Hello everyone!

What do you guys think of Carver gear? The interwebs seem to be very polar about his stuff, very like or hate and it reminds me of Bose.. Being that my XPL200's won the showdown against the L150A's, I'd like to find 300-400 watt monoblock amplifiers, four total, to run the XPL's. I'm coming from two Adcom GFA 555 II's, a Marantz 3600 pre and an Ashly XR1000. The GFA's in stereo & vertical bi-amp just don't give me the SPL's needed like with the GFA's bridged with the L150A's, it's close, but not quite there. Which is why I estimate I need at least double the power to get the extra 3 or 6dB I'd like. My trouble is, I'm not sure what to buy and what sounds good. Carver made a lot of stuff, and after a lot of reading I decided to try the TFM series, two 55x's to be specific. Well, the Adcom was leaps and bounds better than the 510M (Yeah, I almost cried over that), so much so I could drop the equalizer from the system. My wife and I pitted the 555 II against the 55x and found the 55x to be sonically better than the Adcom. It's more musical, detailed and provided tighter bass. Although inside the thing isn't much to speak of and on paper, it's junk. Dinky capacitors and a rink-tink appearing transformer. <0.5% THD and a damping factor that says >150 while supposedly delivering 380wpc. The Adcom seems to have more steam or grunt, thanks to it's larger caps & better transformer. By comparison, the meter lights on the 55x really flicker when cranked and the amp's meters aren't a really good indicator for clipping. Frequently they'd indicate an average of about 60w and then soar above the indicated 380 for certain stuff. I like me a good light which is instantaneous. The Adcoms have that but they don't have the sound quality.. Both seem to play just as loud, the Carver might be slightly louder. Oh, the second Carver hasn't arrived yet (thanks USPS) so we did our listening on the XPL's without bi-amping. Anyway, thanks for reading the rant. I'd like to hear what you guys think of Carver and their preamps as well. Thats the next thing I'd like to improve on. I would also like to go the monoblock amp route so I'd like suggestions there as well. There is so much stuff out there! Suggestions don't have to be Carver but I'd like balanced outputs and maybe a remote as well as tone defeat out of a pre amp. My one buddy was right- if the gear is good, you don't need equalization.