All user reviews for the Crate BX100

I am Sir Puffers Rabbinald the Third of Comparative Anatomy, the most barrage drum and bass band on the animal planet. I play lightning treble bass. We have played since birth. This amp was Puffer's first real bass amp. It's a large, cube-shaped, off-black amplifier with a handle at the top, the Crate logo on the mesh, and tons of nobs. Along with the usual volume and gain, you have an incredible equilizer that can really give you a nice range of sound.

My mother rabbit gave it to me before I blew up the den with my lightning bass power. It cost her around $350 I believe.

<a href="http://www.myspace.com/comparativeanatomy">http://www.myspace.com/comparativeanatomy</a>

The great thing about the Crate BX-100 is its versatility. For its size, this thing delivers. It has excellent gain, a contour nob for getting a general sound for a foundation, an awesome 8-band equilizer, master level, balanced line out, and the usual. The equilization on this thing is killer, you can really, really derive some great sound out of it and an incredible range. Very versatile. In addition, aside from the fact that its only 100 Watts, this thing is LOUD. It's surprisingly loud. I've used this in medium-sized venues and was able to fill the room with wonderful lightning bursts at roughly a little over HALF of max volume. Don't let the 100W fool you, the BX-100 has some fine kick to it. Definitely good for a small or medium venue band, this thing can crank.

The only thing I really didn't like about the BX-100 is the size. One of the reasons I think it's so loud is the absolutely beast size of the cabinet the speaker is in. I mean, we're talking probably three times the necessary size. This, unfortunately, makes this cube of death incredible awkward to carry. It has NO wheels on the bottom and no handles on the sides for ease of transport, and the pathetic little handle on the top looks like it could snap at any moment, not to mention it's almost impossible to carry it around with it in any sort of way short of ridiculous. If it weren't so heavy, this might not be an issue, but its size and weight really make the BX-100 an awkward, often painful experience on the road. It damaged two car windows in the time I've had it and destroyed countless plastic things in the back seat. Make sure it's secure in the car or where, because if this thing moves, everything dies. Another issue worth noting is NOTHING inside the back to hang and/or hook the cord to. Talk about annoying, try carrying this and have the cord fall between your legs as you're going down a flight of stairs.

Still, the BX-100 is a solid, nicely put together piece of equpiment. I had it for years and cranked it up quite a bit and never had a problem with it. It's definitely built to last for a long time.

Overall, the Crate BX-100 delivers where it really needs to, the sound. Keep in mind its size may break the back of the strongest of musicians, but if you can look past this (and perhaps install your own side handles, which should be easy to do), it's a great amp and will give you all the power you need. Heck, I'd go so far as to say this is one step below a half-stack. Turn it on and see why!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is a 100watt black combo amp

I bought it used off a friend along with a cable and a zoom effects pedal for a combine $300 in around 2003 or so.

It's a good lightweight starter amp for very small venues and for practices. If you are just playing around in your garage with a drummer and guitarists this will do just fine to be heard in the mix. Tone is satisfactory, clear and somewhat customizable, but personal tone is a preference. This amp is probably best for a practice studio.

If you need to be heard on stage, this is not the amp for you, only 100 watts means not to much power, however if you are mic-ed or DI-ed you should be fine, I used this one time at the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, NJ, for any of you who know famed place, and my bass ran through a DI box so it did just fine, however I used it on a small community center stage by itself and it DID not cut it volume wise with 2 other loud metal guitars.

Okay construction, internally it seemed fine, but I had some knobs and EQ levers fall off over the years, still worked and sounded fine but was a bit annoying. I never had the speaker on the inside blow out or anything.

