Carvin Vintage 50

This is the vintage 50 watt tube head. I custom ordered mine with the western tolex pattern. It has chrome cornerguards, cream chicken head knobs, 2 channels clean and soak (dirty), accutronics reverb tank, effects loop, 4,8, or 16 ohm out selector, and uses 12ax7 preamp tubes and el84 power tubes.
Im a hobbyist player and my style ranges from early country to classic rock.

I researched similar amps for a long time. I look at fender, the peavey classic series, traynor, and even looked into custom built amps. I decided on this amp because it met all my requirements which were 1. Two Channel 2. Effects loop 3. Variable ohm output and 4. Price
The base price of this head was $499 at the time the tolex upgrade was $18 and the footswitch was $30 I bought a custom built cabinet covered in the same tolex from LOPO so i could load the speakers I wanted in it for about the same price as the carvin cab. So The total price including cab was around $800 US.

I love the features It has everything I wanted in a Head unit and has a very good creamy clean tone. The soak channel is very good for alot of vintage rock sounds. This is not a supper high gain amp but with a few pedals you can play pretty much anything you want through it and get a really good sound. It is made in the USA not china or vietnam!

I have only two downsides to this amp but nothing super bad. 1. This is a tubes down design. We all know heat rises and this thing could use a bit more breathing room. To offset this I put a 12v computer fan in the back and wired it up so I can plug it into a 12v power supply to help it keep cool for those longer jam sessions.
2. The soak channel could use just a bit more gain, but a good overdive helps this so its not really a problem.

Construction is very nice. The cabinet for the head is plywood not MDF. The tolex is very nice. All the hardware is of a good quality.

Overall this is a very nice tube head! Especially for someone like me with a love for early rock and roll and blues! I would definately choose this amp again!

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

This is a replica of the old Fender tweed finish 2 body "100% all tube", the look is hell, not very heavy because in 2 body and leather handles for easy transport.
The cabinet has 4 HP 10 'Carvin Vintage Made in the USA who sends serious ...
head amp take on board not less than 9 light: 4 EL84 amplifier for stage and 5 12AX7 preamp and the reverb.on has an effects loop "send & return" Allow you to add the delay and other effects modulation.j I even plugged my Pod in bypassing the preamp stage and it sounds pretty good (no color) 2 channels are clear and accessible either crunch thanks to the switch of a panel before or at the using any stereo footswitch (2 buttons) you can access also the reverb.
+ but the important thing is sound: a feast of clear sound with lots of body, everything goes well, from jazz to blues to rock the 60's, a great channel ...
The crunch channel is very typical blues rock (ZZ Top way SRV or Hendrix ...) with a good OD or good Disto, we can cover everything except metal rock, but what kind of amp with EL84 DO not address the metalheads and other shredder! other than that, the controls are simple: volume, treble, middle, bass for the clean channel (with a knob on the back supl for acoustics <img class="smiley" src="/images/audiofanzine/interface/smileys/icon_confused.gif" alt="" /> i played one of the electro acoustic feedback is avoided and other high-pitched) and volume, gain, trebble, middle, bass for the crunch channel: one button for the reverb and the case is heard ... nothing fancy

UTILIZATION

Already said above: pure lights in line with the old fender and vox of yesteryear ...

sounds are obtained:
1) a very distinctive Fender channel, a real treat! And you can plug an electro-acoustic ...
2) channel 2 rather than typed vox marshall, done more to play
tubes of the 60's and 70's with a crunchy bite to wish ...

but, according to the settings, by adding a good OD, we arrive at
cover almost all styles.

So I give a 10 + for ch1 and ch2 7 for (because it is not a versatile amp ...)
but given the look and name, we expected!

SOUNDS

With my super-strat's Willow (+ hambuckers seymour mahogany body) I feast on the register bluesy! we go from crystal clear to Gilmour's Billy Gibbons, SRV or without problème.mais I like to have more gain and with my pedals (Stompboxes jackfruit) and my Tech21 TRI-AC, I almost 4 channel, the + crystalline ch1 on the amp and 3 others, including a very marshalesque and another rather Boogie (Santana) short what are the lamps that are inimitable flute sound, it took me a while to find my sound, but I am! and it's thunder.

OVERALL OPINION

Global screw I have this amp since 2000 and it is great for jazz, blues ... etc but I have already said ... but only problem at this price point that is understandable, it is not very versatile lack of large saturation: I solved the problem by using that (almost) the clean channel which I added a preamp: TRI-AC Tech 21 ... and there I enjoy the best of 2 worlds <img class="smiley" src="/images/audiofanzine/interface/smileys/icon_confused.gif" alt="" /> uper clean sounds with lots of body kom Gilmour etpour the big rock I play with my RA and Tech21 tri-ac. (always on the clean channel, which gives me a hell of potato ...)

I bought 4000 + frs 1500frs lamps, it is very correct for the result