Carvin RL6815 Combo

Bought The Cyclops New when it first came out around 8-10 years ago. Has a 15", 2x8" and a tweeter. Never broke down. Yesterday it blew a fuse for the first time. This combo unit is very heavy (90+ pounds).
Our band plays at louder volumes and this unit is not very good if you are playing loud. It vibrates and produces annoying sounds when you hit certain notes (Like the 7th fret on the A string: E). It can't handle most of the notes on the 4th string without producing crappy, fart sounding notes. The rest of the strings sound fine. The sound also tends to break up and distort when you play louder (after 7 or 8 on the volume you might as well forget it). Might be good for low volume settings or as a practice amp. Not good for gigging or playing at loud volumes.
After having this model for 8-10 years, It's time to get rid of it and find something better.

I purchased this amp in 2000-01 before they put the front porting on the 15".

I'm a soon-to-be graduate in Jazz Performance and I also play in a typical classic rock/r&b bar cover band and an all original rock band (shameless plug - http://www.myspace.com/groupthinkmusic). It's versatile.

The specs have been listed in many reviews before mine.

I wish it had better compressor/limiter and 10"s instead of 8"s. I used to use this amp in rooms of all sizes. Basement practices, small bars, large bars, and decent sized concert venues. The power is fine, but the speakers can't seem to handle the amp. When a 15" can't handle a fifth string, you have to worry.

I used to use it with a Carvin LB75 (koa sides, maple/koa neck, ebony fingerboard, alnico "stingray" and single coil pickups, active which I'm happy with)

It could get a decent tone (with no noise) to fit different styles, but the speakers would fart out before I could squeeze out all the power the amp provides, even with the crossover set.

It has been crapping out on my big time lately. It has been in a basement for some time and it is a little damp and the temp isn't well controlled, so it is possibly due to environment.

The company has been very helpful the few times I have spoken with them.

I've been playing for a little over 9 years. I also own a German Upright, Ibanez SR300, Taylor Big Baby, Ampeg PB250 and PB210H, David Eden WT330 and D410XLT, and an Edirol PCR-50.

I would not buy this amp again. I have been happy with Ampeg and Eden.

I like some of the tones. Hate the power handling and akward size/shape/weight.

Have owned it for 2 years ordered brand new from carvin. Great Folks!!
Tons of features. It is a Bi-Amp Monster. Very versatile sound capabilities. This is the first amp I have purchased that came with an actual manual that went beyond electrical safety. Enough power for small to medium gigs and perfect for pluggin into large PA's for larger venues. Does not distort unless you set-it-up wrong. See below
in sound section. I use this amp in gigs and at church. It is heavy and hard to move unless you have casters. The casters from carvin are crap don't buy them. Go to Lowes or Home Depot and get the heavy duty casters and screw them in permantely with counter sinks and wood glue in the counter sink holes. Works great makes it easier to move.
Lifting weights helps or a roadie.

You really have to work with this amp to learn how to use it properly and to get the sound you want out of it. I don't car how long you have played you must follow the instruction in the manual on setting this amp up with a netural tone and work from their on shaping your tone or you will never get the sound you want out of it (unless by accident). This amp has so many features and the bi-amp capablilty ads function and complexity. I have played for 30 yrs and this amp was the hardest to get the sound out I wanted but once you know how to work it, it is the best combo amp you will ever own. People who say they hate the sound or it shut down on them, did not read carefully and experiment at home first with the amp. You can hurt this amp if you are not carefull and it will shut down on you but that is the price you pay for flexibility in a high end amp. You have the same issues with the high end Ampegs but you also pay tons more for the same features as this amp. If you are impatient don't buy this amp. I have gotten sounds with effects from Geezer to Geddy with this amp.

Has not failed on me yet and I did drop it once no damage to the amp but my hand did not fair so well. I would use without a backup because I took the time to learn how to set it up properly.
Heavy and built solid. You do need to check the jacks and screws because over time and vibration, they can work loose. Just like any
other amp.

Have not used them. They were great on the sale and delivery communcation. I wrote a testimonial on the amp and they used it in their last catalog. I'm out of warrenty but I have a great repair tech in town that can fix anything and they can get carvin parts.