If your starting out and don't have a lot of money, and need to upgrade from a small 15watt practice amp, this is great, if you need to medium to large venues, get a head and cabinet separate, this does not have a lot of power!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

i bought it new in 2005 its a great amp by itself or with ext speakers have a b.c.rich warlock bass playing thru it and the sound is phenominal awesome effects ive been playing guitar snd bass for 36 years mostly home and garage band stuff we call ourselves ' the banned' weve only played out a handful of times but were always liked. crate amps are my choice they 'ROCK'

PURCHASED NEW AT HOVERMANS MUSIC IN VAN WERT OHIO I PAID 400.00 FOR IT JUST WANTED TO UPGRADE FROM OLD AIRLINE AMP AND CRATE WAS GOOD CHOICE FOR ME IM ALWAYS TOLD TO TURN DOWN EVEN WHEN VOLUME IS ON 2 OF TEN SO THERE YOU HAVE IT LOTS OF HEADROOM

<a href="STORE HAS SINCE CLOSED">STORE HAS SINCE CLOSED</a>

PORTABILITY 80 LBS AND STURDY LINE OUTS FOR EVERYTHING YOU WILL EVER NEED.5 YEAR WARRANTY IVE NEVER HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH THIS AMP AT ALL

NO WHEELS MAYBE THATS ALL

EXCELLENT STURDY AND TOUGH

CRATE HAS A LOT OF DIFFERENT SIZE AMPS FOR ANY SIZE PLACE OR PERSON THEYRE A GREAT AMP IN MY OPINION ALL PLAYERS SHOULD CHECK THEM OUT YOU WONT BE DISAPOINTED.IL PROBABLY KEEP MINE FOREVER AND GET ANOTHER ONE FOR MY SON SOMEDAY

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Purchased at Guitar Center of Hallandale, Fl
for $289.00
I highly recommend "The Guitar center".
These people are really good.

The amps power rating of 100 watts rms seems to be accurate.
It is indeed loud enough to play at moderate volume and play along side someone with a 50-60 watt guitar at about half or slightly more volume.
I like tolex covering; no lint, no snags and no beverages will soak into it like carpet. Easy soap and water clean up.
The Graphic 8 band EQ works well, is extremely effective for customizing your sound curve but has its *limitations depending on the volume used.(*discussed later)You can punch it up, fatten the bottom end etc., its very versitile and would accomodate most playing styles.

The "Contour" control when properly set will allow mild to moderate enhancement of the amps tone. Set the Contour to the right and the amps midrange frequencies are cut and the bass and the treble are given a slight boost. When turned left the bass and treble are cut and the mids are fattened up.
The controls of this amp are setup with a common sense layout, effective and accurate operation. All of the necessary line in/out, extension speaker and effects loop jacks are there and where they should be.



Depending upon your environmental conditions within your home, studio or elsewhere, this amp can get noisy. Computer equipment, Televisions, and other electronics that are nearby will cause excessive amounts of line noise. A noise gate will most likely be a benefit as well as a line conditioner or at least a good surge protector with both
RFI and EMI (Radio Frequency Interference and Electromagnetic Interference) reduction.

The amp is not ideally suited to gig with in small clubs only because the amp starts to distort at about 75% volume. This increases to the point of annoyance if you set the right two graphic eq sliders (50hz and 100Hz) to increase the amount of bass. When you set the amp at 85-90% volume and attempt to increase the amount of bass at higher setting by again moving the right two slider up, the amount of distortion increases to the point where it will drive you insane. There is no way to operate this amp at high volume and at the same time, achieve a heavy bottom end. If you lean out the bass frequencies to more modest settings somewhere just above the middle (only slight boost) then the distortion is not quite so pronounced and is bearable.
There is no line in for a cd player and no rca out for recording media or a computer.
It has does have a balanced XLR line out for studio recording and to patch to the PA system.

Rugged quality internal construction, no internal vibration and no rattles. It's obviously braced and re-enforced properly The controls knobs seem to be durable but the EQ sliders seem to be a bit weak, I've read only one review but the sliders on another guys BX100 were damaged during transport, I can believe it since they appear to be a bit on the cheap side.
The material that covers the units front is ugly and not quite so protective. I know that most of us feel better when we have a rattle free/kick proof steel mesh between ourselves and the units 15” ground pounder and besides, you gotta admit, it just looks cool.


