Carvin 112-Nomad

this is a 50 watt 1 12inch speaker amp. very easy to use. the controls are, channel one(clean): volume, bass, mid, treble. channel two(drive): gain, volume, bass, mid, treble. there is a master reverb, and a presence knob on the back which only works on channel two. the controls are plain and simple.

i use my nomad with a American standard strat,an epiphone les paul, and a 63 re-issue SG. my pedals are and ernie ball volume pedal, and a blue tube, and a crybaby 535 wah. the nomad has 4 EL84 power tubes, and 5 12AX7A pre-amp tubes. the clean channel is good, but its not a twin reverb. but still its clear, almost all the way to ten. if you crank it the clean channel gets a nice overdrive sound. the drive channel is real nice. ala AC/DC thunder struck, or you can get that old steely dan, realin' in the years tone. another plus is that it is only 50 watt, pretty loud, but you can crank it and not kill your ears. the reverb sounds good too. the clean channel gets an 8, and the drive channel, a 9

very reliable! ive used it for countless gigs. ive never once had a problem with it. the tubes have metal hooks to keep them in place, big ups to carvin for that.

never needed it but im sure its great, every time i have ordered something they have been more then helpful.

awsome amp, well worth my money

Calling this amp a "vintage" series amp is pure horsecrap. It's vintage maybe for an teenager.

The tweed look is pure horsecrap, and so is the "all tube" come-ons in the sales brochure. Has a silicon rectifier, last time I checked that aint tube. Carvin should be sued.

Having said that, it's a decent sounding amp for the price. It has potential. Needs better tubes, however. Carvin puts shit tubes in there. So the *bargain* aspect of this confused little offering... figure paying $100 or so to plug in GOOD tubes.

This tweed aspect really bugs the crap out of me. The preamp configuration is more like a Mesa boogie - not a tweed amp! The power tube configuration is more Voxish, Brit invasion. Not tweed.

If Carvin was HONESTLY marketing a tweed amp... they'd simplify the preamp input stage (one 12AX7 instead of two), and use power tubes more akin to the tweed era -- 6L6's would provide all that marketable wattage, while being truer to form.

Eliminate the mid knob, it's largely worthless. Use a lower ohm pot on the bass knob, for CHRISTSAKES!! This thing will only play good at about 2-3 on the bass... that is just idiotic! I'm no pro, but even I could have soldered in a better pot. Carvin are you reading this?? Put a 47pf cap on the volume knob, to give it a little more low volume clarity.

Here's the deal on vintage sound. If Carvin wanted a truly brown tone, they could have incorporated a cathode bias switch for about $5. Switch between 50watt (non-brown tone) and 33watt (browner tone). It would have been much more useful. People would have loved it. I personally would buy 10 of these amps then, instead of ZERO.

So far, I've eliminated one preamp tube, two power tubes, and a couple of useless midrange pots. Added one DPDT switch and a couple resistors. Probably knocked the production cost on this amp down by at least $50, and made it a better amp. Could have sold many more of these.

Also, mount the damn tube sockets on the chasis... not the PCB you DORKS! Heat heat heat... DUH!

The stock Sovteks generally suck. There's better tubes, folks.

How brutal is the distortion? Like an ice pick in my ear! Vintage, my ass.

The tone stack is mostly anemic, and useless.

The clean sound is nice for playing Beatles songs. It's more moptop than tweed, that is for sure. But nice clean (big deal).

A little tweaking on this amp would bring it to life. But then for the money, you could buy a used SF Fender (or even BF if you shop around)... for the same money.

Buy a Mig 50... heck it's more "vintage" than this turkey casserole of an amp.

Didn't buy, can't say.

Who cares.

Who cares if it works nice forever.

The only reason I'd buy one of these is to use it as a decoy, so my OTHER amp wouldn't get stolen.

From what I hear, Carvin wants to monopolize the repair end of these amps (like most other PCB amp sellers). Not a reason to not buy an amp... but something to keep in mind. An old Fender has about the same liklihood of breaking down, and will be a whole lot easier to repair.

What is with these amp makers today? Trying to sell "vintage" and tweed looks with non-tweed sounds???

Build a damn simple amp that works right, and people will buy shitloads of them. Same old story, over and over again... from Leo to "Dr." Z. It aint rocket science to design a simple amp that works well. God knows there's plenty of good examples to copy.