This is a great amp. If you like to just turn things on then dont' buy this amp or the Boss GT-6B bass effects unit or you won't like it either. I would buy another one if it were lost or stolen. It is heavy 100lbs but so are stacks. I compared this amp to many others. Chose this one because of features reputation and it has everything in one package. I also own a Yorkville XM200 115 for small gigs. Great amp also!!!. The price for this amp can't be beat and it is made here in the USA.

1999 (?) Model also known as Cyclops. Not as loud or well-built as most others but a decent price compromise. It shines as a practice amp. It will never be a good amp for larger clubs without heavy PA support. It does however have a killer application as an acoustic guitar amp.

It has a blend for pre-amp circuits with which you dial in tube amount. It's more of a slightly warm tube sound when fully panned to the tube pre. Crappy compressor, terrible limiter. Full time 3 channel eq with sweepable mid. Footswitchable graphic and effects loop. Effects loop bleeds the effects when off. That sucks. When cranked after a careful re-eq, you can get pretty damn loud. But usually when cranked it peaks and thuds and generally sucks. The tweeter control protrudes from the back so that it will snap off in the first few gig load-ins. It is the best acoustic guitar amp on earth, though. Rich, full sound with tons of headroom. Way loud and rich.

Carvin seems to have a major quality control problem. Mine came with two annoying problems which I decided I could live with rather than re-shipping. I paid extra for the castors but the socket in the amp for one of them was DOA. I had to drill another hole which doesn't lock. Also, many of the screws were loose, making the amp buzz excessively. Carvin's stuff has a tendency to stop making sounds at crucial times. I haven't gigged much with mine and transport and use it carefully. It has continued to provide decent amplification for my bass. I would never rely on it, though.

I've heard that they do excellent customer service but I'd rather do fixes locally. Importantly, this amp is too heavy for standard shippers. You have to deal with unknown freight companies to ship.

Been playing for 30 years. All kinds of heads, cabs, and combos. Active, passive, upright, fretless, 8-string.
If it were stolen, I would save up and buy something of much higher quality. If you are considering buying this thing, don't. Get something used instead. Although it has features which make it appear to be a bargain, it is actually pretty crappy and overpriced.

My RL6815 is the "Mark I" version, with the real 12AX7 tube preamp. Bought mine on eBay - and I was terrified that there was going to be something wrong with it. Turns out that it was 100% functional. Anyway, this amp is an ABSOLUTE MONSTER AMP. 600 watts, bridge/biamp button. Great tonal shaping capabilities with the 9-band eq, bass boost, high boost, sweepable mid range control, effects loop, compressor, noise gate...this amp has it all.

I am in a classic/modern rock band. (www.7dirtywords.com is my bands site). We do everything from 80's and 90's metal and hard rock(Judas Priest, Candlebox) to more modern stuff (Nickelback, Matchbox 20). I found my "sound" with this amp 5 years ago when I got this amp - and it was very easy. This amp pumps out tones that you would not believe, and if you dont like tones, play with the eq, or the tube/solid state preamp level control, or with the individual volumes for amp 1 or amp 2 (low end/high end if you run bi-amped).

I have run this unit for 5 years with ZERO PROBLEMS and no backup. Carvin makes excellent quality equipment

N/A - have had no problems. Warranty is 1 year, but since I bought it used, I have never had a warranty anyway

now, let me clarify something about the price. I bought this unit from an auction on eBay. Seller also had an anvil case for the amp, and had listed that the amp was very heavy, and would cost alot to ship, especially with the $400 anvil case - which is why, I believe I got it so cheaply. When I won the auction, I asked the seller to remove the head from the cabinet, and ship that, ship the foot pedal and power cord in with the anvil case, and ship the cabinet separately from everything else. I paid about $150 for the shipping for all of this, so technically I paid $650 for the amp (retails at $899.99) and the case (which I was told cost $400), so I think I got a KILLER DEAL. Even if I had paid retail, it would still be a great deal - go price an Ampeg, or SWR, or any other quality big-name amplifier. Anyway....I have been playing for 18 years, and this is, by far, the best, most verstile amplifier that I have ever owned. I absolutely would buy another one of these amps without a second thought - provided it was the "Mark I" with the actual 12AX7 tube preamp. I would have some reservations if I were looking at the newer models, with the "tube emulator" - not that I have heard anything bad about them....but just because I know what my amp sounds like. I have owned only a Crate BX-100 and a Crate BT-350. The BT-350 had a great sound, and I had good power from both amps, but I needed a separate amp to bi-amp the BT-350, and I had the "full stack" (a 2-15" cab and a 4-10" cab), and it was just too much to carry. The Carvin RL6815 will fit in the back of my family car. The only thing that I wish that they had included in this amp was a chorus (like my BT-350 - that was a SWEET chorus that no pedal can match). In closing, the Carvin RL6815 is a great amp for any performing bassist, and the tonal capabilities make it perfect the the musician who plays many different styles - from folk, to country, to rock, to death metal....this amp covers it all....