I don’t want to scare you away from this unit. It’s a high quality unit and will faithfully perform its job for you but that depends on what your expecting to do with it.
If your going out on the road or in the studio, you’re going to need more amp with less inherent idiosyncrasies that require work-arounds or give and take.
If you’re looking for a good practice amp or a limited x-small club/coffee house size amp that you intend on having mic’d or patched to the PA and providing your drummer isn’t super loud then the BX100 with all of its features functions and price is very hard to beat.
If you do gig with this unit, run it through the PA system and keep the volume and low-end tone set correctly and you’ll love it.
My opinion is that the BX100 is better suited as a damned good higher end practice amp.

I gave this amp a 4 but only becasue the distortion issue. All other issues that were mentioned are not that serious enough to warrant passing this product up for consideration. I've since traded up to the BT220 I needed more power for giging and more overhead while practicing at b-52 volume levels.
Crate has since replaced the BX100 with the BT100 which is a much better amp less the 8 band eq.
You can get the older Bx100 for about $50 - $70 cheaper that the newer Bt100.
I thought that I would write this review just for those few people out there who are looking at the leftovers or buying used.

My recommendation would be to buy the BT100 over the BX100 but if you want save a few dollars and like this amp, its not a bad deal, its not a perfect amp but for what its designed and designated for its pretty good.
Good luck and I hope you've found this useful.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Ok, I bought this amp new about 4 years ago for about $300. When I was learning how to play in the garage of my buddy. I bought it from a local music store here in Albany.

I have to say that the 8 band eq on it is a nice feature but it is worth nothing without the right output. The only other good thing that has come from this amp is the fact that I can push it around everwhere, but that only happend after a stop at the local hardware store.

Ok, now it is a piece of junk! This thing has a tendency to crap out on me about twice a rehersal (6 hours). When I have to shut off the amp while being plugged to a sound system through the convienient line out jack, it sounds like an atomic bomb about to make impact and explode from the magnet discharging. Without running through a system it has no chance in the world to go toe to toe with a acoustic drum set. It weighs about 20 pounds to much for the strange shape, and the handle is a piece of crap as well. I wouldn't sell this amp to anyone, even if they wanted it for scrap parts.

This amp is very well built for the ouside. The whole thing rattles for ever and a day with some notes. The grill fell off after about a year of owning it.

umm.....IT'S CRAP!!!!!!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bought new at Guitar Center for $299.99 (price matched musiciansfriend.com). Replaced my BX50DLX. I needed input for an active bass that the BX50 lacked.

Input pad circuit for active or passive basses. Gain control to allow you to max your input without clipping. EQ to allow you to really tweak your sound, hookups for mixer, extension speaker, effects loop, etc...
The BX100 has all the features you could want aside from built in effects (better left on an effects box anyway). Great tone for a solid state amp, almost (but not quite) sounds tube like...
Loud. This is a 100w amp after all...
Tolex covering instead of carpet. (carpet covered amps look CHEAP to me).
Keeps up with an obnoxious drummer at a reasonable power output level.
Built in feet, which were not present on the BX50DLX (did Crate leave those off? My MBX10 has feet even!). I had a lot of trouble with sound getting trasferred through the floor to the walls and furniture with the old amp, and all I could hear was the house rumbling... I still see the ceiling fan rattle even at low volumes, but the CDs aren't jumping around the entertainment center anymore...
The top mounted handle. Some folks fuss about this, but I like the fact it is top mounted. I could also enjoy recessed side mounts, but know that would ram the price up...
This thing has enough grunt to be heard over an accoustic drumset, and fill a church or basketball court type situation, and it has all the outputs you need to hook up to a mixer / PA system for larger situations. This makes for a very flexible amp feature wise, and so far I have had nothing but good luck quality wise with Crate products. Let's hope this thing holds the line on that tradition.

