FML, I just scroed a pair of my long time dream speakers....

jazzmans

Super Member
I scroed from an inmate here a pair of absolutely pristine Carver AL III

I and when I say Pristine, I mean they were literally showroom quality still, excepting one tiny scratch on one side of one ribbon panel. I Couldn't believe the great condition they were in. For various reasons, the seller couldn't keep them, and so knowing how much I love ribbons, he offered them to me for an amazing price.

Of course, I bit, ran to the bank, and straight to his place to pick them up. They were exactly as he described, and I took them home, wrapped securely in blankets.

I hooked them up to one of my Carver amps, and they sounded mighty fine. So fine that I decided to take my precious Magnepan 2.5R out of the main room, and install the Carvers in their place.

While listening I started to notice some 'distortion' in female vocals, making it difficult for me to make out what she was saying (if it matters, I was watching a Dr Who episode and listening to Billy speak) so dug deeper, put on one of my reference piano recordings, and oh yeah, it buzzes. So then I ran a frequency sweep, discovered the dreaded buzz in only one speaker, starting at 325 hz, and continuing in various ways up to 2k. I changed amplifiers, switched channels, and the buzz followed the speaker no matter what was powering it or where it was. AAAAG! The buzz usually means the ribbons are 'wearing out' and are due to fail. Now I want to be clear here, the buzz was faint with musical sources, not really discernable except as a bit of distortion in female vocals (mostly) So, I pulled them out of the main room, and drag them into my spare room to await whatever I decide to do with them...

Queue two hours of searching with google Carver AL 3 buzzing repair, and a ton of links......
Finally, buried deep in one link, which happened to be an Ebay auction from the (in)famous Dr Marksy, within the Q/A section of the auction, was a reply by the famed dr.

He said, usually, the buzzing is simply fixed by tightening the tension screws that flank the tweeter slot. So, I go look at mine, and see an array of phillips #1 screws that flank both sides of the ribbon on the rear. I've made the mistake of overtorquing things in the past, so I settled on tightening all the screws in order just 1/8th of a turn.

Did it, then ran the same frequency sweep that originally let me hear clearly that there was a buzz... and

It's gone.:banana: No buzz! :banana: (Again, it was faint, and I expect no-one but a tweaky bastard like me with 'golden ears' would have even noticed the buzz) So, I ran the sweep again, ensured that the buzz was gone, then decided to move the speakers back into my main room, for further listening to verify I really wanted to replace my much loved Maggie 2.5r speakers.

With my arm injury, I can't lift these heavy and ackward speakers by myself, so began moving them by using the 'sled' method. (take towel, leverage speakers onto said towel, leaving 2/3's of the towel to act as the lever, by which I slowly pull them into the front room) When I did this to put them into storage, I had the speakers 'facing' me while I pulled the towel slowly down the hall.


Que ominous music here:
This time, without any reason, I put the speakers on the towel with the speakers facing away from me. Didn't figure it would matter, I was pulling gently and slow, etc etc...

Yeah. Bad Idea. I got halfway down the hall, and all of a sudden I see the speaker start to fall face down, which is AWAY from me. I was too far away from the speaker to do anything but barely touch the bass bin and then the unthinkable happened.

The speaker slammed down face first on the uncovered concrete of my hall!


F*************************************************k!

I broke it. the once pristine, (and I do mean pristine, those ribbons were perfect looking) ribbon is bent, warped, slightly torn, and fubar.

literally tears are streaming down my face. I can't believe this.

FML, and sorry for the cursing above. This is without a doubt, the single worst thing I've ever done to a piece of equipment, and I did it to a pair of Carver Amazing Loudspeakers!

:cry :cry :cry :cry.

:(:(:(:(:(:(
 
I am SO SORRY to have read this. I feel for ya my brother. (tears in my eyes as I type this)
Cement you say....... :yikes:
So did one fall or both???
I bet it kinda fell in slow motion at first and you couldn't do anything but watch..... I hate that.
Well with the help of the fine folks here I bet we can get them singing again. If it's just 1 ribbon then maybe you can get a
new one?:dunno:
Most of us have a horror story or 2. A snapped off cantilever on an expensive MC cart. A drop that messes up the face or
bends the heat sinks. A screwdriver through the cone/surround as your screwing the driver back in place.
Speaking for myself, I have been there.
Again, so sorry for your misfortune but things will get better..... Probably.
 
OMGWTFIWW YOU!
You need a Cart if you are too weak to pick up the speakers and carry them!