7-band graphic eq, 3 band nob eq with a mid range frequency selector (I forget what it's called), pre-shape bass boost, treble boost and mid shift (from 450 hz to 250 hz I belive), compression/limiter, noise gate and cross over, tube blend pre-amp w/ solid state. It can get pretty loud although with the bi-amp into the 2x8's and 15", it doesn't fully all of the R600's wattage potential and I almost think it might have been better to get the head with a separate 4x12 cab and 15" or something like that. I also wish it would have more tube sound because I think it sounds warmer (like tubes normally do). I got the amp around 2000. I give this amp a 9 because of it's versitile tone shaping but more on that in the sound catagory.

Despite not being able to get full power out of the head, the best feature is its tone shaping. Because it is biamped, with independant volume control per amp, you can play with the sound and get subtle nuances by dumping certain ranges of frequencies into the 15 or 8 (i.e. everything above 800 hz into 8s and below into 15s) You can turn down the high frequencies sent to the 15 and get a more even sound. Also, all the eqs on this thing are great. I feel I can get just about any tone I can think out of this thing, except extream tube sounds. I use a Carvin bass (LB6 with those alnico-5 monster looking hums and the reg. hum., which by the way, has a really sweet tone) which also has great tone shaping capabilities. The only I think this amp can lack is some umph, I think partly because it doesn't have 4 10's for punch. If you play around with it and pick the right bass, I think you'll be surprised by this amp. Case and point, I also use this as a guitar amp since I don't have a whole lot of money with a Fender Jag Stang and a dinky DOD grunge pedle. Despite the obvious distortion limitations, I can get this thing to sound pretty darn good. Makes for a pretty good hard rock sound although I am thinking about upgrading my distortion to a more tube sound because, lets face it, if I go up on stage with a bass amp and a grunge pedle, any one who knows anything about guitar will laugh me off the stage. I give this a 9 because it would be great if it had more tube stuff.

Honestly, the only problem I ever had was when I first got it; when it was shipped, I think some how the cooling fan broke so I couldn't play for more than 15 mins before it shut down. Oh, yeh, one more thing; the casters keep falling off. That is one thing that up set me. Why couldn't they put higher quality casters? I almost gave this a 10 because even though the fan broke, it still did what it was supposed to do when heating up, but then I remember the casters thing. I even had to order a new one because one got lost after falling off.

When I first got the thing and the fan was busted, the guy said he would order than fan for me and then told me how to put in my self, which wasn't too difficult in retrospect but I was scared out of my mind because anytime I've ever take and electronic thing apart, it's never gone back togeather. Well, I put in without a hitch using what the guy told me, and it's worked great ever since. I also bought a bass from them over the phone and that went pretty good as well. I give them a 9 because I don't think the service deserved a complete 10 in later talks with their customer service but good over all.

I give the amp a 9 because in umph and in some tonal aspects, it is lacking although playing around with it, you can come up with all sorts of cool sounds. It sounds clean and quite and can be versitle. I guess this another thing I forgot to mention, I never really been able to turn the volume up past 5 because of the tone shaping; it begins to push the speakers too hard, which kinda sucks but oh well. A 9.

Mine is the original model with a 12ax7 preamp tube purchased in year 2000. Lots-O-Knobs! Compressor, limiter (sucks) parametric mid EQ, 7 band Graphic EQ, and more! I generally only use the compressor and the mid scoop button though and this thing sounds pretty darned good. One nice feature is that I can setup the Graphic eq and play an acoustic 12 string through it without have to go through all kinds of machinations.

