Carvin RL210 Cabinet

I got this with a blown driver and replaced both drivers with eminence neo basekite 2010 drivers. red eye tweeter is still stock. It now weighs 35 pounds. so light and at 4 ohms it is very loud and reliable with a 600 max, 300watt rms capacity.

I have a Hamer velocity 2 ash bass wirh 2 jazz pu's and active electronics and I run it through a Ashdown 300mag amp. 307wattrms 500 max. with the eminence drivers this 210 rocks the house, club, hall, or outdoor gig with loud smooth increadible sounds. Did I say it weighs 35 pounds? Growels if you want, not if you dont! want
hi-fi? does it. I couldnt find this sound in a 210 for under $400.

so far... so good, takes all the amp can give.

none

I have a bad back, my bass, amp, and this 210 are light and I dont trade sound quality for worry about moving my equipment.

If you have one of these cabinets swap the drivers and your rig will be warm, loud, and light.

Features: Same as above 2x10 w/"red eye" tweeter.

Versatility: Great for acoustic bass, or any guitar. Don't try using for aggressive rock bass.

Use: I use this amp to play electric guitar. IT SOUNDS GREAT for hard rock/heavy metal guitar. It can't handle any decent bass.

FOR BASS:

Gear: Using SWR Workingman Pro bass amp, an active Warwick Corvette $$ 4 string, an active Warwick Corvette Rockbass, and two passive Jackson 4 strings.

It only suites acoustic settings, nothing live. The speakers in the cab are crap.

FOR GUITAR:

Gear: An Aria Pro II "SG" knockoff, A Gibson Les Paul Standard, A Fender Telecaster, and several different acoustics. A Digitech Hot Rod distortion pedal. The same bass amp.

Now We're talkin"! This baby screams on guitar. I've got friends with Fender, Carvin and even Marshall amps telling me that this is a hot sound! Distorted sound is ridiculous, and clean sound is crystal clear. I'll never give this thing up for said reasons.

NEVER WOULD I PLAY LIVE ON BASS

On guitar, well maybe. But I'm primarily a bass player, so no I would never play it live.

Never dealt with.

Just read everything above. It is what it is.

Basic 210 box with a tweeter. Tweeter has a volume control which is great to have. The rig is also very light. Much lighter than the Peavey 210TX I used to have. I really like it because of this.

This cabinet is pretty flat sounding, with a bit of extra oomph on the low end. I've used it to play full range music using a PA amp and the box sounds pretty good. Lows are definitely solid. For bass gtr use, the mids are a bit lacking so the cabinet is a bit subdued & laid back. I find I get better live performance if I roll some lows off on my amp and roll in some upper mids & a bit of highs.

Efficiency of this box is not the highest. That means you'll have to push a lot of power to get it loud. The extended low freq response means the woofers are going to bottom out before you hit the termal limit. Bottom line, don't expect this cabinet to handle any loud gigs. Its forte is quieter gigs where you want a warm, smooth low end with maybe some crisp highs for slap playing.

After 2 years of light usage, no problems. I have used it on gigs with no backup since I have no backup.

Never had to find out.

A good cabinet, esp. for the price.

Front ported
Very well constructed handles in the right places for balance
carpet covered
very nice grill
terminal plate good jack in /out plus horn volume, new models have speakons.
Looks and feels much more expensive
400 watt rating is more than i need

Sounds good at all levels, seems well tuned, likes to be driven hard as this brings out a compressed feel.
Have used this with 5 string for over four years now no problem.
Horn volume is handy - full on for pop covers and backed off half way for Jazz etc.

No problems due to Carvins manufacturing. Has stood up to giging very well over the years.

I did blow the horn once but due to amp issue, ordered spare, was cheap and easy to change, I was impressed with the inside of the box good wiring and lots of acoustic material.

I have owned this box for over five years now, and very pleased with the sound in many situations. I bought it as the top box in a bi amp setup with a 15inch cab below. using a Carvin pro 500 amp. I have changed my rig now but kept the 2x10 as i love it. great for smaller gigs, practice and dance band work. did this review as i cant understand the low scores from other reviews. Bass Player magazine Gear review Jan 1998 scored this cab as high as Eden,EBS and SWR.
Construction 5
components 3
Portability 5
Sound 5
Value 5
They said 'Light box,huge tone,impressive low end even with a five string. shades of hi-fi-ness gives good detail,attack and articulation. An excellent box thats got the goods for just about any style' end quote.
I believe some people buy what they can affort and not what they need. Then drive it too hard in the wrong situation.

