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Diary Of An Axeman Diary Of An Axeman

« Crate Power Block was ahead of its time . »

Published on 11/16/23 at 22:23
Best value: Excellent
Audience: Anyone
The Crate Power Block can be use in Monophonic mode at 150 watts at 8 ohms or in Stereo at 75 watts at 4 ohms.
On the front of the CPB, are the Gain, Treble, Mid and Bass knobs, an Input plug and Headphone input so you don't disturb neighbors or your significant other.
The back features an input for RCA Jack's to plug in any outside source like a Tascam CD-GT2 Guitar Phrase Trainer to play along or learn music from . And there is a knob to control the volume .
It has a mono switch , monophonic output and two stereo out put, in case you want to play in stereo .
The Effects Loop needs a "Y" chord to work properly.
I placed a BBE 482 Sonic Maximizer for proper phase alignment and Hush / Rocktron Super C Noise Reduction Unit to act as a Noise Gate in the Effects Loops of my CPB's .

I use mine as if it were a Hiwatt amp : a clean pedal platform to translate what various distortions or clean tone are sent in from my Decibel Eleven Loop Expander, Digitech RP-12, RP-1 and rack processors.

I gain stack my distortions, Overdrive , Fuzz and clean sounds from my multi effects units and set the gain knob in my CPB's at 2 or 3 O'clock, set my guitars volume knob at 6 or 8 for clean sounds .

My Digitech 2112 SGS has 12ax7 tubes and from the left and right balanced out puts they go into two VHT Valvulator 1's before going into my two Crate Power Blocks. I have 100% tube dynamics and sound, I no longer have haul my heavy tube amps around to rehearsals or venues .

This came out way before Quilter, Seymore Duncan Power Stage or Orange Tiny Terror.
In my opinion, this was Crate's greatest / most versatile amp ever and it was way ahead of its time .

Some people use them as a backup, just incase their main amp goes down during a gig, but I managed to get the sounds of my Fender , VHT, Carvin, Peavey, Mesa Boogie and Marshall amps, I keep those aforementioned amps at home safe .

Two years ago, the Crate Power Block was usually selling for $ 80.00 to 120.00 US Dollars, but have doubled in price and when you try one, you will see why .


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