Lack of CD input. I used that feature a LOT on my old amp to practice to. I believe there are effects boxes that have this feature, but it would be nice to have that in the amp itself.
It's a heavy bit of gear. Not as heavy as say a Peavey, but at, 55lbs I think, it's enough to make you really careful moving it around for fear of hurting your back. I would suggest using a hand truck if you have one...
No owners manual. The bottom of the barrel MBX10 came with one in the box. But the BX50DLX I had, and now the BX100 both had that missing from the box.
The warranty terms. Crate has a 5 year transferrable warranty. But you MUST keep your receipt. No doubt you have seen what happens to most retail receipts after a couple of months. I guess I could hand them a blank strip of paper if I ever need warranty service... Crate needs a better method of authenticating purchase date. I would suggest that part of the new sales process should include initial warranty registration.

Typical Crate. Smoothe, and bomb proof. Again, you pay a weight penalty for this. Not a bad thing, just be prepared for it...
Well rounded corners with good quality plastic corner guards (not that cheapo brittle stuff). Tolex covering, which has noticeable seams in the back. (not viewable by the audience though, so no problem there...).

I looked at this model, SWR LA15, Peavey TNT 115, Fender Rumble 100, Fender Bassman 100, Behringer BX1200 Ultrabass, and a Gallien Krueger model that I don't recall. The Crate gave me the tone I wanted, had the oompf I was looking for, the flexibility to we useful as my needs expand, and build quality I demand. And to top it off, the price was downright decent. If it were stolen, and had to stay in the same price class, I would definately get another BX100. I rate this a 5 because I believe it to be the best product of its type in its price class. It doesn't hold a candle to say an Ampeg BA210SP, but it also only costs half as much...

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Local flea market for $85 because my cousin told me to. The guy wanted $130, but we told him we only had $85 and he took it. That was about a year ago, and it looked a couple of years old.

Light weight. Natural wood color. Bright sounding. Good overall bass. Always works. I put some sweet stickers of hot babes on it under the strings and it looks cool

I can't complain about a sweet bass that i got at the flea market for $85. well, sometimes the low E string hits the pickup, but thats only when i play hard. And the stap hooks aren't too good either.

Great. Sounds good, does scratch easily though. But for the money, it's amazing

Wonderful, I play it everyday. Sounds good. No serious problems. Just the strap hooks. Otherwise it is amazing and i will never get rid of it.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Got as a deiced grad gift...i think $349.00

This thing is a beast. it does keep up with a drummer, who thinks hes a lead, and i know all you can probably relate. i like the contour, and 9 band EQ...it reallys works, i thought you wouldnt hear it but damn i was wrong.

tank builders learn a thing or two from this beast..the hadles ok,
what you can do is grab the handle, then grab bottom corner.

good i dropped it nothing, spilt stuff on it nothing. built like a rock.

Good amp for price, loud shakes house, pisses off neighrbors (isnt this what we really look for in a amp) and just a tad heavy

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought it at a pawn shop on El Camino Real in Woodside, CA, for $175.00. I needed an AMP to practice with, and it was a great bargain for the quality.

*It can get friggin' LOUD. I can WAY overpower an acoustic drumset with it.

*The Contour control is awesome. I can get it to sound like the meanest metal amp, and then quickly switch to a clean, almost acoustic sound.

*EQ just rules.

*There's a light that shows if the input is getting clipped. Two thumbs up.


*I had to spend some time and money to attach handles on the side and casters on the bottom because the single handle on top is worthless.

*No built-in effects.

*Sometimes, the sound will be a bit TOO deep, and too "washed out". A bit of EQ and Contour tweaking can fix that, though.


I think it's a great intermediate AMP for small-stage stuff and practicing. If it got stolen or something, I would probably buy a guitar amp as opposed to a bass AMP.

This thing is rock solid. I've tipped it over once before, and it barely scratched. I've practiced with it with a full band on 75% volume, and it worked fine.


I think it's a great intermediate AMP for small-stage stuff and practicing. I play guitar in a metal/funk/rock jam band. Our bassist tried it, and thought it was too weak, but it's perfect for guitar. If you're a guitar player who likes to play on the heavy side, GET THIS AMP, it rules. If I turned it up to 75%, I would blow my windows out.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought it from Guitarget (Guitar Center) for $349 + tax.

First of, I liked the price. This thing makes a lot of noise and has plenty of tone shaping abilities for $350. The contour knob and 9-band eq really impressed me in the store and I can find an adequate position for the controls for most playing styles.

