Guys, I could be wrong but here is how I heard it went down from industry insiders. Most of this info is from "third parties" so take it for what it's worth.

When Bob was still "Carver" he took the company public. The board of directors slowly took the company in a new direction (cassette decks, low priced CD players, etc.) and Bob's majority ownership was forcibly bought out (about the time of his divorce?) but I heard he still owned about 22% of the Carver stock. Bob took his buy-out proceeds and started Sunfire.

Meanwhile, Carver was still in operation but went through a couple of major management and direction upheavals. Eventually, they went bankrupt and closed. Either right before or after bandruptcy, they or the bank sold the rights to the Carver Pro line to Phoenix Gold.

After the Carver bankruptcy Bob Carver told everyone he was awarded the rights and bought back, from the bankruptcy court for a pittance, the rights to the Carver name for just residential product and Sunfire came out with a few Carver models which they said would be a lower-end, entry level line for them. My information dries up a bit at this point, but it appears Phoenix Gold put in a claim with the courts that THEY actually owned the Carver name for pro and residential and they did in fact end up with the rights to both lines. It could also be that Bob sold them the rights to the name and the courts were not involved. However it happened, Phoenix ended up with both the Carver Pro and Carver residential names about two or three years ago.

Phoenix Gold showed reps and select dealers a preliminary line of Carver products - some of which (like the preamp/processors) were going to be OEM'd for them by Sunfire! Bob's "right hand man" at Sunfire for many years, Randy Bingham, was hired by Phoenix to run the new Carver division and launch the line. This was shortly after Bob lost his lawsuits regarding the patents on his subwoofers.

For whatever reason, the Carver line at Phoenix never launched and Randy ended up leaving and is now working for Krell. Bob ended up selling out to Nortek and probably has some sort of agreement to continue making public appearances for a year or two or three - maybe longer, maybe shorter.

My guess is they didn't mention the residential Carver line in the press releases because it really doesn't exist anymore, but they probably did get the rights to the name if they want to take another stab at resurrecting it.

My info comes second and third hand, but I believe it is mostly correct in spirit even if the chronology is slightly off. If any industry insider is reading this and has more accurate info, I would love to hear it.