Make this amp truly vintage, and I'll buy one. Use simpler better circuits, scrap those moptop EL84's for some 6L6's, and provide some truly brown tone circuitry (cathode and maybe even triode switching)... then I'd buy one. Otherwise, stick a fork in it. Poor engineering and finance planning at the corporate level killed this AMC Gremlin.

Brand new 50 Watt, all tube, 2 channel (1 clean, 1 variably dirty), single 12 combo. Footswitchable channel select and reverb on off (I never use this, the R is always on). Effects loop, cabinet voiced line level out (sounds VERY good), extension speaker jack, impedence matching switch. Nice tweed job. Plenty of features for what I do.

My tools include a mid 80's Fender Strat with EMG SA's, an Epiphone 335 with Tom Holmes humbuckers, a Fatdog ES175 copy with a single P-90. I play jazz and blues, and it sounds wonderful for either of those. I was surprised by how quiet this one runs. It has less hiss then my Roland JC-90, with a fuller sound on the clean end. I can somewhet match that sound on the Roland if I use a Fulltone Fulldrive 2 on clean boost, but it's not quite there. The clean channel has been clean as far up as I have taken it which has been half way up. I played it at the full 50 watts when I first got it, and then removed the inner pair of EL84's to effectively cut the power in half, so that I can turn it up more while playing in the house. I took it out to a jam, with a Marshall 1/2 stack player, and kept up with that with only 2 tubes in it. We even tried driving his 4x12 cabinet and it performed quite well. The Marshall guy was impressed. The distortion is much more than I'll ever use. I normally use it at 3 with the volume (on ch 2) at about 1/2 more than the clean volume. This allows me to stomp on it for a lead and get just enough volume and sustain boost to satisfy most of what I do. I occaisionally distort up to about 5 and it is creamy and sweet. The Marshall guy dime'd the overdrive and though it was pretty cool totally distorted, but that's not really my style. I used the cabinet voiced line out at a recording session in tandem with a SM57 and was very pleased with sound of this. The only difference we could hear was the airiness of the mic'd channel vs a more up front sound in the line out channel. Other than that dynamic, they were almost identical.

So far so good. I've had it 4 weeks. Have done a jam, a (jazz) recording session and much practice with it. Not problems at all. I have other Carvin equipment and have never had any trouble with them, so I'm pretty confident in this on, as well.

I have talked to and emailed them about my PA head picking up radio stations occaisionally, but never got a response back from them.

I've been playing for over 30 years. I've owned Vox, Peavey, Roland, Mesa Boogie, Hoffner and Trace Elliott amps. This is by far my favorite. I would definately buy another one. I wish they wouldn't have discontinued the head model, for the added flexibility of using whatever cabinet matches the occaision. I do wish it had a 1/2 power switch like some of their other models, but I can fairly easily remove 2 tubes and do the same thing.

I bought this Nomad 50 watt amp new in October, 1997 mainly because of Carvin's name and reputation. I also own two TL60 Carvin guitars that are also great. This amp has one clean channel and one grunge channel, effects loop, rear presence adjustment in a nice tweed package. I wish it had more inputs for other instruments to plug in and play along. I play clean only with reverb and tremolo. The grunge channel is used for clean play as well. It has plenty of power for a 50 watt tube amp. You can use this Nomad to drive a half or full stack. Just set the speaker impedance switch,on the rear of the cabinet to match your speakers impedance and away you go. Very versatile and with plenty of spunk.

I play a semi-hollow Heritage H535 (think ES335) and two Carvin (aTL60 and TL60T) guitars thru this little amp and it fits my clean, country style. To me, after retubing the original Sovtek tubes with JJ Electronic tubes from Eurotubes.com, this amp really came alive. I'm not knocking the prime Sovteks that Carvin installed when they made this amp as they held up good. The amp now has a nice firm bottom and mid that can mimic a Fender Twin Reverb when I play Duane Eddy's "Weary Blues from Waiting" in A flat with my other guitar, a Peavey Firenza JX. The amp's reverb seemed to really come to life as well when the new tubes got put in. The Nomad has it's own tone and isn't very flexible tone-wise but it suits my style. Don't expect this amp to offer many voices or color, but if you like clean and country tones, you'd probably like it's sound. It also has plenty of punch for small gigs and is alot easier to lug around that a 212 or a stack. I've played single and double coils thru this amp and it makes all the guitars sound great!

