carvin amps?

[kendog]

I've been looking around at new amps, and like somebody was reading my mind a Carvin catalog showed up on my doorstep. I find the features and pricing very interesting but I have never played through one before. and the big problem I found is that they are factory direct only WTF! So does anyone play through these? How are they. I play a verity of music but lean torward classic rock/blues and was looking at the x100b, legacy 2 or BELAIR.

Thanks in advance for any information

 

[MUYFUE]

A bassist friend of mine in high school had one of their combo bass amps. It had a 15 and 2 10s and a horn.
It was light, smallish, and easy to adjust. Sounded pretty good. Articulate and full, but not BOOMy like an ampeg can be, but it may have been his bass that was the limiting factor.

I've played but never owned a tweed combo they had in the used section of a local music store and I thought it sounded great. I don't recall the exact model, but it was kinda like a Deluxe. sounded good, seemed to be in good repair.

 

[dbw]

I have a Carvin V3 with a broken power section.  Carvin refuses to send me the schematic.  Thumbs down on service.  The amp sounded great though, when it worked...

 

[Death by Uberschall]

My cousin has one of their basses and a twin speaker bass combo amp. I have to say they play and sound great.

I have one of their Tube 100 stereo power amps and it sound very good cranked and has never let me down. I used regularly for a couple of years at my rack power amp.

The Legacy amp is really nice, some call it a "poor man's Bogner".

Definitely the best bang for the buck.

As a note, they have been around for a really long time while others have come and gone. And to be direct buy without show rooms, they are doing something right.  :icon_thumright:

 

[Death by Uberschall]

I have a Carvin V3 with a broken power section.  Carvin refuses to send me the schematic.  Thumbs down on service.  The amp sounded great though, when it worked...

Not surprising about the refusal to send a schematic. Most companies keep that stuff tightly guarded. It's way too easy these days to build a clone of an amp if you have the schematic. But you should be able to get it fixed without any problems.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

For modern Hi-gain with some flexibility in the other 2 channels, I'd say the V3.

The Legacy is a bit of a one trick pony unless you have a bunch of pedals & such.

The Belair and the Nomad are very nice Vintage sounding amps.  Check with Stultzie for feedback obout his Nomad & Legacy.

Another friend has the Belair and that would be my personal pick of the two.

 

[Death by Uberschall]

Haven't heard anything about the Legacy II amps, but they look promising.

 

[kendog]

Thanks for the feedback so far.
With V3 how flexible are the first two channels, could I get the gain right for say SRV, Floyd, The Stones?
i like the option of the high gain but would probably not use it too often

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

There V3 is supposed to be the bomb.  I have a BX600 bass head.  It's discontinued now and replaced by the 12AX7 equipped BX500.  I've had no complaints.  It has plenty of power and has never clipped.  It also has a built-in compressor, and the effects loop can be turned off and on along with the 9 band EQ, which really makes a 2 channel head.  The factory direct thing kind of urked me, because there was no try before you buy, but they do have a return policy, so you'd really just be out for shipping costs.  For being American made, they're really cheap.

 

[Justinginn]

Played through a Valve Master 100 watt 2x12 for about a week. 6l6-powered and I kept it on the 50watt mode. Great sounding cleans and some nice mid-gain breakup. I didn't do a lot of high gain work with it but it was a nice amp. The singer in my band used to have it on permanant loan until its real owner wanted it back. Sweet amp, though it had been abused over the years. Had some issues with the reverb but I don't think that was Carvin's fault.

 

[NLD09]

I like my carvin clubmaster. They didn't make them for long but it sounds great. VERY treble heavy though. I have to turn the treble to 1 or 2.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

There V3 is supposed to be the bomb.  I have a BX600 bass head.  It's discontinued now and replaced by the 12AX7 equipped BX500.  I've had no complaints.  It has plenty of power and has never clipped.  It also has a built-in compressor, and the effects loop can be turned off and on along with the 9 band EQ, which really makes a 2 channel head.  The factory direct thing kind of urked me, because there was no try before you buy, but they do have a return policy, so you'd really just be out for shipping costs.  For being American made, they're really cheap.

To me, 2 of the most overlooked, underrated amps on the market today are the V3, and the PEAVEY JSX.  I've not had any trouble getting very versatile tones of various gain levels from vintage to metal gain.  Both have very nice clean channels, both have very nice crunch channels, both have very nice lead channels with more than enough available gain.  Switching the eq settings can yield a wide range of tones.

 

[dbw]

The V3 does everything, clean, crunch, lead, death metal.  You definitely don't need stomp distortion with that amp... it has tons of distortion onboard already.  I would not buy it again, though, knowing that if it breaks I'm basically fucked.

 

[GoDrex]

I had an X-100b halfstack from '85 to around '94 - - I didn't care for the lead channel that much. It was ok, but somewhat wimpy and uninspiring. The clean channel was pretty awesome though and could probably level a small house. It has a 100/50/25 watt switch that I rarely touched since it always sounded better to me on 100 watts. The distortion on 25 watts sounded killer, but wasn't loud enough for a band. The one I had, had 6L6's - maybe I would have liked the EL34 version better - not sure, never tried it and I didn't know anything about tubes then.  Another thing about these amps is the EQ is active so the higher up you turn the B, M, T, or P - the louder it makes the amp. They're decent amps - built really well. The one I had had it's own sound. I don't know what it sounded like.:icon_scratch: I won't do Carvin again. I've been disappointed with everything I've ever gotten from them.

Actually I do kind of wish I still had that head. I'm sure I could get some cool tones out of it now.

 

[dbw]

btw Carvin has a big, active forum of its own.  Check it out  :headbang:

 

[shanejw]

I've had a Carvin MTS 3200 Full Stack for about 15 years now and have never had any trouble with it.  I'm a Carvin buyer for life.  If this amp ever goes out I'm going to get a V3.  Everything from clean, crunch, overdrive and high gain sound great and the price cannot be beat by anyone.

 

[notafatboy]

Ok so im a total carvin nut. First off-Carvin does have showrooms they are only in california though. Second all there gear I have tried  in person except the legacy 2. I recommend the v3 and the legacy. THE X100B had the best tone I thought and it had a lot of features for not so much money. I own a MTS combo I got used for 350 but I will say i love them. The guitars and amps are all high quality imo. Obviously tone is very subjective but in my experience I have found carvin gear to be very flexible and dynamic.