Not very useful in a rock setting, the red eye didn't work the way it should and the speakers growled at any volume past 3 or 4 on my 300 watt GK Backline 600. Probably good for a quieter band, maybe accompanying an acoustic guitar.

I play with both a pick and my fingers. It seemed to handle a little better with the pick, really bright and punchy. I couldn't get any real bass out of it, the bass knob on my amp was at 0 at all times or else the speakers would growl. The red eye lets an annoying little high pitched hiss out even at the lowest possible setting. This thing is better suited as a guitar cab, actually worked pretty well when I plugged a guitar in it. Very limited cab even for practice.

This cabinet is total crap. I practiced with it twice and blew a speaker. Carvin replaced it with a limited amount of grief. The next practice I blew the replacement speaker, somehow always the left speaker. I got a replacement again with no real trouble. Believe it or not I got one more good practice out of it but decided to use a 15" Peavy combo with the Sheffield speaker, for this bands' first gig, very nice. Fast forward to the practice for the next gig, I felt fairly comfortable and decided I would try it at the show. By the end of the fourth song, I smelled what I thought was an electrical fire coming from the PA, but of course it was the good old Rl210 doing what it does best, sucking. i took it to Carvin a third time and the guy confessed that Carvin bass speakers are junk and that I should by some Celestion Neo's from them at a discount, of course. I recently purchased a nice 2x15 cab by Peavy that gives me both the punch and the low end I need. I wouldn't reccomend this cab or any other Carvin amp to my worst enemy. I also have an SX-200 guitar amp by Carvin that doesn't work for $&*(#!

When I took the thing in the first time, first they suggested that I buy the replacement speaker at a discounted price. Then told me that although I just bought the thing, I would have to leave it for up to 10 days. I called the next morning and raised hell with the repair tech and they said that I could just swap it out. The second time, the guy was cool, I just brought the speaker in and he handed me another. The third time, he confessed at the crappyness of their product, but suggested I buy their 1x15 to alleviate the pressure I was putting on the 2x10. He did replace the speaker again though. The only thing that kept me from going completely insane about this product is that I live in San Diego, somewhat near their factory so I could get these things resolved quickly, if you don't live near them, I wouldn't buy a damn thing from them. Absolute garbage!!!

I've been playing a long time, my favorite rig ever was an Ampeg SVT 4x10 with horn powered with a GK400RB, unfortunately money was tight and it had to go. I wanted to get back to playing in bands again so I bought this with another GK head. Maybe I shouldn't expect so much from just a 2x10 rated to handle 400 watts, but I'm pretty sure if I ran this with my new cab just for some high end, it would still give me grief. This product is crap, and from people I've talked to, including some at Carvin, their bass speakers are possibly the worst around. Don't try to get by on the cheap like I did because you will end up just spending more in the long run trying to get something to replace the piece of junk you now possess.

I bought a brand new RL210T and it was delivered last week. It has two 10" speakers, in an 18" deep cabinet with a red horn speaker. The 10" speakers and the cabinet sounded pretty good, except on really low notes there was more growl than I liked. The red horn didn't work at all, which is why it's going back this week. At first I thought it would be serviceable, but I decided to send it back and get a refund when the red horn, one of the main features of the cabinet didn't work.

I would give the cabinet a pretty good grade, and the speakers did provide some punch, but not enough to keep.

I have two basses, a GL-2500 Tribute and a early '70's Fender Jazz Bass. I ran it through an old Sunn Scepter amp, which is pretty loud. When I got it up to 3 on volume it started to growl and I imagine would have really freaked out if I turned it up beyond 5. Since the red horn didn't work I can't offer an opinion about the complete sound. Needless to say what I heard wasn't good enough to keep.

The cabinet seemed to be built pretty well. I guess it would be ok to gig with, but since the red horn didn't work when I got it brand new, I wouldn't expect it to be a work horse.

Since the red eye didn't work at all I would have to rate this cabinet low for reliability.

When the red eye wouldn't work I called Carvin. After waiting awhile I talked to a guy who said he would send me to a set up man after I explained the red eye problem. He didn't wait for me to ask him anything else, which I wanted to and I was back on hold. It's too bad that people in the customer service business are too anxious to get rid of a call instead of providing customer service.

The next person I talked to was a woman who asked me who I wanted to speak to. This leads me to believe that guy #1 really didn't transfer me to the intended person and I went to the switchboard. After I waited for awhile again the next guy gave me some things to try with the red horn, none of which worked. So all in all I would rate the assistance less than average. I got the feeling that the object of the support people is to get you off the phone so they can answer more phone calls.

