If you are regularly running GFA-555’s into clipping on your XPL’s, how about saving the money on equipment and looking at upgrading your speakers again? I am not a loud music guy, but when I dragged my XPL-200’s to my dad’s house to compare them with his 250Ti’s, I remember that the louder we played, the farther ahead the 250Ti’s pulled. They stayed punchy and dynamic when the XPL’s sounded like the bass was compressing. We were listening through a Dbx BX-3mkii amp, which is 400w/ch in 2ch mode. That Dbx was/is a great amp for bass. I bought it off my friend at Bose, who used to use it to power 901’s on their 18 wheeler demo truck. Btw, worst amp we’ve tried? Onkyo M-504. Beautiful amp, with huge power meters, but no guts, even though rated at 165w/ch.
Otherwise, my only experience with Carver stuff is getting it fixed. We used to sell the Sunfire True Subwoofer, or whatever it was called, and everyone we sold has either been rebuilt or replaced. I have also had to repair a few of the early 90’s Carver amps when we did A/V installations. One of them was my tech’s fault - I think he connected hot to hot on an auto former install and burned the traces off the amp board. The other we don’t know. Client says the amp worked great until we touched it
. This was about 6mos after the autoformer accident. Incidentally, I refused to repair the amp - I gave him an Adcom GFA-555ii I had at the shop in its place.
I don’t know what you’re going to find that is good, reliable, affordable, and a mono block. Other than the last part, I would look at Parasound or B&K