I feel bad for you......

Uuhh
 
just the one, I'm still in shock and denial.
yeah, it fell face down onto bare (sealed) concrete, and yeah, it was slow motion. I tried, but as it was falling away from me, and at the far end of the towel, I knew there was no way to stop it. ****, one mistake and now I'm boned.
The damaged speaker still plays, but the buzz is terrible now, instead of just slightly annoying.
I broke it.
I broke it.
I broke it.
:no::no::no:

BG 'made' a drop in replacement way back when, but no longer, I suspect it didn't survive the closing/takeover of the company. I can send it to dr marksy for repair, but I pretty much guarantee it will sound different.

and it was pristine!

hell. I'm almost afraid of what the guy who sold them to me will say after this.
Well, I'm going to bed now.
Probably going to cry myself to sleep. No, I'm not joking. I keep vacillating between insane rage and abject sadness.
 
Just noticed that on Eplay Dr. Marksy says he has a few ribbons layin' around if that helps any..... But you already saw that.
At least it was only 1 of them. Could have been twice as bad. And then there are these,
Bohlender Graebener RD48 Planar Transducer.:dunno:
 
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:eek:....:mad:........:(.

I’m beyond words right now. I woke up this morning feeling bad and it took a second to figure out why, as i grabbed a cup of coffee to sit the wife and see her off to work. I sat down next to her and said Jazz started texting me and I had to turn off the phone, I was so tired after almost a week with the flu, yesterday was that day.

I say to her something about a blown woofer, I still haven’t turned on my phone yet.

So our discussion right now is those speakers were fine yesterday, in the morning prior to you coming I told you I used some Beatles to test them, with the wife listening. Neither of us detected anything abnormal. Knowing she doesn’t like them (looks) (WAF Acceptance is Low :oops:) and I’m going to have to sell them.

I know Jazz they were GTG, and I’d never knowingly sell you or anyone else for that matter anything If it were bad.

Exception the 2.5 maggies, which I did not know about that fragile ribbon.

I’ve got to get ready for this function this morning so I’ve gotta run, but I did some research while they were here.

Here’s a link to where I posted a thank you on youtube, check the last comment. I only scanned your above post but look at the time stamp. And if you think we should try this I’m down to buy everything and try.
Ok I just read your entire posting......shit...shit your kidding me. Oh no.
 
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Oh man, sorry to hear of this happening. Eventually something like this happens to all of us. I have been fortunate to dodge a few of these mishaps by sheer luck, but even so I snapped a cantilever on a cartridge because i was wearing long sleeves, and I was cleaning the shelf it was stored on. My fault for storing it the way I did, and it cost me a $500 retip bill.

Sometimes these Carvers are available as a salvage set, where one speaker is bad. I hope you can find the replacement for the one that got damaged.

I imagine you feel terrible about this, but sometimes stuff happens. At least you were not hurt in the process.

Cheers
Mister Pig
 
I scroed from an inmate here a pair of absolutely pristine Carver AL III

I and when I say Pristine, I mean they were literally showroom quality still, excepting one tiny scratch on one side of one ribbon panel. I Couldn't believe the great condition they were in. For various reasons, the seller couldn't keep them, and so knowing how much I love ribbons, he offered them to me for an amazing price.

Of course, I bit, ran to the bank, and straight to his place to pick them up. They were exactly as he described, and I took them home, wrapped securely in blankets.

I hooked them up to one of my Carver amps, and they sounded mighty fine. So fine that I decided to take my precious Magnepan 2.5R out of the main room, and install the Carvers in their place.

While listening I started to notice some 'distortion' in female vocals, making it difficult for me to make out what she was saying (if it matters, I was watching a Dr Who episode and listening to Billy speak) so dug deeper, put on one of my reference piano recordings, and oh yeah, it buzzes. So then I ran a frequency sweep, discovered the dreaded buzz in only one speaker, starting at 325 hz, and continuing in various ways up to 2k. I changed amplifiers, switched channels, and the buzz followed the speaker no matter what was powering it or where it was. AAAAG! The buzz usually means the ribbons are 'wearing out' and are due to fail. Now I want to be clear here, the buzz was faint with musical sources, not really discernable except as a bit of distortion in female vocals (mostly) So, I pulled them out of the main room, and drag them into my spare room to await whatever I decide to do with them...

Queue two hours of searching with google Carver AL 3 buzzing repair, and a ton of links......
Finally, buried deep in one link, which happened to be an Ebay auction from the (in)famous Dr Marksy, within the Q/A section of the auction, was a reply by the famed dr.