However, although I can find an adequate sound for most styles, NONE of them are any more than adequate. This thing lacks that one good or great tone that I'm looking for. Also, it is the exact wrong size for me. It's too weak to compete with an acoustic drum set and overkill for a practice amp. It's pretty heavy too, and the handle on top is worthless, but a trip to Home Depot for casters fixed that problem. And finally, after 2 years the thing is starting to crap out on me. The input is getting glitchy and the whole thing rattles on certain notes.

The box seems pretty sturdy but I'm not going to drop it out a window to find out. I can't really answer this one because I've never let anything too bad happen to this amp.

At the time I bought it it was quite the contender in its price bracket but now there are some new rivals. Before you buy this A/B it to the SWR LA-15 and the new Berhinger 120 Watt 12" combo. I would give it a 4 because the features are all you can expect for the price, but it gets the 3 because it's starting to go bad. If someone stole it I wouldn't buy another one. I feel that I've outgrown this amp and now have plans for an Eden CXC combo.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

This is a solid state bass amp made by Crate. Their products tend to be hit or miss, but more often than not their higher end stuff (which is still cheap compared to most gear) is pretty decent. This falls into that category. It's a combo amp, and has a few interesting features. The front panel has a 1/4" input jack, a gain knob as well as a contour knob (and a switch for active pickups), plus an impressive 7-band EQ. The back panel has a line out jack, headphones jack, external speaker jack and an effects loop. The amp is 100 watts as the name implies. There aren't any effects.

UTILIZATION

Getting a good sound out of this is actually pretty easy assuming you want to get a few different types of sounds. None of the sounds you get are going to be spectacular (at least not to a trained ear), but it is really good for getting a lot of different types of sounds, which can't be said for every bass amp. The 7-band EQ is what really helps in this department, as there's so much variety to be had, you can get really specific and dial in more or less just what you need. It helps the amps natural tone, which, to be honest, could be better. This amp is heavy and slightly awkward, so it loses points for that, though.

SOUNDS

For the price tag attached to this thing, I was pretty amazed at how good it sounded. It's got a great variety of tones that are hard to beat thanks to the in-depth 7-band EQ. I've used it with a jazz bass as well as a P-bass (two great but different sounding basses), and I have to say it didn't necessarily favor one over the other. Taking the time to try out different combinations gave me a great variety of tones. I got a semi-distorted, rocking tone. I got a warm, fat Beatles-sounding tone, and also a great smooth fusion type sound. There were many different sounds I could achieve between those. So while none of them were perfect (though the smoother ones were close), I feel that this amp has a lot of value. It also loses points for hum and noise (which is occasionally an unsolvable problem).

OVERALL OPINION

For an amp at this price, it's a great find. If this is about as much as you can afford, then you probably won't be able to afford an amp that'll give you a perfect tone (unless you get really lucky or have a warped idea of what a perfect tone is). So this amp will work well for you as it'll sound good in a lot of different contexts. If, on the other hand, you have an amp that does one or two sounds really well, this will be a good thing to have on the off-chance that the other amp breaks, or you find yourself playing music that doesn't really work with your main amp. This is essentially a good piece of gear.

100Watts Bass Amplifier transistor.
An input jack with -15/0db selector.
A headphone output.
An output for an HP extension.
An output line an XLR jack +.
Effects loop.
8-band graphic equalizer.
A knob "contour shape" with a switch to disable it.

UTILIZATION

The graphic equalizer can use very simple intuitive and efficient.

SOUNDS

The graphic equalizer allows for a wide range of sounds. In addition to the "contour shape" can focus on choosing the high or low frequencies. You can spend a very slamming her for rock and metal sounds very round and fat.

OVERALL OPINION

I use this amp for 8 years. My musical tastes have evolved a lot during this time, I could appreciate that versatility.
It is also very robust ... not a single failure in 8 years and has traveled quite a bit.
Nine it is a little expensive, newer versions are around 600 €, but even if it is not an amp that is often encountered is excellent.