Grab Yourself A Deal On A Tube Amplifier!

ranjam

ranjam

New member
I'll put this out there for you all, and duplicate it on the 'other equipment' section, because it bears repeating;

http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/sku=487051

I have had mine for about a week now.

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I am sure someone soon will have a few mods for it, and there are a few 'issues' I'll deal with myself, but this thing is so freakin' cool it is ridiculous. It will be an awesome recording amplifier, to be sure.
 
Looks good, but I just scored a brand new, unplayed Sovtek mig-30!:cool:

Did NOT come cheap, 450 with postage, but I wanted it!:D
Haven't tried it yet, have no cabs, though.
 
From what I am reading-the tubes are a pair of EL84's so the preamp must be solid state? Even on the Crate website no preamp tubes are listed.

But I know that setup works well on my old Music Man amp~SS preamp & EL 34 power amp tubes. On the MM it's a killer combination...
 
I'll have a review with clips in the November issue (I know that's a month away) of FrugalGuitarist.com. Early impressions? The cleaner settings are decent but I wouldn't call them pristine by any stretch of the imagination. The higher gain settings are on the rough and strident side, even piercing with a brighter guitar and the treble up more than about 50%. However, with the right guitar and pedal there are some decent tones to be had.
 
Well, that ain't a schematic, Anfontan; it's a block diagram. You can work your way through the circuit if you have patience and know what the Hell you're doing. I won't brag that I'm smarter than the average soap dish, but I know enough to be dangerous. It is a tube preamp (12AX7's) and power amp (EL84), but the Reverb is IC driven. It is Class A (Cathode biased). I haven't 'scoped out the actual power output, but it may be around 15-watts. The measured B+ is just +330VDC, so unless they're running the output transformer primary under 5K, I doubt it is an 18-watt amplifier. Close, but not quite. It is pretty cool. With my stock vintage Strat, it sounds fine; although a little middy for me. And, there is no negative feedback, so clean headroom takes a back seat to saturation. As I say, it doesn't get louder but more saturated after about '4' on the Gain control. I can fix that ;).
 
ranjam said:
And, there is no negative feedback, so clean headroom takes a back seat to saturation. As I say, it doesn't get louder but more saturated after about '4' on the Gain control.
Click to expand...

To me, this is the beauty of these amps. I mean, if I wanted a bunch of clean headroom, I could buy a Fender HotRod DLX to make people's ears bleed with....but being able to bring that all important power tube saturation into the mix at a reasonable volume it where it's at; this is where the really great "tube amp" tone comes from. I've got two of the thirty watters, complete with the schems from Crate; a 1x12 and a 2x12. I love 'em. If I weren't so poor right now, I'd be getting me one of these V-18 models... it's a really really great price on a sweet amp. With a few pedals this amp can't be beat at any price.... I like it more than my Mesa Boogie I bought this year and paid 10x the price you can get this amp for right now!

Peace!

~Shawn
 
i keep waiting for someone to comment on how the V amps' circuitry looks inside - is it easy to mod (especially for a non-engineer).

these seem to be in the same niche as Valve Jr. and Blackheart, so modder following is expected. can't wait.
 
I actually kind of dug the old VC-5 I played once (precursor to this). It was a decent enough clean, had a pretty contemporary high gain sound, and the single tone knob actually had a fairly useable array of settings.
 
I've had my V18 about three weeks now. It lives at my rehearsal space and has been cranked exactly once. I can't say I really like the sound, the reverb is horrible, it sounds more solid-state than my solid-states. I suspect it's major flaw to be the speaker. I mean, they are selling a 2-12 extension cab for $120 ??? How freakin good can these speakers be expected to sound? I am going to run it through something better before I decide if it's worth changing out the speaker. Somebaody said tube upgrades will help too, but I'd just buy a better amp if I was planning on putting any real time on it, or real money into it.
 
mikemorgan said:
I mean, they are selling a 2-12 extension cab for $120 ??? How freakin good can these speakers be expected to sound?
Click to expand...

When you are Musicians Friend, you sell stuff below cost some times to blow it out.... it just part of being in retail.... I worked at an auto parts warehouse for 13 years, and every month we had $3000 come out of profit for stuff that broke and we had to throw away, or if he had to sell some stuff for under cost to get it off the shelf.... It's just the cost of doing business.
 
You and I are gonna hafta disagree on this one bro, this speaker sounds like a tuna can.


"You must spread some reputation around before giving it to eyema_believer again"
 
mikemorgan said:
You and I are gonna hafta disagree on this one bro, this speaker sounds like a tuna can.


"You must spread some reputation around before giving it to eyema_believer again"
Click to expand...


Here's a song I've been working on in the studio.... CLICK HERE

I rushed out a mix today just to show you how mine sounds..... granted, it's an MP3, and some of the nuance has been lost in the compression, but I'll let you be the judge. Maybe the speaker in the newer models aren't the same???

Peace!!

~Shawn
 
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