He said, usually, the buzzing is simply fixed by tightening the tension screws that flank the tweeter slot. So, I go look at mine, and see an array of phillips #1 screws that flank both sides of the ribbon on the rear. I've made the mistake of overtorquing things in the past, so I settled on tightening all the screws in order just 1/8th of a turn.

Did it, then ran the same frequency sweep that originally let me hear clearly that there was a buzz... and

It's gone.:banana: No buzz! :banana: (Again, it was faint, and I expect no-one but a tweaky bastard like me with 'golden ears' would have even noticed the buzz) So, I ran the sweep again, ensured that the buzz was gone, then decided to move the speakers back into my main room, for further listening to verify I really wanted to replace my much loved Maggie 2.5r speakers.

With my arm injury, I can't lift these heavy and ackward speakers by myself, so began moving them by using the 'sled' method. (take towel, leverage speakers onto said towel, leaving 2/3's of the towel to act as the lever, by which I slowly pull them into the front room) When I did this to put them into storage, I had the speakers 'facing' me while I pulled the towel slowly down the hall.


Que ominous music here:
This time, without any reason, I put the speakers on the towel with the speakers facing away from me. Didn't figure it would matter, I was pulling gently and slow, etc etc...

Yeah. Bad Idea. I got halfway down the hall, and all of a sudden I see the speaker start to fall face down, which is AWAY from me. I was too far away from the speaker to do anything but barely touch the bass bin and then the unthinkable happened.

The speaker slammed down face first on the uncovered concrete of my hall!


**** **** **** **** **** **** **** **** ****!

I broke it. the once pristine, (and I do mean pristine, those ribbons were perfect looking) ribbon is bent, warped, slightly torn, and fubar.

literally tears are streaming down my face. I can't believe this.

FML, and sorry for the cursing above. This is without a doubt, the single worst thing I've ever done to a piece of equipment, and I did it to a pair of Carver Amazing Loudspeakers!

:cry :cry :cry :cry.

:(:(:(:(:(:(

Sorry about your loss.

I know how you feel.


I once owned a pair of original version Carver ALS speakers in piano black and had the exact same buzzing problem and fixed it the same way.
The buzzing was gone for several years.

Then one day, I was moving to a home I just purchased, I set the speakers on the driveway and was getting ready to load them up when, out of nowhere, a big gust of wind caught them and slammed them onto the pavement. Both speakers were instantly destroyed. One speaker snapped completely in half and the other speaker had big cracks in the baffle. Three of the thirty inch ribbons were mangled when the magnets came loose and tried to reverse polarity. The woofers were toast.

I have an extra ribbon if anyone is interested, cannot guarantee that it’s working properly.
 
Well, I feel gutted, and they aren't even my speakers! So sad to read this. :eek::(

Also, while my brain thinks my body is still 25, my body knows different. Regardless, that doesn't stop me from being my typical bull-in-the-china-shop self. So, I'd be like Jazz, and would be trying to do everything alone, and end up with a disaster. At this point, live and learn, and then let it go. :angel:

I'd try Dr Marks too, for a replacement panel. It probably won't be cheap, but hopefully it'd get the speakers running again. :)
 
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Oh, my condolences to 7.65 as well. I'm sure this wasn't what you were expecting to wake up to.

Hope you feel better soon. :beerchug:
 
Just noticed that on Eplay Dr. Marksy says he has a few ribbons layin' around if that helps any..... But you already saw that.
At least it was only 1 of them. Could have been twice as bad. And then there are these,
Bohlender Graebener RD48 Planar Transducer.:dunno:

the rd48 is no longer made. sadly.


So very angry at myself. 7.62 finds a nearly perfect pair, can't keep them, so I buy them. And what do I do? I break them. Gaaaah!

the woofer that wasn't working had a fuse blown. dunno why, but I replaced the fuse and it's all good. Like I said, most probably wouldn't have noticed the buzz, but these damn ears of mine. Then I read I can tighten the tension screws. I was so happy. now I'm so sad.

I have no idea what I'll do now. Probably just wait a bit.
 
I could have sworn that I saw someone parting out a pair up in Seattle a while back so they do come up from time to time.
 
:eek2: Damn, to find another pair like that............going to be next to impossible. I’m almost sick to my stomach Jazz and really sorry this happened.

After things settle down, send me some pics. I hate to say it, but maybe parting them out I’m sure you can recover the cash, just a shame.
 
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