I have a lot of faith in Carvin's equipment and I have plenty of faith in this little 50 watter. It will get you thru any gig with no backup as it has never acted up once in the many months that I've played it, so the new tubes were a great investment that really paid off for me. With a certain amount of good care, I expect this amp to be going long after I'm not. This is true with anything that we own. Treat it right and it'll treat you right. If it don't, SELL IT AS FAST AS YOU CAN because you've got a lemon. Within the last few years, I've got more than my share of Fender lemons, both with amps and guitars so no more Fenders for me. Yes I mean American Made Fenders not imports!

I've owned Carvin guitars since the late 70's or early 80's and they have all held up well so I hope and expect this amp to do the same. It is built like a tank! I have had a few dealings with Carvin and have been treated great. No problems there at all. Can you say that much about Fender or Gretsch? I don't think so!! The Gibson people are good to deal with. You've got to give credit where credit is due. Thanks to Harmony-Central, we can pass on valuable tips to other musicians and this means a lot. Now we can either vent our frustrations at certain companies while we praise the daylights out of more deserving companies. Keep it up HARMONY-CENTRAL!!!!!

I've been playing for many years and have owned Fenders, Peaveys, Gibsons,Kustoms and one Ampeg amp. I have as much or more faith in this amp than in the rest of the amps I mentioned. Yes, I would buy another Nomad whenever I needed one. I counted on Carvin's reputation as a very reliable musician's friend and they have came thru for me in amps as well as guitars.

I bought this amp in 1998.Two channels,clean and dirty with an effects loop. I am basically a "living room" player, so the amp never leaves my music room.More than enough power for me. In fact, if I turn it up past 2, its way too loud for just playing at home. I only crank it up when no one is home

Playing a homemade tele copy with two carvin humbuckers and a "strat" that I built from Carvin's bolt kit.Playing mostly rock and blues.This amp is very quiet until you turn it up past 5 on both channels, then it starts getting that high gain hiss.The clean channel is one of the best i've ever heard .It will distort at about 8.The distortion channel is brutal.Thats great if thats what you're looking for,but I cant seem to find that real bluesy where the sound is just starting to break up.Anything past 2 and it starts getting very muddy.

This amp is hard on tubes, but I guess thats a common problem with combo amps.Otherwise very reliable.

Warranty is for one year. This is actually my second 112 nomad. The first one sounded like crap right out of the box. Called the factory and they determined it was damaged in shipping.Staff at Carvin was very helpful.

I really like this amp a lot, aside from the muddy overdrive, its probably the best amp in this price range. My biggest complaint is you can't play this amp at low volumes and get a good sound.I've been told this is the way it is with all tube amps, but I'm not so sure.

This is a 1998 Nomad. This amp did everything for me. Clean and quiet all the way to blisteringly loud and plenty distorted. It is a 2 channel amp. The first for clean and clear. The second for lots of soak. Optional footswitch moves smoothly from channel to channel. Reverb adds a great low end to the soak channel. Awesome.

I'm using this with a 1999 Gibson SG. My humbuckers come through so nice and warm with this. But also can scream trhough the distortion for a quick lead. I play about half mello alternative and about half heavy alternative. I like to even throw some blues or folk in there. This amp does it all! The Nomad is good for jamming alone or practising a small set or blowing out a big gig. I find myself never turning it louder than 6. It does plenty for being only 1 12" speaker. The clean channel stays truly clean from 1 to 10 and the distortion is classic tube-sound at any setting.

I haven't had this amp for all that long but it never let me down. Since I got it i've had some really important gigs and it made me sound 10 times better than i really am.
The previous owner replaced the tubes, but that was his own neglegence.

I haven't talked to carvin over this amp, but they are great people to work with.

I have been playing the guitar for well on 13 years now. I am 17 and this is the best amp in its class. Other than my SG i have some lamo Epiphone Strat copy. Even it sounds good out of this amp. If i ever lost this amp i would be inconsolable. It's a necessary part of my music now. I love how big a punch it packs. you would never expect it. I was about to get the Fender Princeton or an Ampeg but this blew them all away. GET THIS AMP!

I got this amp via UPS on 10/17/97 and despite the rough treatment and bouncing around for 2200 miles, it played good for the word go. It still has the original tubes in it and it still wails. The clean channel is clean and I use the grunge channel as clean with a bit more color. I feel the 3 spring accutronic reverb is weaker than it should be. I went with Carvin over Ampeg mainly because this amp is a bulldog of a workhorse. Ampeg has two power tubes and two preamp tubes is all but what a sound they get from their amp. I figured this Nomad with it's five El84 power tubes and five 12AX7 preamp tubes should outdo the Ampeg and I now wonder if I goofed, mainly I miss a lush reverb and built in tremolo that Ampeg offers. Anyhow this amp is a two channel job that is silent switching altho I use mainly the clean side. It has plenty of power but still needs a lusher reverb and tremolo for my taste of blues, country and rock-n-roll. I played thru an old 70's Carvin 212 tube amp and it sounded great with a lush reverb and great tremolo. Another reason for my choosing Carvin over Ampeg.