I've been playing guitar and bass since 1968. I have an Ampeg BSE-115 and bought the Carvin in the hopes that it would punch up the sound round out my tone. I wouldn't buy another Carvin cabinet since this one didn't work out too well. I took a gamble because the price was right and it didn't work out.

If the red horn had worked I would have played a gig this week and made a final decision, but since it didn't work I didn't feel like fooling around with sending the red horn back to get another red horn to see if that one would work etc. etc.

Carvin lost a sale because of quality control and I lost money to re-ship the thing back to them. We both lost.

The one I have is relatively old, and when it was given to me by my bass teacher, it was distorting, and since he does mostly jazz stuff, it was useless to him. I fiddled with it, explored, and decided to yank out (unscrew, kindly take out) the tweeter. Its got a tweeter cut button that doesnt really do anything... input, extension cab output, labeled clearly, tweeter that i personally didnt like the sound of.
Would be an 8 if not for the weird tweeter control...buttony-thing

I have a 5 year old mex-Jbass, with pickups flush w/the body and very thick ernie ball strings, and a Dean Fretless with one humbucker (i think its a soapbar) and thin elixirs.
I run a 200 watt Peavey session bass, and The cab seems to get harsh, and break up at high volumes.at moderate/low volumes it has a great, bassy yet punchy sounds, but any power just kills it, although it handles 400 watts.It gets a decent variety of tones, and it takes most of the ones i put in, other than Motown thump, which with any volume, itll break up. Pretty good sound, but innefficient.

I dont do a lot of gigging, but what I have done (a few school musicals, a few small venues) It has handled with moderate success..However, it has had a few sound issues as mentioned above, when it comes to construction and such, it appears pretty solid.

No dealings with them.

I like its size, relative lightweight, tone at low volumes, and general use as a very-small venue amp, for for gigs with acoustic guitars, etc.,. but with volume, and power and competiting with a string/brass and wind section it doesnt cut it. Tweeter wasnt pleasing, and its very inefficient. If you can get one for free like i did, go for it, sell it, and get an avatar or something to that extent

This bass cabinet has 2 10" speakers plus Carvins "Redeye" compressor. Speakon and 1/4" jacks in the back. There's a 4 way selector switch system in the crossover to adjust the compressor level. This switch is hard to access and seems very cheaply made. They oughta move to a dial variable pot for the compressor.

I bought this cab to use along with my Acoustic 360 1x18" cab. With that setup I get a great sound and a lot of tonal versatility. However, lugging 2 cabs around is hard so for the last couple years I've been TRYING to get by with just this on gigs unless we're in a large room. This cab alone doesn't cut the bass mustard and I usually regret not having my full rig at some point on a gig. While the highs are very well defined there's not enough low end. 5-6 STRINGERS DO NOT BUY THIS CAB IF YOU INTEND TO USE IT ALONE. I

This cab worked well for about a year, maybe 20-30 low to mid volume practice sessions and maybe 30-40 nights gigging. Then the problems started. I was on a gig when my rig started cutting out and sounding very very distorted. The clip light on my amp would come on when this happened as well. The next day I set up at home and it was fine. But a few weeks later on a gig the same thing happened. Only this time somehow my rig feed back into the house board. I thought it was my amp (Ampeg B5-R) and took that into get repaired. The next week I brought this cab to a gig and had the same problem using a borrowed amp. Doh! Thought a speaker was blown so I replace one. Same problem a few weeks later. Finally I soldered the speaker leads and haven't had a problem since. Long story, but the bottom line is that Carvin uses cheap clip type speaker connections that aren't well suited in the high vibration environment of a bass cab. Over time these will come loose and cause you grief. I learned the hard way. Users solder your connections. Carvin SOLDER YOUR CONNECTIONS!

I tried contacting carvin via there website email while I was having the problems mentioned above. 4 months and counting I still have received no response from them. They were very timely in taking my money for the cab and replacement speaker and got them to me quick. But based on my experience their customer support is non existent.

My current rig was an experiment to get the best high and low end possible. It hasn't worked out real well. Most times there's not enough room for my huge Acoustic and this cab and even if there is I shy away from having to lug two cabs. If this was stolen or sold (which I will be doing shortly) I wouldn't replace it. My recommendation so far is an Ampeg bxt-115HL. Full range and great tone in one package. This cab just doesn't have enough bottom end for stand alone use. But if you're packing a 15 w/o a horn or an 18 this might be a good addition to what you have for high end.