Carvin Legacy Combo

Just got this amp over a month ago. Basic features and that's what I wanted. If you want all the effects get a Line 6 or a Fender CyberTwin, which I used to have. I was a novice guitar player and those were recommended to me and they were great but I eventually wanted to go with an all tube amp where I could put in my own effects. Definitely loud enough; haven't put it past two. Both Channels are great, you just have to tweak them to get the right sound. I agree with those who say that it's not for Nu Metal.

I use American Fenders with noiseless pickups, Texas Special pickups and an American Delux Fat Strat. I also use a Ibanez RG 620 (I think) It's made in Japan but I replaced the stock pickups with Dimarzio PAF Pro (Neck) and a Steve Vai Evolution F Spaced at the Bridge. I can get Blues, Classic Rock and Hard Rock, which is what I wanted the amp for. I use a Ibanez TS9 tube screamer and I also have a Rocktron Xpression effects unit that I run through the effects loop. If you keep it simple, remembering that tone comes from the flesh, you can easily get those sounds with this amp.

Have never gigged it and nothing has broken yet. I will concur with the guy who said that his delivery box was shoddy at best. When I opened mine there were a bunch of broken styrofoam pieces. It seemed like it may have been a return. Everything seems to work fine though.

Haven't had to deal with them yet on repairs, but they processed my order pretty fast.

I really like it. The gain has a good crunch at about 5 or 6 and the clean channel is pristine. It's a basic amp and for the features (The tube selections and the Vintage 30 speakers) there isn't one out there that is cheaper. Marshall, Peavey and Fender costs more for comparable combo amps. If it breaks down on me in five years, like the guy below, my opinion may change but for now I'm happy. If it got stolen, then I would probably buy another.

made in 1999.this amp is perfect for clasic rock,blues and jazz. Not for Heavy metal. This amp is Super loud. i play in my bedroom and never can go higher than 2 in volume without driving my family crazy.This amp is very basic and that is what i like about it.

i use a jem and a tele. perfect for what i play. Satriani,Santana,classic rock,even jazz. Is not made for metal,but i use the clean channel With my Keeley mod MT2 and My KFK1 MXR 10band EQ and you are in METAL heaven. I also have the extended cabinet. the dirty chanel has a mild distortion. i use mostly the clean chanel and my top end effects.

The amp went nut acting after 6 years. Very loud and annoying static and popping. i replaced all power and preaamp tubes and no solution.I only play in my house and was angry that the amp was acting like that. I will score low in this category because I COULD NOT AFFORD to pay $1000 and have the amp fail after 5 years. I dont think i neglected it.Also, in the small city where i live, the repairman had another legacy combo with similar problems.This is the only amp i have kept for so long. Is normal to fail after 5 years?

I took my amp down to Carvin in Sunset Blvd. for repair. They sent it to San Diego and they told me it will take 3 weeks to get it fix. Even when i called almost daily for information, they went over the 21 days as promised. so they said they would repaired for free and i only have to pay $39 for shipping to my house. Does Carvin has too many of their products breaking that could not fix my amp in 3 weeks?. Finally the amp arrived in my house after a whole month. AND THEY DID NOT FIXED IT!!!!!!!. Fuck i was piss. I called Carving next day and they pick the amp from my house and returned back to me in working condition a week later. FOR FREE. So i have mixed opinions about the way they handle my amp. Too bad my amp failed, too bad they took too long to not fix it and send it to me without fixing it. However, the guys in Carvin are very good with their clients. They were nice all the time and eventually fixed my amp for free.

Perfect amp for soloing. Perfect for clasic rock. if you are into metal,this is not your amp.If stolen i would buy an amp that wont breake after 5 years even if cost more. Overall I like this amp for its simplicity,high output,excellent for soloing,value. Too bad it broke but i guess that can happen with all amps.

This is actually a follow-up to the review I posted below. That volume issue came back when I recently played without my effects one night at rehearsal.
I tried replacing all the tubes and it still did it. Before I took it in to have it looked at, the tech told me it was probably the effects loop acting up but he couldn't be sure till he looked at it. I took it in but oddly and predictablly enough the amp didn't do it when it was in the shop. I got the amp back and played it the following week at rehearsal WITH MY EFFECTS IN THE LOOP and it ran no volume drops at all.
Then, I let a guy in another band rehearse with the amp. He didn't use any effects and the amp started acting up on him. He just plugged a cord into the effects send and fed it to the effects return and it stopped doing it. So, I got the problem solved sort of.
I'll probably let this problem go since all I have to do to correct this is either always play with effects plugged into the loop, or run a small patch cord from the effects send to the effects return of the amp. I'm too lazy to lugg it back to the tech just to have it run perfect for him again. Regardless, I bought this amp used and it's a piece of electronic equipment and nothing is perfect.
I'm still very happy with this amp.

