power. Protection circuitry is effective. Never clipped at intentional listening levels. On several occasions it saved itself from idiotic roommates and friends! Yes, I have experienced the lights in the room dimming you always hear about with these amps.

It is also accurate at medium (re: sane) listening levels. It's not just a bone crusher; very accurate in acoustic/quiet passages too. Fairly warm sound. I've been very satisfied with it's reproduction on everything from Tumbleweed Connection to R.E.M. to 1812 Overture. I've since updated my components integrating them in with a home theatre system (I've retired my C-1 for now) and now have my M-400A on dedicated subwoofer(Paradigm) duty. Exact quote from my 6 year old daughter; "Mommy, the walls are shaking."

It's always a value equation. Are there amps out there that sound better? Yes. At the price you can get one of these for? Not even close. These units are out lurking around estate sales, classifieds and the internet. If you get a chance to pick one of these up, do it!

Similar Products Used:

Advent, Klipsch, AR, Mcintosh, Yamaha, SONY, Denon, Paradigm, other Carver.

Power, good bass, clarity

spring loaded speaker terminals

Well I just felt like I had to write a review on this product, given some of the bad reviews. First, one has to look at the numbers, Carver sold 25,000 of these amps.....yes thats right, 25,000 total, including the original 400,400a, and 400t.
While I don't consider myself an audiophile by any means, I am an audio enthusiast....I love music, and good clear sound. Believe me the Carver 400 delivers that in spades!! I ran side by side comparisons with the GFA-5300, and GFA-5500 (thanks to my buddies at Audio King) on my system (see below) The Carver totally blew the GFA-5300 away...clearer sharper bass....clear bell like midrange and highs...and the details...hearing Eric Clapton's hand accidentally banging his guitar on 'unplugged', piano chords floating on air, clear gut wrenching bass!! As for the GFA-5500, there was no clear winner....the 5500' is an excellent amp.....loads of reserve...great sonic detail...good punch...but me, nor my audio enthusiast friends could tell the difference (note: levels matched via spec analyzer). Yes....I could hardly believe my ears..this diminutive 'cube' weighing in at 10lbs (and 12 years older) running neck and neck with the Adcom 50 lb. monster!!
Now I'm NOT saying don't consider the GFA-5500, or even the 5300, they are well designed, solid and attractive products. But if you are like me, you need $$ for other things such as food, beer, the girl friend (ah, not in that order.....NOT!!) The GFA-5500 will set you back a cool $1195.00, while you can find a used M 400 for under 300 bucks on e-bay. By the way.....if you have problem with a M-400 and need service....Sunfire Corporation (Bob's new company) will service them ( check out web site).....or Audio Kings Fast Track Service will too...so I'm told.
Oh...by the way...I never blew a woofer out, nor fried a tweeter on any of the high level test's. Nor did the amp run hot, or shut it self down (as with the Adcom...it ran above warm...not hot.....the Carver was cool). This may be due to the high efficiency of my Klipsch speakers, and this amp may work better with this type of speaker (i.e. other reviewer's blown B&W woofers). The M 400t likes to dim the lights under full power, and knock plants and lamps off the shelf!!!
In summary, if you are looking for any great high power amp to build on, or add to a lower power integrated amp (as I did) check out the M 400. For under 300 clams on e-bay, you can have a first rate, high power amp that will do justice to any medium to high quality setup. Big clean watts don't have to cost high $$...Bob and the M400 proves that!!!! Let your own ear's be the judge. Hell, if you don't like it, you can re-sell it on e-bay and at the very least get your money back. What do you have to loose?!?!?!

My system: (yeah..ok...not mega bucks....but sounds fantastic)
Amp: Carver M400t
Preamp: Carver CM-2002 Integrated Amp-used as preamp now
CD Player: JVC XL-R202 top loader changer
Cassette Deck: Harmon Kardon TD-202
Tuner: Carver TX 11 (ok..one of....if not the best tuners around!!) a good buy at $289...check out Hawthorne Stereo's web site.....a nice place!!!!)
Turntable: Harmon Kardon T-30
Cartridge: Shure V-15 Type V MR
EQ:BSR EQ3000 w/analyzer
Speakers: Klipsch KG 5.5 medium oak
Interconnect:Standard Monster Cable; Digital CD to preamp
Speaker Wires: Standard Monster Cable (approx 20ft each)
Power Line Conditioning:Monster HTS 1000
Nice Furniture Works wood/glass A-frame stand

Similar Products Used:

Carver CM 2002, Adcom GFA-5300,GFA-5500

Black Cube, conversation piece

Everything else including no mids whatsoever, useless highs, boomy bass, too much gain making it unuseable in its range.

