Crate BT-220 Combo

Further to the review I posted a few years ago, my opinion of this amp has greatly changed. A few months after I bought it, the speaker broke, so i replaced it. A few months after this the amp set on fire (literally), and nearly burnt our guitarists shed down.

DO NOT EVER BUY THIS AMP.

Piece of crap, rubbish.

None existant.

Rubbish

Not sure when it was made (ex-demo model), but it works well for my musical style (metal/rock) and can really pump out the juice when turned up. It comes with the usual stuff on this range of Crate bass amps, ie distortion channel (with shape control that Behringer quite nicely copied), tuner, octave effect and a 4 band EQ. Comes with a 2 button footswitch for the distort and octave, phone jack and effects loop, line out, the usual. A compressor would be nice, though, have to use a pedal instead which is quite noisy. Never really use the distortion channel, i use a pedal instead, it sounds better, but as a backup, its ok i guess.

Other than that its just a bass amp with a large power output.

My bass is a Vintage Metal Axxe with some custom wiring on it. The amp copes nicely with even this. Dont have to use the -15dB pad even tho the pickups are high ish output passiaves. Gives the very nice bassy low end that i need for my band's songs and my playing style, fingerstyle metal a la Cliff Burton (RIP). Never really piss about with the settings, theres no real need to, but it can get a nice slap tone out of it, even with the 15" speaker. Stays very clean even at fairly high volumes, theres a limiter that kicks in when you over do it, but that rarely happens. The distortion channel is what it says, distorted, madly brutal. Not much variety in it, and even if i do use it, the gains on full and its just for a little high end shred half way through a song. The octave effect is really nice on top of mellow stuff though.

When i got it i found the speaker had a hole in the cone :/. But with a little superglue that was fixed. Thought it was overheating at first, but then we found that problem, easy enough to fix. Had it about 7 months since then and it's performed flawlessly all the time. Quite well made, and i would most certainly depend on it at a gig. It can stand being thrown in the back of a car and chucked around/jumped off on stage, so in that area its sorted really. Cant dock it much for reliability.

Never dealth with them, so i can't comment really.

Been playing about 2 years give or take, also play a little guitar (through this amp), which it handles very nicely, giving a very punchy midrange, great for drop-tuned palm mute metal. The guitar is a modded Jackson superstrat, very nice guitar. If someone stole this, they would be hunted down to the ends of the earth and be steaked upon with a trusty medieval crossbow, then sent to the bottom of the mariana's trench (thats under 9 miles of sea for those who dont know). I just love the way it keeps on working and can take a crap load of abuse at our practices and just keep on working well. Tried a variety of bass amps, including the smaller version of this, which just isnt as loud. This was just good for the money, so tis mine now. Getting an extention cab for it (2 x 15 :p) so thatll be a nice 3 x 15 rig with a 220w amp, very nice.