I won't go into the features of this amp because it's been done to death all ready.
I will however agree with the reviewer below me that this amp isn't really feature laden. If you want bells and whistles than look at Line 6 I guess. Or if you are looking for a 3-channel amp than stop reading right now cause this isn?t it. But, if you are in the market for a no frills ballsy amp, keep reading.

I use Ibanez RG 500 series and Jem guitars and a Fender American Lonestar Strat with this amp.
I play 70s to current rock style covers and I'm really into solo artists such as Vai (imagine that) and Satriani. This amp can pretty much do those styles with no problem. I don't play any nu-metal really but this amp can do it with a little tweaking and EQ.
Tone is so subjective and I've had various amps over the years including a lot of rack gear and I'm not going to go into all of it. But, I will say that I had Peavey XXX before this amp. I liked the XXX but in order to get the low end I wanted out of it at rehearsal or gig volumes, I had to turn the mids basically to 0. Than, in order to hear myself in the band mix I?d have to tweak the highs and the amp got a little too hollow sounding. I am by no means dogging the XXX. But, in my opinion it?s voiced for a different generation and style of music.
The Legacy is a midrange-voiced amp. But, it's not a pierce your ears mid range. It's got a nice balance of low end and mid range. Basically, it's got the low end thump I was looking for with the cut through that I just couldn't get out of the triple X. I'd compare the lead channel to a kind of suped up Marshall tone. The distortion or lead channel on this amp is smooth. You don't need to turn the gain knob past 7 to get a nice smooth distortion sound out of it. Also, playing covers, I need a good clean sound and the XXX just didn't have it. Sorry XXX fans, but it was mediocre and kind of sterile and not very powerful. The Legacy clean will break up a little at higher volumes but that?s the nature of tube amps

This is a well built amp. Dependable and I'd gig without a backup.
The only problem if you want to call it that I had was when I first got it. The amp seems to have a sweet spot on the volume knobs. If they are below 1 at all the amp cuts out. But if you keep the amps volume knobs above 1 than it runs fine for hours. Kinds weird I guess.

I've heard good things about Carvin customer support and that's about it. I did e-mail them about the volume issue I mentioned above and they were quick to respond.

If this amp were lost or stolen I'd kill the f***er that did it.
I love the overall tone of this amp.
Like I said, tone is very subjective and I've given my example above.
Basically, if you're into nu-metal or scooped mids chugga chugga than this amp probably isn't for you unless you place in EQ in there to cut mids.
But, in 21 years of playing I've noticed you really need a nice balance of mids in your mix. Especially if you do any lead work.
Also, I've never needed to turn the volume knob past 2 on this for rehearsal or gigging. IT'S LOUD! Although, like any tube amplifier, it sounds best when you open it up. For this amp, it?s around 6ish on the volume knob. But, damn that?s just incredibly f?n loud!
So, this amp isn?t apartment friendly at all. But it wasn?t designed for that now was it?

My rating on this reflects as lightly-above average rating for features. It is not a particluarly feature-laden amp. This is not meant to be a bad rating, it just a basic tube amp, swicthable 50/100W with reverb and master volume.

I did not want to be overly harsh here but this is my opinion. I took advantage of the 10 day trial period to make my assessment. In that time I also purchased a Mesa Lone Star amp and tried out several other tube amps down at Guitar Center.

When I first got it I thought it sounded OK, I was expecting to be blown away. I really wanted to like this amp, and had I not tried out a buch of other amps I might have kept it. I just was not blown away, I am actually surprised Steve Vai put his name on this thing. That's marketing for you.

First, it came very poorly packaged for UPS shipment, I'm almost 100% sure it had been shipped/returned before because the shipping box was in such bad shape. There were no form-fitting buns, just a bunch of broken chucnks of styrofoam shoved in there. The amp had a damaged front grill (dented), but amazingly it appeared otherwise undamaged and functional. It simply made a really bad first impression.