People,

forget this amp. It is bad sounding even with great speakers. Other than being cute there is nothing going for it. UNLESS you want a amp for you subwoofer in your home theatre.. then by all means.

Stay clear if you like music.

Similar Products Used:

What are you talkin about. Go buy the Parasound monoblocks at Audio Advisor.

Just found one of these "old black cubes" at a yard sale. Hooked up tovarious speakers, I find it really kicks butt and sounds pretty good to
boot. I really like the LED power indicators, they respond much faster
than meters. Audiophiles will probably say it is "harsh," but even with
my Cantons--with hot tweeters--I'd call the sound "crisp," instead. The
power cord seems lightweight, but never gets hot, so it must be OK, the
terminals are sort of "cheesy," but I bet they sound as good as 5-ways.
If you have $600 speaker cables, this is not the amp for you, but if you
want lots of clean power for cheap, pick one of these up if you see it.

It is not a bad sounding amp,but it is now more of a collectible piece of hifi past,than an everyday hi end amp.Five speakers for uniqueness and innovation,3 for sound,four overall.

Small size, plenty of power, simple.

Ummm.... No cup holder in these older models?

Ok. I just got this thing based on reviews from long ago. It's a little beat up, but not bad considering the price I paid, and the previous owner did a good job installing a power switch. I needed a powerful amp for my subwoofer and hoped this would do the trick. First I hooked it up to my old 3D Acoustics to see how the overall sound was (just out of curiousity). Even though these speakers are on the bright side I noticed no harshness in the music. The range and quickness of the amp really impressed me. After a few songs I got down to the business of hooking it up as a subwoofer amp as intended. As a temporary measure, I had been using the amplifier section of my old Pioneer to drive the subwoofer at 105 watts per channel. I pulled out the jumpers between the Pioneer's pre-amp and power amp stage and hooked directly into the power amp there. Now, with the M400 (not the 'a' or 't' model) connected I had to use a setup DVD and db meter to readjust everything. It needed a 5 db drop. I had it connected as stereo into each 7.5 ohm side of the dual voice coil. I must say the sound was incredible. Very solid bass even at high volume levels. I couldn't have been happier. I did try running the amp in bridged mono mode and running the voice coils in parallel. This resulted in a 3.75 ohm load. Recalibrating meant dropping another 6db off the subwoofer gain. What a huge amount of power this thing puts out in this mode. I could hardly get the LEDs to move even at extremely loud levels. I am definately impressed at the sound quality, even at these low frequencies.

The amp did get hot when run in bridged mode with some of the music I played. I don't have the manual, but maybe it shouldn't be run this way into 4 ohms or less. (I had the switches set right.) Regardless, I don't need that much headroom so, to be safe, I run it in stereo, 8 ohm mode. It's got plenty of power for the most demanding music and bass. I measured my subwoofer down to 17Hz and the amp's bass is tight all the way down there.

I'm really impressed with the quality of sound from this amp at any price, but at the price I paid,$162, I'd grab another one in a second.

Similar Products Used:

Universal Tiger, Phase Linear 400

Bridgable output at over 500 watts is stunning. Small size and very cool running. Bulletproof dependable.

Very, very slight motor-boating "burbling" sound when ear is right up against an 18" subwoofer. Not noticable otherwise. No volume control. No on-off switch.

The Carver M-400a is the second incarnation of the amplifier that made Bob Carver famous, the M-400. Purchased new, it has given over 18 years of outstanding service. It is being used in the bridged mode to output over 500 watts rms to drive a JBL professional, 2245H 18" subwoofer in a home theater. It has outstanding bottom end and can literally shake the house in combination with the professional subwoofer. The lights actually slightly dim in the room when extremely low bass notes are generated by the amplifier.

The amplifier was driven to clipping only once, completely blowing the subwoofer guts out (the sub handles 600 watts rms). The sub required a reconing job and all the Carver did was blow a 15 amp fuse and shut down to protect itself. It survived the run-in with a fifteen year old running it at full volume, completely unscathed. Literally a bulletproof amplifier.

It is very easy to place anywhere because of its size. A highly recommended amplifier that can be picked up used for very little money vs. the performance and dependability you get.

Similar Products Used:

Nikko Professional Alpha 130 rack mount amplifiers (3) in a bi-amp configuration, with the Nikkos handling everything from 100 Hz up and the Carver M-400a everything from 100 Hz down to 20 Hz.

Bulletproof. 5 levels of protection, including speaker protecting electronics.

Small size (6.5 in^3) makes it easy to conceal, to steal -- as mine was from me!

