Carvin V3

Could not find reviews of this amp, I know I wrote one or two in the past.

A lot of option switching on this amp head. Highly versitile and tweakable. Two toggle positions on EQ effecting range and Q of tone controls (3), three toggle positions for distortion characteristic. With a little work you can get any sound you are looking for from this amp, it is not a one trick pony like a lot of way over-priced amps. I do not see how you can get a bad tone or sound no matter what you set it on, its more a matter of how much gain and what sort of EQ structure you are looking to obtain.

I find this amp to simply the best I have owned in over 30 years of playing all types including rackmount high tech gear. Tremendous low end ability and high gain on this head plus good clean tones. There is a front panel, foot switched clean boost as well as two effects loop-foot switchable. It has MIDI as well but I have never gotten into much of that. Getting a good tone and playing seems to take up my time enough. I am picky about effects and distortions and I like everything from A to Z as long as its musical and useful.

Tubes sound the best, just no doubt. You have to occasionally retube as they do degrade with time and usage. I have had my amp head for 1 year now and I started to get some microphonic noise from the low end level I have been pushing. The Grove tubes that came with this amp sounded amazing, no real problems, but after a year they began to have microphonics. I suspect they tube these amps with what they can obtain reasonably in quantity deals, they at least use good Groove Tubes.

For retubing I went for the best (check out thetubestore.com for on-line selections and info on various tubes and performance ratings). I bought two matched pairs of Tung Sol EL34B's and a neat trick I learned that SRV and others had been using regarding preamp tubes. I put two JAN Phillips 5751's in my clean channels and clean loop, using Tung Sol 12AX7A's for the high gain channels. I could not believe the amp sounded better than when I got it. Just amazing tones. The 5751's have less gain than the 12AX7's and do not break into distortion as easy. Great for pushed clean tones and clarity.

After one year, I retubed to get rid of some microphonics, mostly from the 12AX7's, still sounded good, but the annoying ring on the low end on clean tones was disturbing for me. Tubes will wear out, this is the downside of an all tube heads, the upside is, they are easy to replace. A transformer or cap would be the next thing to go out but these can last for a very long time, it just depends. I tried to go the modeling route and back to power amp rigs but the tube head remains the best tone with all effects and issues.

Carvin is always up for a chat when I call them. I had a guitar I bought (one of many) that had the wrong pickups from what I ordered. I wanted the rail single coil humbucklers and they mistanely put in AP-11 standard single coils. They would have repaired it for me but I had them send the pickups and I easily wired them in with the wiring schematics they provided. I love Carvin, been playing their guitars and amps for a number of years, just love their stuff. Great price and quality.

This is the best amp I have ever had and this includes some good Marshalls. Retubing with some quality tubes ($200) made it sound even better. I also run their 4x12 cab with vintage speakers just tremendous. I have been playing a lot of years. I like everything from clean and dirty Blues, to Jazz Fusion and Heavy Metal. This amp allows me to get anything including my fav Satriani type and Megadeth type distortions.

I have a Carvin DC135 strat type guitar, all mohogany, neck through the body, 24 fret, lccking tuners and rail single coil sized humbucklers. Also a DC400 Mohogany, Maple top, flame finished dual humbuckler with Ebony neck. Great guitars these guys make.

I run a pedal board (which I just redid selecting the very best of many years of box hunting). Slanted Tone Bone Board with BBE Supercharger power block. Morley Vai II Wah, New Didgitech Whammy Pedal, Fulltone MOSFET Drive II, and the new Boss Metal Core this is amp in line. Loop 1 is Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe into a rack mount Carvin FX-2 24 bit effect processor for my 440ms echo and reverbs. It also does Chorus and Flange but I do not use these much. Loop two which is a parallel loop I have set up another clean boost. I have seven foot switches which control my channels, loops, and FX-2 processor (2 independent units which can be linked to combine effects. Killer rig, so versitile in different drives and distortions. Check out Carvin, the best underrated gear in guitarland. The amp has a metal grill front plate, metal chrome contols and four screw tube access vent plate in the back. The cab has a heavy metal grill which protects the speakers from flying god hammers.