As I spent a couple of days with it, I was at best lukewarm on it. I wanted a tube amp mainly for clean and slightly distorted blues tones, but I just did not feel like the amp had the warmth or squish to it I had hoped for. And the distortion was not great... maybe if I had pushed the power section it would have sounded better, but the amp was too damn loud for that (even at 50W). If you want a LOUD amp, this fits the bill.

When I tried out a Fender Hot Rod DeVille, it had a much better sound. Then I found the Mesa LoneStar and found nirvana! So I bought it and A/B'ed the two amps side by side in the quiet of my house. It was even close. Now I could hear all sorts of things I had not noticed before. The Carvin was a much noisier amp in general, did not have any warmth or squish, it has a harsh midrange, and the distortion was not particularly musical to my ears. My opion of it generally worsened after I compared it to the Mesa, which I obviously liked a lot more.

Lesson - if you buy anything from Carvin, be prepared to buy and compare it to something else because you just can't try these things out in the store.

Lesson 2 - you will have to pay for shipping both ways, so I am out over $100 for the experience. Don't buy direct unless you have had a chance to try it out somewhere beforehand.

Did not keep it long enough.

When I called to complain about the shipping box and damage, Carvin was nice and very accepting of the situation and did not give me any problems.

Been playing 25 years. I didn't really like it, although I suppose it could be made to work, it was in no way a "sweet" amplifier. Heavy and loud, noisy and harsh, and a big bill to try it out and return it, shipped in a beat-up box and damaged, I would hesitate to buy anything from Carvin again. I don't think I would buy anything mail-order again without trying out a friend's or in a music store first.

I compared it to the Fender Hot Rod DeVille Mesa Lone Star and it finished last. Mesa on top (in sound and $$$). The Fender was really nice too, and the cheapest of the three. I might get one of those too.

This amp is great and is very versatile for the styles of music that I play, which is jazz, blues, rock, classical, and jam band type of stuff. It works well with all of those styles, and it has enough power to get the job done.

I use a Gibson sg with 490t and 490r alcino humbuckers and let me tell you that this amps sound is out of this world. It's clean channel is one of the best cleans I have heard, and also one of the most unique. The "dirty" channel is smooth and mellow.

yes.

if it were lost or stolen, i would replace it

The amp is a 2000 year model. It has 2 Celestian Greenback speakers, 2 channels,effects loop,voiced line out and most other features common to combo amps.

This is one tight, smooth sounding amp. Closed back cab adds to that sound. Just installed a new set of JJ Tesla EL 34's. While most combo's have you running for the humbuckers after trying to make single coils sound rich and full,this amp is the exact opposite. It doesn't matter what guitar, what processor, what pedal you use, this amp stays solid with great warm tone. The tone with a Strat on either channel is great, a LesPaul is amazing. I own several amps and this one is definetly unique from any other. Has it's own original voice that is very useable in any style of music. The clean channel is one of the best I've ever heard. The gain channel has a warm, real, sounding sustain to it. Not too over the top, and not that fake buzzing annoying sounding distortion on so many combos. If you want a full on , over the top tone through this amp try a Metal Zone on the clean channel for the best thrash tone you'll ever hear. Add a Boss GE 7 EQ and a DM 2 Analog delay too make it even better.

I own 2 other Carvin amps and they've been very reliable. My 20 year old Carvin X60 1x12 amp has never let me down.

This is a great amp.I own several amps [ Marshall JCM 900 4102 combo-JCM 2000 TSL 122 Combo-Carvin X60-Carvin BelAir 2x12 combo and the Legacy]. Like a selection of fine wines I like them all for there subtle and sometimes overwhelming differences.The Legacy offers great warm tone and drive. Good for all types of guitars, but especially makes a single coil strat sound incredible.

I don't know what year it was made, but I bought it used for $140 and was not working due to being dropped or something. I had a tech(Noteworks in Phoenix- a great music store!!)look at the amp and they replaced the bias filter and resoldered some joints on the board and it works flawlessly. Some people have reviewed this amp and claim it has one channel, well it has two channels and one input(maybe they should look at their amp more closely)and a nice effects loop. It has all the features I need and the independent tone controls for each channel are a plus.Tubes I am using are:12ax7's and JJ EL34s

I am using a Carvin DC-150 and a Ernie Ball Music Man Silouette with Carvin M22 pickups in the Carvin and Seymore Duncans in the Ernie Ball. This amp suits my style perfectly, It can go from crystal clear to heavy saturation with ease.The amp is quiet and does NOT distort on the clean channel, which in my opinon, is the best sounding clean channel I have ever heard. The distortion is almost as brutal as my 5150 and not as harsh.I can get great blues tones out of this amp also.

