Carlsbro GLX80

Considering that it is a 500?, it has a lot of interesting features. Two Channels, clean and overdrive, with two sounds each. The most interesting feature is that the channels are mixeable and you can set up two different configurations. The footswitch allows switching between these two, turning the reverb and also between two level volumes. The overdrive EQ has five knobs, and the clean has just three.

There are four sounds in this Amp:
* Clean/Normal is very good, as long as you have a good guitar.
* Clean/Bright is somewhat belly, but it could improve your guitar if it is not that good.
* OD/Crunch is like AC/DCish, but a little poor. Absolutely useless for solos. Some buzzy noise when not playing.
* OD/Lead is the same sound but noisier. Just little useful for punk or hardcore, but nothing else. I agree with the guy who posted about the 50cc motorcycle. A lot of buzzy noise.
The great versatility gets no compensation in sound, so you cannot explode its capabilites, if it has, for instance:
* The five OD EQ knobs almost are changing anything else than more noisy/less noisy, but you don't get anything different.
* You cannot footswitch between lead and crunch, that could be useful when switching between rithm and solo in the middle of a song. Anyway, you should to change dramatically the knobs.
* The mixing among channels is cool, but it's very hard to get an homogeneus, well mixed sound. Because of the poor overdrive channel, the mix doesn't blends ok. It's more like two separated guitars playing at once.
* Furthermore, as I was looking for versatility, I always needed at minimum a pure clean channel an a pure overdrive on, so this yet spends the two different configuration mixes.
Resuming, clean OK, bad overdrive, and the mixing channels thing is funny but useless.
Reverb is OK, nothing special though.

A lot of problems. I had this Amp since 1998, is not that time! It's true that I have not been so kind with it, but anyway I think it should have responded better. During six years, it broke down two times. The Overdrive sounded worse every day. Also a lot of painful clicks and problems related.

I had some problems to repair this the first time it broke, but I think it's not Carlsbro's fault, but the Spanish dealer's fault.

I must admit, I've had a lot of good times with this amp, I've worked lot of work with it, and for a lot of time I was not counscious of how bad it was, so maybe now I'm being too hard with it. Anyway, I would not recommend it to anyone. There are a lot of Amps better than this in its category.

I bought this amp in 1995 or '96, since then I used it more or less often. In the last two years it's played twice a week. so I know what i'm talking about.
The features on this amp are really great! It's basicly a two channel amp. Clean channel with 3-Band eq. Lead/drive Channel 5-band active eq, gain, two gain stages.
The special (and as far as i know unique) feature is, that you can blend between the two channels. You have two knobs to adjust the amount of clean in lead or other way around. The two settings are footswitchable - I never used this feature of blending the channels made no really sense to me. Only switched between clean or lead.
It has a parallel fx loop, adjustable on the front pannel- nice.
It has two, footswitchable, Mastervolumes - nice.
And a footswitchable reverb.
On the back are the jacks:
Pre Amp out- to use the build in Preamp with a different amp (haha, joker!...see below)
And luckily a PWR-Amp in. This is great, because you can totally override the internal preamp! Great feature (see below)...
My combo uses a celestion G12T-80 Speaker- sweet.
Footswitch is really great- seen no better on any other amp! No joke!

Yeah, forget it. The internal PreAmp is total crap. The Clean channel hard and cold. And at any levels the channel is not playable, there is always the Leadchannel in background. This may result of the mixing stage for blend in the channels. Not very useable.
The Lead channel is as nice as a 50cc motorcycle, and sounds like one.
Why I rate this with a 4 is because the power amp is ok. At first i thought the overall noise was the PWRAmp, but I use a Hughes&Kettener Tube MK II now, no noise any more. In fact, now with the H&K Tubeman, the Amp sound a hell lot better. Tubeman kicks ass!!! (get one!)

Nearly since the first day all knobs make crakling noise. Unaceptable. But, good news: If you use an external preamp, ALL knops are deactivated. :-)
No other problems showed up by now. But maybe will.
Not build for eternity. (Exept the FS!)

Back in 1995/96 I bought this amp (as i remember) just because it seemt to me as the best offer. (Shop closing - % !) Today I would never ever buy this amp, but being young... .
The most annoying thing was the overall noise, wich the preamp used to make!
Miking was nearly not possible, too much noise.

To be fair: I used this amp a long time now with diffrent effect in front of it, and it sounded ok.
Now, as I use the H&K Tubeman instead of the build-in preamp, it sounds pretty good. Not perfect, but very nice. No noise anymore. Warm, soft, tone.
So, as it works now, I do not plan to replace it.

In cunclusion: Only use this amp with an external Pre. Than it's ok. In other cases- leave your fingers fom this.
The idea was good, but the company wasn't ready. ;-)

About the features all was said in the previous reviews ...mine was bought in 96 i believe

Using a 9 year old shitty Maison ... this amp is made for metal and harcore mainly, the distortion you can get out of this is great ... it doesnt sound that good for leads or clean stuff though ... the reverb fx is good

You cant bring this amp on a live setting, i dont know whats the problem but i know 2 other people who got one and it has the same kind of problem ... it starts to cut off/sound shitty/just die for no reason at all, sometimes the selected mix and master channels start to go intermittent and changes channel out of the blue ... when this kind of shit happends i just kick it in the top or give a litle wank on the input jack and it usualy goes back to normal ... i believe this model is defective, cause a lot of people complain about it

In portugal there is no sutch thing as customer support ...

I'm a bedroom guitar player ... i do it just for the hobby so the amp fuck ups dont bother me that mutch ... its a nice amp if you like good distortion and if it didnt had its flaws it would be usable live ... i wouldnt buy another one for obvious reasons though...

