Features: 9/10

This is still being manufactured in Carvin's plant in California. It is a terrific first combo amp, and will extend farther than just a practice amp to a small stage amp with only slight modification. It is better tuned for rock than anything else because of the beastly 15" woofer in it. Although it has an L-pad attenuated tweeter, there is not enough mid-bass growl tone to play the sweet sounds you would want to play jazz. Nevertheless, with the built in 5 band post shaping EQ, you can get pretty close to the sound you want. Further complimenting the arsenal of tone shaping includes the addition of three pre-shape filters that allow you, at the press of a button, to dial up dramatic tone shifts needed for such a task as slap bass. A low boost button boosts the 60HZ range for low-end boom; a mid-shift button cuts either 200Hz or 600HZ, depending on your needs. The high end pre-shape boosts frequencies above 5K for slab bass enthusiasts. As usual, the amp has the standard Bass (80HZ), Mid-Shift (200-2000Hz), and Treble (6 kHz) tone controls allowing dial-up boosts/cuts of +/- 12 dB, a definitely thorough tone shaping that is present in all of Carvin's amps. However, other models benefit better without the cumbersome 15" woofer. Using one for a sub is one, but for the main speaker, it can cause boomy, muddy lows. With some time in shaping, you can almost alleviate that... usually. Also on this rig is a built-in noise gate and 3:1 ratio compressor. Very good if you know how to use them, and use them well. This just adds to the marks.

The amp offers a CD/Tape stereo RCA jack input to use as a sort of PA, though the sound does not end up being that great again because of 15" woofer. On the back, the amp has an effects loop, line out jack, and the unusual and very useable ability to add two extension cabs. This is because the 160 watts is brought on by not one, but two separate amps. Therefore, at 4 ohms, you can send out 80 watts to two cabs, or 50 watts to two 8-ohm cabs. This allows for versatile upgrading: a stepped system that allows an individual to slowly upgrade cab, then head, without completely sacrificing quality. In normal mode, the unit runs with a bridged output into 8 ohms (160 watts). Like said before, this is a good practice amp. However, in order to turn up and play on stage or even loud in practice, this amp cannot be used without modification. Carvin puts a very sensitive thermal shutoff mechanism to keep the electronics from melting. This is good, because if after playing for a while you will realize this amp gets extremely hot. SO much so, that in the middle of practice it is prone to sudden thermal shutdowns. The reason is that there is no active cooling. The back of the recessed amp with limited cooling vents allows the heat to fester inside and kill your performance. Therefore, in order for this amp to be useable, it is absolutely necessary to buy external cooling. I spend $60 on an AC powered 80mm fan that turned 53 cfm. When rigged, I could turn this rig all the way up with lots of bass, and blast it. This time, when I felt the back of the amp, there was only cool air coming out, and the amp no longer got even warm to the touch. On it own, this is only a mediocre amp. This rig must be fixed. I have told Carvin of this problem. They tell me it is a hardware defect, but I know otherwise. A good buy only if you spend the money to actively cool the amp.

Sound Quality: 9/10

Right now, I am still using my first bass with it: a DeArmond Pilot 4-string bass. I prefer for my band's music to play mostly with the bridge pickup, seldom switching to the blended bridge and neck pickups. My band plays EMO rock music, and the bridge pickup allows me to dial-in to the best of the rig's ability, jazz-type tones. Like I said before, the 15" makes it difficult to get that sound, but with the 60Hz boost, cut at 200Hz, and some post shaping, using the bridge pickup, you can just about get it. The amp is not noisy whatsoever. The fan I added however makes it noisy, but I like the benefits enough to ignore that. The noise gate keeps the amp whisper quiet.

The amplifier's variety of sounds vast is due to the inclusion of a tweeter and with so much tone shaping that is standard with this amp. Finding the jazzy sound I crave is a little difficult, but you can pretty much dial-up any sound you want. The sky is really the limit. Even under the absolute harshest settings, the amp does not distort at all. This is a real monster with the mod I put in place. I have found a new love for this amp.

Reliability/Durability: 4/10

Here is a tricky subject. On its own, I would not rely on this amp at all for a gig, especially if it happened to be in the summer. However, with my new fan mod, I would take this thing to the desert with me and play full blast, and trust that it would hold. As I said, Carvin had told me that it was a fault in the hardware somewhere, but I knew otherwise. At practices, I was running the thing full power with heavy bass. I simply overloaded it. If you touched the back of the amp where the cooling vents were, you would be lucky not to get a third degree burn. Even the top of the amp was warm (through the wood). However, when I spent the money on a nice stainless steel fan from PCPowerandCooling.com, I had renewed confidence.

Customer Support: 10/10

Carvin is a truly spectacular company to deal with. They are really about customer satisfaction. You will not find a better company in this respect.

Overall Rating: 8/10

I have been playing bass for four years. I own a number of guitars, recording equipment, and other music-oriented stuff. If this rig were stolen, I probably would not get another because I would want to upgrade, but if I became a beginner again, I would for sure. I love the tonal variety you can get, cost to quality to performance ratio, and the ruggedness of this rig. I only dislike that fact that it overheated so much.

Amount Paid:

Purchased from: Carvin Corp. - National Telephone Sales, (800) 854-2235