Carr Rambler

The Rambler is an all tube 6L6 amp with a choice of 14 or 28 watts. I was worried about head room with this amp. In the 28 watt mode, this amp is loud. I play in a 6 piece modern country band. I play on 3. In my opinion, the ramblers greatest feature is it's tone. For my purposes, the amp gives a remarkable clean tone. You can also get a nice crunch in the 14 watt mode. I play in the 28 watt mode and use foot pedals for all other sounds.

The Rambler is perfect for what I do. I have been playing guitar for 43 years and have owned many different amps. I can honestly say I feel this is the best sounding amp I have ever owned. This not a Marshall. Don't expect this amp to be something it's not. After many years, I personally wanted an amp that started with a great clean sound. I felt I could buy pedals to create the rest. This has worked well for me. I use a 52 Tele reissue, a Suhr Tele, a Suhr Chambered Strat, and a Gibson Paul Jackson Jr. The amp sounds good with both single coils and humbucking pickups. I use Robert Keeley and Xotic pedals. I also use X2 digital wireless.

Built very well. High quality components

Every time I have contacted Carr, they have been great. They answer e-mails very promptly.

I listed the guitars above. I also own a Takemine Acoustic, a Deluxe Reverb, A Mesa Boogie Lonestar Special. I also a lot of PA equipment. I sat te Lonestar and The Carr on stage next to each other on a gig. I preferred the Carr. I love the tone. The only thing I wish was that the controls were on the front of the amp. It's great to look vintage, but the knobs on the front would be more functional for me. Other than that, wouldn't change a thing.

Very simple combo tube amplifer. One channel, no master volume,class A cathode bias 6L6 output stage, spring reverb and tremolo, 14W and 28W options. See carramps.com for more details. Great for any style where clean sounds prevail. I have played it in small venues, large venues even outdoor gigs and it has all the power I need. Obviously it helps to have a good PA when you need to mic it. No amp is perfect for all things. It's got a great clean sound, plenty of headroom and is responsive with effects pedals, especially mild to moderate overdrive and tape echo. It's NOT a Marshall stack, but that's not my thing.

I love this amp. It's warm and responsive and everything I was looking for in a clean tube amp. It has plenty of headroom. It sounds great with mild to moderate overdrive. I only use the reverb when I'm playing "surf" and I think it's great. I also use the Tremolo sparingly, but it's also better than any stomp box in your collection. It doesn't do "crunch" very well, sounds a bit muddy to me. But that's not really what this amp is designed to do. It does well with "chorus". But where this amp really shines is with my Fulltone Tube Tape Echo. If you like playing your tele with "slap-back" tape echo, the Rambler/TTE combination won't let you down.

No problems as of yet. Consruction appears to be excellent.

If you're looking at a Rambler, I think it's important to understand what this amp is and what it isn't. This is a well-designed, well constructed all tube amp that is sort of a cross between a Fender Tweed and an early Vox. It's great for jazz, country, rockabilly, blues (BB, not Stevie) and rock (Skunk Baxter, not Eddie). I used to play Fender tubes for my dirty sounds and a Roland JC120 for my clean sounds. Now I'm using the Rambler on my clean side and a TopHat Club Royale on my dirty side. For pedals, I use a Clyde McCoy Vox wah, a Humphries Audio modded Boss Compression Sustainer, a Full Drive 2 with MOSFET, a Boss Super Chorus and A Fulltone Tube Tape Echo (this TTE is a beast!). My most played guitars are a Gibson CS336 and a G&L ASAT Bluesboy. In the end, it's never the gear, it's the musician. Charlie Parker made history with a plastic saxaphone he bought in a pawn shop. The Rambler, like any boutique amp, is expensive and it won't make you a better player. But if you've got the discretionary income and an obsession with tone, take a good hard look at Steve Carr's lineup. It's first rate.

2006 - I bought this amp because I was looking for a "grab and go" amp that would be versatile enough to go from the living room, to the rehearsal space, to the recording studio, to a bar, and to a club. I wanted something small enough and light enough to carry with one hand while carrying my guitar in the other. This amp fits that bill perfectly. It is loud enough to get decent clean headroom in a small club, and with the triode switch engaged, quiet enough to get some crunch in the living room. Imput, volume, bass, middle, treble, reverb and tremelo speed and tremelo depth. Pentode/triode switch. Power and standby switches. Weber ferromax 12" speaker. Foot switch. 12AX7 preamp stage, 6L6 output stage. Solid State rectifier (big point off for that).

While this is a decent sounding amp, and at times even a good sounding amp, I cannot say it is a great or "killer" sounding amp, and frankly, that is disapointing for a $2000/plus amplifier. As the volume is turned up, the amp gets rather muddy (and this is with a Telecaster). I usually like darker sounding amps and usually roll off on the treble control while boosting the bass, but with this amp it is the opposite - I have to crank the treble and roll off the bass. And the tone can change dramaticaly with volume changes, necessitating re-setting the tone controls for different volume settings. This amp also does not clean up that nicely by rolling off the guitar's volume. It cleans up, but looses presence and becomes dull. The amp does have a nice mellow and articulate clean tone with a good amount of headroom, and the pentode/triode switch is handy for getting more crunch at lower volumes. It can also attain a decent level of distortion - Deluxe like. With the midrange down you get more of a blackface distortion, while cranked up gives a more tweed type distortion. Nice versatility in that. The reverb is very nice, as is the tremelo, although I wish the latter had greater depth - sometimes it seems too subtle. Overall, it is a very quiet amp, and very decent sounding - it just doesn't wow me.

I have only had the amp for three months, and haven't had any problems - it seems very well made and feels very solid.

Have not had to deal with Carr.

I have been playing guitar for about 25 years. In my younger days I had a vintage blackface Deluxe which has sort of defined the sound I like and have sought out. Then, I had some cheap Fenders for a number of years - years I wasn't playing much. Over the past three years or so, I have been buying lots of fine amplifiers trying to determine what works for me and what doesn't. I love the size, weight and features of this amp, but am disapointed with the sound, and have decided to sell it. The Carr Mercury was also disapointing to me. Amps that have worked better for me are several from the Dr. Z line: the Carmen Ghia, the Maz Jr. and the Route 66. One thing, it seems, I have learned from the Rambler, which I really didn't realize before, is how much I seem to like tube rectified amps. I can't say exactly what a tube rectifier contributes, but it seems to add a certain something to the sound and feel of an amp that I like a lot. So there you go.