I always did like the sound of Carver preamps, there power amps are pretty good too, like the PM series 1.5, I haven't heard or used the PM 2.0 yet. But there amps are a little more layed back sounding than the Crest, Crown and QSC amplifiers I've ran. But he does some goofy things with some of his equipment, like your tape monitor loop on your 1 preamp for example.