I also had a pioneer rg1 for a short time
Robert
Grodinsky developed that for Pioneer. I remember seeing a Pioneer RG-something in a Hi-Fi store, late 1970s--early 1980s.
More-or-less a competitor to the dbx 2bx. The RG product had two expander circuits, one for left and one for right channels, so that left and right channels didn't interfere with each other. The dbx 2bx had two expander circuits, one for bass, one for treble, so that one frequency band didn't interfere with the other.
I sided with the dbx products; rebuilt and still have a couple of 118 expander/compressors; and have a 1bx in a box somewhere that I intended to rebuild but never got around to it. The 118s were single-circuit, full-range; so somewhat prehistoric compared to the 2bx and 3bx. Still, I really like them on limited-dynamic-range material like record albums. Replacing all the capacitors and the op-amps
really perked them up compared to the original and long-past-expected-service-life parts.
Hint for anyone interested in "vintage" audio: Electrolytic capacitors have an expected service life of "about" 20--25 years. If your equipment--including speaker crossovers--are older than that, your electrolytic caps are almost certainly NOT performing to spec. They may--or may not--test OK for capacitance, but even if they're within tolerance for the capacitance, they're likely out-of-tolerance for ESR. One of the best things I've done audio-wise was to rebuild the speaker crossovers. There's not a huge amount of money involved; and it makes a nice afternoon project.
and was gifted a pl400 with all the white oak mods sadly that got stolen
Tragic. The Carver-designed Phase Linear '400 was quite an amp when new. They didn't age well. The White Oak mods eliminated all the "
Flame Linear" problems of the original circuit design and parts selection.
Carver was a freakin' genius in two areas: finding novel solutions to common problems, and MARKETING. One of his issues was that his parts selection to implement his designs was...lacking. His stuff improved in this regard as he matured. I find it interesting that every company he was involved with, went Tango Uniform shortly after he left.
Last I heard, the rumor mill has him suffering from dementia; his products (hollow-state stuff, more money and novelty in TOOBS) are now built and developed by (or for) one of his retailers. But I don't know this first-hand, and there's a lot of bad blood among the folks who'll still talk about it. (Notably NOT Bob Carver himself.) I've heard but have no proof that the actual assembly of current "Carver" product is done by the same contract-manufacturer of the James Bongiorno-designed Ampzilla 2000 and related smaller amps, preamp, and processor--Wyred4Sound. The Ampzilla products were sold through Spread Spectrum Technologies (SST)
Jimmy B was a more conventional genius
also laid low by health problems; it's a good thing that the Ampzilla 2000 is too expensive and too rare on the used market, or I'd be lus_ting after a couple (in black, please. Not real fond of the blue.)
www.sst.audio/ampzilla-1
www.sst.audio
