I heard Emotive bought Bob Carvers tube company

1) We shouldn't be dismissing gear just because it is built in China. There is some excellent gear being made in China these days. True, there is also some poor quality audio gear being made there too. All a matter of quality control and quality design.

2) According to Emotiva, the Carver tube gear will be built in TN.

Let's wait and see what the tube amps sound like and how they are priced before we start jumping to conclusions.

I wander if they will switch Carver over to a direct sells model like Emotiva?

My Chinese/Maryland USA Jolida tube amp cost around 1/8th the price of the closest Carver, performs beautifully, and is VERY well made...and since the Chinese manufacturing cat is "way out of the bag" at this point (who made the computers we're typing this stuff on?), we should support U.S. companies who keep track of the Chinese factory working standards (if at all possible). Mike Allen's (Jolida founder) story is an interesting example of exactly that.

Maybe Emotiva will cut out the Carver retailers and sell direct to the consumer. Now that would make a worthwhile takeover.

Bob Carver has not been associated with Carver for many moons. His tube amp company apparently wasn't particularly successful or he wouldn't have been looking to sell it.

At any rate, here's my concern. Emotiva bought out Sherbourn, a previously excellent amp manufacturer. They used to have transformers for each channel. Then Emotiva buys them and basically puts out Emotiva amps with the Sherbourn name, which waters down a previously good product. It didn't sell well, and now Sherbourn is going the way of Emotiva, selling over the internet only.

Then Emotiva buys into TacT room correction. After many promises, nothing with TacT has been released, and Emotiva goes silent on the whole thing.

Now they buy a tube amp company and make a big splashy announcement about it. Well excuse me if I don't get all excited, but I have yet to see any benefits of their takeovers. And they STILL haven't released the XMC-1 after reassuring that it was coming last summer. They have pockets full of good intentions, but have trouble delivering.