Really flexible.
2 channels, 2 volumes.

Great.
Clean channel lacks a bit and it makes quite a lot of noise.

Distortion. Rules

Mine started going crackly.
Had it fixed about 4 or 5 times, in a shop and still it didn't work.
Eventually sent back to the company.
Cracked circuit boards apparently, surprising cos I'm not a heavy gigger and treat it with respect.

Once it got back to the factory it seems to work fine now.
They were pretty good.
All the other times at the guitar shop where done under warranty even though they didn't send it back to the factory.

I think it might have cost me when it finally went back to the factory though cos the warranty had run out.
I can't remember it was a few years ago now.

Seems like a pretty unrealiable amp but sweet for distortion.
I play it with a lonestar strat and a zoom for the clean sounds.

Now its working I love it, even if it is weighty as hell!

The features are all there - there's pretty much everything you'd want, plus the channel mixing rather than switching that I haven't seen anywhere else. I wonder why.

I used to use mine with a Les Paul copy (Tanglewood) and it sounded pretty heavy, though when I was playing with loud bass and drums or with another guitar this amp had great trouble cutting through the mix and more often than not sounded muddy and a bit lifeless. The distortian channel is wicked, it's what sold it to me in the first place - I was very impressed with it, gut moving and all that, but somehow doesn't do well against other stuff, especially valve amps. The button to change between the two gain settings, is ok though the idea is that the first setting is for a valve sound and it just isn't. The response is flat accross the board in that no matter how hard or softly you hit the strings on your guitar the same level of distortian comes through which is a bit crap really. The clean channel tends to fuzz up a bit at high volumes.

Mine blew once, even with the fuse, and just stopped working. It has to be said that it was plugged into a very dodgy mains though. My biggest gripe with mine, so much so that I want to thow it out of the window, is that the fx channel has somehow deteriorated. I get a lot of horrible distortion and break up when putting my effects through it. I never used to get that and I'm not sure how it ever got like that. But it makes it virtually unusable for me. However I've seen and heard a lot worse amps (especially Marshalls).

never tried contacting them. Maybe I should.

I've had mine since 1996 and have gigged with it a bit. It's pretty good. I like it quite a bit actually (but only because it's red and the band I was in was called dry green which I'd sprayed down the side). I wish I'd got myself a tube amp really. I certainly wouldn't buy it again as there are many other better options.

I own the GLX Special edition .. in red
Amp Made in England
Reverb made in USA(accutronics)
This amp has two channels. It features channel mixing instead of channel switching. Both, the clean and the distorted channels are always "on", you just set "how much" of each channel you wanna use. So..... in channel 1, you can have 50% clean and 50% distorted, and in channel 2, you can have 80% clean, 20% distorted.
Of course you can also set channel one 100% clean and the second channel 100% distorted. With that, you have the normal 2 channel switching feature.
On the clean side, it has passive 3 band EQ, with "BASS", "MID", and "TREBLE". It also has "LEVEL"(volume) and a "bright" button, which gives a more rich sound.
Really, the EQ in the clean side doesn't work very much. You notice some little changes.... very little.
But in the distortion side it really kicks a lot of asses. Active 5 band EQ, with "BASS", "LOW MID", "MID", "HI MID", "TREBLE". There's a "GAIN", and a "LEVEL". It also has a button that swithces between two types of distortion, one less saturates, for R & B 60's Style, rock, and a lot of more styles, and the other, more saturated distortion for a harder rock, metal....
This EQ really gets a lot of sounds, it's awesome....
It has 2 master volumes
It has "ACCUTRONICS" Reverb, which is great!... it really sounds nice..
Two master volumes, an "EFFECT MIX", which mixes the effect with the sound of the guitar, without effect (as the channels).
It has one INPUT.
In the back it has a headphone jack, and jacks for: "LINE OUT", "PRE AMP OUT", "PWR AMP IN", "FOOT SWITCH", "FX SEND", "FX RETURN", and a button to activate the second effects loop.
It has 80 watts RMS output... loud enough.... not for a full stadium concert, but enough.

It has a CELESTION Professional loudspeaker G12T....

It comes with a footswitch, with 3 buttons .... channel 1/2..... Master Volume 1/2...... reverb on/off... it's nice and useful

It has a lot of features....

and it has a fuse ...... so this baby is protected from changes of voltages

In the clean channel this amp sounds ok..... i think that it doesn't sound great just because of my guitar, which one is a squier stratocaster....i think that with a better axe, this baby will sound better.
In the distortion channel, this amp rocks.... it sounds awesome and you can get a lot of sounds..... the 5 bands EQ gives you a wide variety of tones. An 8 because of the clean sound(it might be my guitar)

Always fine..... but I have a friend that has the same one.... and it's just dead, one day it started to sound like a piece of junk... pure bullshit.. he fixed it and again... the same.. I think that it's a defective one... because it has never let me down in about 6 months or more.....

5 because of my friend

The company CARLSBRO is great.... i e-mailed them and they answered me very nicely and sent me some info to my home in Chile. they have a nice warranty..
Great Company.... 10....

But..... the store "SUPERSON" in Chile sucks....!!!......
They have a very short warranty (in chile).... my friend gave his amp for fixing it (paying because warranty was gone), and they fixed, but when the warranty of the fix finished, the amp broke down again... Also they sell the amps that are shown for trying it.... so they are used.... SUPERSON SUCKS:......

CARSLBRO 10
SUPERSON 1

I have been playing about a year or two, and i think that this is a good amp, it really sounds great.... but it's heavy.
I don't know what other amp buy if this is stolen... I might buy it again.... but i would rather buy something quiet with tubes like 30 watts, or something brutal with more than 120 watts...