Loud, Punchy (even with my Starfire) and basically everything one could want from a combo. I live in So Cal so I can actually go to a Carvin store and this thing pretty much puts every other combo I tried on the trailer and I played SWR, Ashdown (could these be more expensive? sheesh,) Ampeg, Fender (the 400s not bad) etc. and sounds WAY better than the 2X10 version while fitting between the wheel wells in my Passat. Unless you've got an SVT (and a roadie) you really would find this hard to beat and really if you need to be louder you're gonna be going through the PA anyway.

Blew the 15 by running in bridged mode. Replaced under warranty although it took 2 weeks to get it back it was free. No other complaints

One year warranty, the folks at Carvin Covina are very nice and easy to deal with.

I've been playing bass since, well let's just say I learned from listening to Jefferson Airplane and Cream records and have played one heck of a lot of amps along the way and this is the best bass sound I've ever gotton out of an amp the you didn't need a pickup truck and some help to move (nee SVT) and would absolutely buy one again. I've actually been thinking of getting another, 2 15's and 4 8's! Wowser!!!
Except for the blown speaker which was my fault (and they fixed it anyway) this thing has been rock solid and I dig it the most. You can hear us @ artistlaunch.com/badart if ya care .. Al

I purchased this amp new in 1999. I have benn playing bass for approx. 20 years and started with the best...Ampeg SVT w/ 810 Cabinet. I have not been able to find that sound since. I went Carvin in 1995 with the Carvin PB300 w/ a 210 cab and a 15 cab. Sounded pretty good, but too much stuff to carry.
I am now playing oldies and classic rock and I was looking for power and portability. The 6815 combo has too many sound-shaping features and not much depth. It sames to have plenty of power...almost too much for the speakers.

I am playing a Mexican Fender P-bass and an '81 Ibanez w/ active EQ. The amp seems to like the passive set-up of the Fender w/ Bartolini pick-ups. I have already replaced the non-warrantied 15" speaker @ my expense.?????? The preset EQ buttons (3) work well, but it would be nice if they were operable with a footwsitch like the nine band EQ. The amp performs great as a guitar amp. I have played my '98 Fender American Strat with various effects through the amp and it blasts with alot of bottom. The amp itself sounds OK on stage, but does not project beyond the edge of the stage, especially outdoors. My sound man has recently downsized, so I am missing something (Balls)!!!!!

I have been gigging with the amp for approx.1 year and it has always worked. The over-priced, cheesy casters have fallen out from time to time. The PB300 I used in the past was always a work horse and I am expecting the same from this amp. I always baby my equipment and can usually make out on the resale, so I invested in the optional cover and always load it myself.

Carvin has been acceptable customer service-wise. Forget about a timely e-mail response, though. I have asked questions and did not get a response until I went into the store. When I had to replace the speaker, the sales person did the installation in the store which saved some time. I recently spoke to the store manager about my "sound search" and he was friendly and offered to experiment with various set-ups to help out.

As stated earlier, I have been playing bass for 20 years and loved my Ampeg. The Carvin combo has power and a compact size, but lacks the depth. I am considering adding another 15" cabinet for more range. (More stuff to move!)I listened to the Carvin 15" which sounded good for the money. Cheap.

This amp is configured in a combo arrangement with a rear ported 15", two 8" and a red eye tweetwer pad with separate adjustable volume. As another commenter stated about his R600 Bass head it has active and passive inputs, pre-shape eq settings clip moderation, nine or ten channel eq, crossover freq. adjuster, separate volume mix for trble side as well as bass side of the cabinet, and just a bunch of other sound shapping selectors.

I play the Carvin LB76 and BB75 fretless through it. And believe it or not, I also use it very successfully for for both alectric and wired acoustic due to its speaker arrangement and variability. This amp has proven to me that you can never have too much amp. It sounds great for percussive bass or those nice bright acoustic highs

I do depend on it but I've only had it for about 8 months. Holding up just fine so far...

Carvin is as good this way as most other companies I've dealt with. They have been responsive to me

I've been playing for 27 years. I compared this amps specs to the Hartkes, Peavys, and a few Fenders. I was looking for a powerful (while poratable) and virsatile combo. I still think this is the right choice.