I play both of my Carvin guitars, one has s/s pickups and one has s/s/h pickups, thru this little amp and it handles either set up with ease and power to spare. It is quiet and clean all the way up and down. Not too much variety of sound but what is there is my cup of tea. Again, distortion is not my bag. It has plenty as I had to try some to see if I'd like it, still have no use for grunge. Give me clean sounds anytime.

Dependable is Carvin's middle name as far as I'm concerned. Their guitars or amps are dependable. I've owned Carvin guitars since the mid 80's and couldn't ask for anything more dependable and I feel the same way with this amp, altho this is my first Carvin amp. My main amp is a heavy Peavey Ranger 212 and it is a honey. But this much lighter Carvin is handy to lug around plus I'd trust it anywhere with no backup any time of the day.

Carvin people are great to deal with and they are geting better, more customer oriented and that pleases me great. Warranty was only for a short time and has long passed but yet this amp is still going strong.

I've been playing 40 plus years and still enjoy picking. If I had to replace this, I might opt for an Ampeg. Back in the 60's I had a Fender Jaguar and an Ampeg Reverberocket and what a sound that duo put out. I use a Boss tremolo now thru the Carvin and have no complaint with the sound, just hate the hassel of plugging in the AC/DC converter, etc.

This is a 1999 Nomad 112 that I bought new in October. The channel switching is smooth and quiet, although I miss not having a light to indicate which channel I'm in.

I have a '74 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a '92 Fender American Standard Strat. I play blues, rock and jazz, mostly at home nowadays and the occasional jam session. The clean channel sparkles, and the drive channel has all the distortion I would want. As other reviewers have noted, it's not for metal but it's great for blues. The reverb sounds weak to me, especially compared to my Fender Blues Deville 410. Even with the reverb at 10, it's a fairly dry sound.

My only complaint here is that the pilot light bulb is temperamental; sometimes it lights and sometimes it doesn't. When I sent an e-mail to Carvin about it, a tech called me on the telephone promptly. He said replacing the bulb is probably the answer. I haven't bothered yet.

See reliability.

I have owned 3 Fenders, a Sunn, an Acoustic and 2 Musicmans. I never really found the sound I was looking for until now. The sound of the Carvin Nomad 112 is extraordinary. So is the volume coming out of this little 50 watt-er. For years I received the Carvin catalog in the mail but never really took it serious- That is until last week when I played through a friend's Nomad. I ordered one that night. Its too bad they don't sell them in music stores or have a store in the N.Y. area. Using the the "soaked" sound of channel 2 ( without any effects boxes)with a Strat you can get the sound of " Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" by Clapton. Likewise, plug in a Les Paul and get Betts'"Jessica or "Blue Sky". Amazing.

This amp out of the box was horrible! I plugged in and was totally disappointed. The "soak" channel was totally unusable over 2 on the gain knob. The clean channel was not as bad but not as clean as I expected. I luckilly had blown all the tubes out of my marshall 4500 and was dealing with a guy who took the time to demonstrate the different sounds you get by replacing the crappy tubes most manufacturers stick in their amps. I had him remove 4 of the 5 no name 12ax7 pre amp tubes with 2 RCA,2 Phillips made in AMERICA tubes. The improvement was unbeleivable and worth the money I spent. $75.00. This amp came with some nice features like the tone controls for both channels. One complaint though, there is no light to indicate which channel is active, this can be a pain.

Parker Nitefly S/S/S. Telecaster, 335, Les Paul & Strat. Play blues/rock etc. Big Keith Richards fan. The amp, when delivered, was noisy as hell esp in soak mode. The distortion was like mud. tube change and now I can get great smooth overdriven tube distortion not garbage. The clean channel is just that till you get to 8 then it gets some crunch. I have another cabinet with the same speak in it and it helps get some bass, but it was ok with 1 -12 .

This thing is pretty new and was just gone over by an amp guru(I had to force him though) so if it breaks I'm gonna be pissed.

Been playing 25 years, have a Marshall 4500&4x12cab. lab l5, mesa boogie mk 1. bunch of guitars. Ichecked out all the amps I could and settled on this one because a friend has the same amp and his sounded good.