I purchased the amp in 1985 after reading a test report from Julian in Stereo Review. The idea that a 6" cube that weighed under 10 pounds and had NO cooling fan, could be capable of this performance was too much temptation for a college EE student to resist. I had to have one, even if for the novelty appeal. One of the 1st things I did to the unit was open it and replace the quaint little red led's with brighter colored units (clear off, bright point sources when on) in green, yellow and red. From a distance, this made it easier to see where the amp "was" in it's power band. I had a pair of Technics SBX-700 honeycomb disc speakers which sounded OK. I added additional piezo tweeters and a pair of cerwin vega subs (kept in the corners of the room -- pretending to be "end tables"). I also purchased a mountain of signal processing equipment because with a powerful amp, a good equalizer and a pink noise source coupled with a spectrum analyzer, it is possible to make a good sound, better. The amp drove the speaker configuration. I was young, but had already begun to suspect than many of the people that labeled themselves as "audiophiles" were actually self-important, arrogant bloat-heads who had adopted "sound as a religion", despite their limited audio perceptual abilities (I became convinced of this years later when reading "an audiophile review" about PASC and how the codec sounded better than "raw digital" -- right...like the more signal you discard, the better the sound...uh-huh...). With an engineering background, I found Carver's design to be a brilliant rethinking of delivering power effectively. The amp never damaged my speakers, although it did shut itself down on a few occasions (remember that little warning on Telarc CD's...;) for the cannon shots on the 1812 Overture. Usually however, it just dimmed the lights (the amp pulled it's power 90 degress out of phase with the powerline [vars - not watts], so the effect of dimming the lights added a dramatic edge that impressed my early 20's age friends quite nicely). The 4.0 I ended up getting did the same. In defense of statement made in these reviews that imply this little amp was underpowered, I can state that the opposite is true. The way Carver designed the power supply, unused power from one channel could be made available at the other. This means that amp headroom floated between 1.2 and 3+ dB. Underpowered amps destroy TWEETERS much more often than WOOFERS. (This is because a "clip" is a squaring off of a waveform, & produces a large amount of harmonic frequency energy that makes its way through a tweeters crossover quite easily: poof (piezo's are usually immune -- but can fracture if the clip is at a high power). However, a powerful amp can destroy a wimpy woofer despite "woofer protection". How? Woofer protection often consists of very large electrolytic capicitor/s in series with the woofer (sometimes in the amps output stage!). When the amp clips -- producing a near-dc component, those capacitors filter the dc and the waveform swings toward zero. However, when a powerful amp is driving wimpy woofers -- even thru the "protection", the amp does not clip, and produces a large power component in the woofers voicecoil. If the voicecail is RESISTIVE -- instead of INDUCTIVE, ohms law (P=I^2R) comes into play and the woofers voicecoil burns & breaks. This is exactly what I suspect happened to a poster who mentioned that the carver cube had popped his "protected woofer". Of course the speaker manufacturer is going to blame the amp. The FACT is, that wimply amps blow tweeters, and powerful amps can damage woofers (burning or bottoming). I just felt compelled to explain this from a physics perspective. As far as the understanding of the whining poster in concerned, he makes it obvious that he does not understand the interaction between current, voltage and impedance -- because discussing "high-current" and omiting the other elements of the power equasion, is meaningless. For the price, there is no better value per watt than Carver's designs ... past and present. It's true, I'm biased ... but I've had 16 years to observe the hype of others vs. the performance of Carver.
- good day

Similar Products Used:

I upgraded to a M4.0t Transfer function modified...

according to my memory, and it may be off the amp has a dampening factor of 200. as compared to a tube amp. factor of 10. it packs a huge punch in a little package. stays cool

power meters need to start at a lower level

i have wanted one of these because of the crystal clear sound i heard 20 years ago. i bought on on e-bay, and took a chance. i used to have a 100 watt/ch technics, a 50 watt/ch technics, and a 150 watt/ch kenwood all working together to drive 8 speakers. the carver now drives a pair of 15" and a pair of 10" speakers and the old technics (with pre-amp out) drives the other 4 speakers. this thing is great. decent head room and more power than all of the old combination i had. but for the purists to ponder, when listening to a bass guitar played with a tube amp and then recorded. is it really proper to muddy the bass by playing this recording on a tube amp? that's why i love my carver. cleanest amp i've ever heard.

Plenty of power for $$$, lasted 10+ years

None I was aware of!

I owned a Carver M400a between about '83-'94. Bought it during my "stereo phase" in the Army (Europe). used with many speakers (AR93s, Infinity RS3's, and ... uh ?) the Carver gave good service. I don't know why some people fault the sound; perhaps I don't have the Golden Ear.
I would still use the Carver except it developed a "buzz" in one channel after 10+ years of use. I tried to disassemble/clean the unit, and wound up damaging it instead. I would definitely buy one used at a good price!

Similar Products Used:

Newer Carver Amps