Headroom. More power than almost anyone could need (I love overkill)

I have been late for work more than once, trying to tear myself away from the sound!

My Signature amp.has performed flawlessly from day one, starting in Mid January of this year. No matter what source material, it plays anything as loud as your ears can stand it, totally free of noise and clipping distortion. As with the previous reviewer, I am at a loss to explain those difficulties other users of this product may be having.( I am having an absolute blast!) It is also sounds beautiful at low listening levels and totally noise free. I got 13 years of trouble free service from 2 Carver 1.0t's, which was the main reason I chose a Carver design amp. for the "jump" to Home Theater. The amp. has an automatic signal sensing switch, which controls its On/Off function thru the AV preamp when it senses an audio signal. If nothing's happening, the amp. shuts itself off after 35 minutes. The VU meter on this unit is interesting in that it senses when its limits are approaching (I can't imagine) and runs in the opposite direction. I haven't seen the thing move once yet! In addition, the unit has balanced XLR'S if you prefer over RCA out.

I have just upgraded from a sunfire Cinema Grand to theCinema Grand Signature Amplifier. The Signature AMP has
405 watts per channel, 5 channels.

I didn't think I would buy this, but after my dealer let
me do an in home trial, I had to buy it.
I have JBL XPL-200 speakers and a TAE9000ES preamp.

I previously did an AB test with the Proceed Amp and
we thought that the proceed might be a bit more dynamic
and have slightly better control over the woofers than the
Cinema Grand (standard) though in a blind test we couldn't
tell which amp was which.

When comparing the Cinema Grand and the Cinema Grand Signature,
the Signature had a clearer cleaner mid-range and tight-tight
bass. We had no problems identifying the Signature.
I never thought I could turn my speakers up louder, but I now
I can. The sound is wonderful.

This is so new, it is not listed on the sunfire site.

If you get a chance to listen to the Cinema Grand Signature,
please post a review.

Unlimited power, Physical appearance, Build Quality

No weaknesses to list

This amplifier is excellent!! Well worth the money spent. This amp seems to have an unlimited amount of power. I just wanted to clarify some things for some other people who may be interested in purchasing this product. I haven't had any of the "humming" problems as were listed in previous reviews. I believe that those are probably wiring/grounding problems inside of the individual's homes. Also, the weight of the amplifier has NO relation to the quality / performance of this amplifier. If other people posting these reviews would do some studies in amplifier designs, or understand the operational principles of this particular amplifier, they would stop making ignorant comments about the weight of the amplifier. What about the "un-conditioned, spikey, dirty power"????? How would you know?? Did you put an oscilloscope on the output and verify this ?? Enough said, if you are thinking of buying this amplifier, listen for yourself and disregard the ignorant reviews.

Just upgraded from the Cinema Grand to it's BIGGER brother the Signature Cinema Grand and it is incredible. Now this sounds like the high end amp I have been dying for. The original version always sounded fine to me but the difference is immediatly apparent. I have only listened to film soundtracks and television viewing(through my LEXICON MC1 processor and 5 Aerial Acoustic speakers-their model 8's for main,CC3 for center and their SR3 for side surrounds-not listening to music CD's yet (that will come this following weekend). BUT I do have one slight problem with the unit that I already discussed with KEN at Sunfire and that is a slight hum from the unit itself. It is only heard usually at quiet passages, or if there is only a vocal present without any background music or effects. I didn't notice this with the earlier Cinema Grand. But then again I had the earlier Cinema Grand in a A/V stand with a glass door enclosure so it may have muffled any hum. This amp I have out in the open air not in any A/V stand. In fact due to lack of space I have it sitting on top of my Velodyne sub sitting on its glass base that comes with the amp. KEN said very early units had a problem with the hum and was fixed but when I gave him my serial # he said I had a "fixed" unit. I am going to call him again to see if there is anything he can do to my unit if I sent it to him to improve it further. This slight hum is the only thing preventing me from a 5 STAR RATING> I am curious to other Signatureowners. Do you notice this hum and if so how are you dealing with it. Please E-Mail me. Thanks

quality sound for the money

Carver's attempt to sound tubey can be cloying at times

this is not a amp for everyone, it has a distinct sound which some love and others loathe. it is warm and rich sounding by design, this not a natural state of affairs for a solid state amp, but carver (for better or worse) is not a typical engineer. about the weight that is directly related to the power supply which is a switch-mode topology, which avoids the weight and heat of linear designs, it is the large transformers and capacitors neccessitated by linear design (along with the massive heatsinks neccessary to dissipate the wasted energy) that make such amps so heavy. the output of the sunfire is fairly typical A/B though not switch-mode. so subwoofer references are inappropriate. anyway linn, wadia, meridian, jeff rowland, spectron, and bel canto all use pure class D designs in almost all of their current amplification products so dismissal of this technology is short-sighted. but, i digress this amp is not for everyone, nor is it for me personally but i do recognize that carver is simply trying to please his customers which i wholeheartedly respect.

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