No Problems so far....

I have called them a few times to ask questions and such and they have always been helpful.

I have been playing for 15 years now and I have owned Marshall JCM 800's, 900's and JMP's,Peavey 5150,Carvin X-100, Carvin X-60,Laney Pro-tube and this amp sounds the best, in my opinion. It has the best clean channel and the distortion is not as harsh as the 5150, better overdrive/distortion/sustain than any of the Marshalls and makes the Laney sound like a toaster with a speaker crammed inside! The other Carvin amps I mentioned were great sounding too but the Legacy is simply better.I simply cannot find anything bad to say about this amp! If it were stolen, I would definately get another one!
More people need to try Carvin stuff, you will be amazed!

The combo that I own was to my knowledge manufactured this year, 2003. For my use the amp is very versatile in that it will make great tone at low volumes as well as high volumes. It has one channel but for me this not a problem as I would only use this amp for my guitar and little to nothing else, so having more inputs is not a requirement for my use.

One great feature is the 50/100 amp split as well as the closed cabinet/open cabinet option. You can really change the tone and also direction of the sound. The cab option is one of those usable, great options to have for small and large rooms.

The effects loop works very well in that any "noise" was lower using the loop as opposed to direct through the guitar input.

I cannot imagine anything else I would want on this amp as I am into function and tone/sound way more than I am bells and wistles. And, I certainly use the effects as it only has reverb which is truly one of the best I have heard as an included feature.

At this stage in my life I have little to no interest in playing professionaly at all. I have a good freind who is a bass player as well as a darn good guitar player and we have a great time renting time at the local practice studio. So for me this amp allows me to go blooooow my ears out when I feel like it, yet sit at home and play at very low volumes with nearly that same sound.

I'm playing a 1983 G&L S-500 with the wonderful stock pickups through the Legacy and the sound shimmers at low volume, especially when you use the reverb. But when you want it to crank, it will hurt you! It would take a good sized hall before you were lost for volume and then I am sure you could add the extension cabnet and keep up in most any situation.

The overdrive channel reminds me of when I used to have a Showman, great ballsy sound, very blusey but when you played an SG through it, it could just whale! This is what I hear coming from this amp.

I don't know yet but if the store in Santa Ana is any indication, I can't imagine I will have any problems.

Same answer again, the folks at the store were great to deal with, a lot of fun, very straight forward about their product and did their best to work a solid price and were just very good all the way around.

I have only been playing with this amp for a short time but I have owned what are now considered the be the GREAT amps and I can say without any hesitation that this is the best amp pound for pound that I have ever owned. I don't know if "Steve" really had anything to do with the design, regardless, a great amp and I am very thankful for the way Carvin does business.

It's all you should need for a trusty tube amp.

I use this amp with a Fender Fat Strat. I play in a band who does mostly covers. We play Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, and a variety of other stuff too. I also play at church. This is more of a rock/blues type of playing. I also play in a jazz band. We do all kinds of jazz styles. I think the only thing this amp can't do would be the mesa sound. To be honest I like this amp MUCH more than any Marshall, except for the plexies. The Legacy has the ability to become very smooth, which is a MUST for the Phish songs I play. But when you need that rock crunch it's capable of that just as well. It definitely has a ton of balls. When ever I play it, I want to bite into the sound because it is so thick. It's great. It can do anything with the help of a few eq adjustments. And for that mesa sound, save the money and just buy the v-twin preamp pedal. The clean channel is nice and full, which is what I wanted, since a lot of the time, I am the only guitar player. I don't want a thin fendery sound. Even though I'd love to have a del. reverb someday. It's a very rich sound. The half wattage swith is nice. It doesn't cut down on volume that much, but it makes tha amp clip at a lower level. The V30 speakers are the best. They sound a little better now that I've broken them in throughout the past few months. I like to have my speakers break up just a hair. Go to www.carvin.com/vai and check out some of the audio clips. You'll be amazed as I was and still am.

I think it will stay with me a couple of years.

Carvin is awesome!!!

I've been playing for nine years. (ever since I was in third grade and I'm in eleventh now). I compared this amp to everything. For a guy/gal on a budget, you can't go wrong. If it were lost or stolen I would consider getting a Vox AC30, but I'd probably end up with this again, because it's such a good deal.