Carvin Legacy Head

it's ok, no useless features here. 2 channels, drive, presence, reverb, 2 volumes.

it's the best clean sound i've ever hear, seriously !
the distorted channel is a little bit... strange, you know, just like stoner rock : fat and dark. It made me severals month too find a great drive, but know i've got it. Don't be affraid too put presence, high and medium at 7 or more and bass under 5, because in "classical" rating, it sounds muddy, with too much basses...

i own this amp since two years, and i had no problem with it.

i think it's a great amp, really. Clean sounds are awesome, just as a twim reverb. With the drive section, it's harder to make it sounds, you just have to understand how each nobs work with each others

Very typical two channel amp. Nothing special in the controls or features.

I just don't get it how some people say that this amp doesn't have enough distortion. I play in a prog-rock/metal band and I love this amp. This is a small clip of an early demo I recorded in my band's rehearsal studio --> http://www.lyranthe.com/media/dem1.mp3

I don't have any problems with the distortion in this amp. But then again, distortion and tone is very subjective. To each his own, I guess.

Only had a few minor problems with it. Mainly I only needed to change the tubes.

Their sales guys and service reps in there stores were very helpful. Email correspondence is fast. Can't really say anything about their phone reps since I haven't dealt with them in that area.

This is my second review on this amp. I've owned my Legacy half-stack since 2001 and I love it. Take the reviews in this web page with a grain salt and try the amp yourself.

All the features a real musician needs

Sounds are right up there with today's modern music

Carvin has the best Customer Service in the world. They will break all the rules to make sure the customer is taken care of. Other manufactures... *pft*

See above.

Read the review Submitted by bzdup at 12/29/2004 02:07.

First, anyone who writes a review based on a ten minute trial has no clue.

Second, by confessing he is a shredder, he is maybe 13 years old and want to be someone when he grows up, but still not sure between a fireman and a doctor.

Third, really jeffgeorgebomb@yahoo.com, get a clue and get a life dude. If you are going to write a review about something, spend several days with the item, not ten minuets.

Typical features, plus a presence button. Which does nothing. But overall, features alone, it appears that you can get some different tones out of this thing. But no multiple voicings like a Mesa, and the Presence doesn't shape the sound like a Marshall.

I must warn every other human being I come into contact with, this amp sucks. I'm a shredder, I like metal, but I also like amps that sound good when I play them. [A buddy of mine is huge on vintage sound, has a 67 or 68 les paul and some Gibson tube amp. And it rocks, different than what I like, but rocks] I'm reading these other reviews just thinking, WTF are you serious? 9s and 10s? No sir, this amp tops is a 7. And that's if you were frozen in an ice block since 1972 and just dethawed.

I went to Carvin to play this amp in Hollywood. They have an excellent setup in that store where you can jam to your heart's delight in a closed room. I played the legacy for about 10 minutes, and this thing is a piece of junk. I heard such good things about it, but in my quest for perfect guitar tone, I must try things myself to believe.

First problem: This amp barely distorts. Seriuosly. I was playing this thing on a nice Carvin guitar, say more than 1000 dollar guitar. No clue what kind of pickups, just picked a pretty one and went to work. I had the volume on the guitar cranked, had the gain or "drive" cranked on the head and it didn't start getting crunchy until 6 or 7 on the volume. I thought, "Naw, this can't be right. I must be doing something wrong here. Nobody would make such a weak sauce amp." No. I was right. This amp just doesn't drive very hard.

I guess if you're into half ass distortion. Then get this amp. It does produce decent mid range sounds, and playing scales sounded nice on it. But hit some good old fashioned power chords and you'll find yourself asking, "where's the beef"? Answer: There is none, this is a vegetarian model.

So, completely disappointed with the distortion section of this head [ummmm this amp does not sound anything close to steve vai's super distorted sound], I turned to the clean section. Ahhhhhhh. This must be why people talk about Carvin. The tones were warm, deep, and soothing. One of the best sounding clean tones I've heard. But it clipped the sounds a bit. I would get really good sounding deep tones, but then it would clip like a huge gap in the eq or something when I changed notes. Possibly user error though, overall pleased with the clean section.

Now, I am no guitar gear wizard. Kind of a dorky kid who thinks if you don't know how to play the damn instrument no tone is going to help you. But I do know what I like, and this thing was junk. My friend was next to me like, dude, play another amp. [Which I did. Played the MTS 3200 head, which sounds IDENTICAL to the Legacy.]

In it's defense. I'm a shredder, looking for some kick ass tear it up distortion. I don't know, I play an amp like this, and I'm like, dude, go buy a Fender Amp. And don't you dare compare this thing to a Marshall or a Mesa. Sir, don't do it. Please, don't embarrass yourself any further.

If you want shred tone, if you want "vai's" sound, do NOT buy this amp. At the very least, be forewarned and GO PLAY THE DAMN THING yourself. Maybe I'm tweaked, maybe it was a bad day at Carvin, I don't know. But I wouldn't play this thing covering Pat Benatar's Hit me with your Best Shot which is what it sounded like. [Or anything else. It's a damn Damn DAMN ugly thing]

No clue, played it ten minutes, then threw up, and went next door to the Mesa Boogie store. Hollywood ROCKS! Guitar Center, Mesa, Carvin, and some other smaller guitar retailers all bunched up together.

No clue. People there seemed nice.

all right, I've been playing for some 15 years, I do a lot of studio work. Play through a Digitech GSP 2101, and a VS 265 R. I compared it with a Marshall every amp I've played in my life. A solid state Crate 130, a hybrid Marshall 265R, a JMP-1 hooked to a Marshall 9200 [very nice], and even have been lucky enough to play a Bogner Ecstasy, and lately the Mesa Dual REctifier Combo amp, my bandmate owned it. Didn't own them all, but played all of these for long periods of time through friends/bandmates.

So definitely not a pro, may have screwed it up, but it doesn't take a genius to crank the distortion and see what happens.

2004
i play in a modern pop-punk band and this amp is perfect for the sound
i also play about every style of guitar
sounds awesome for jazz and funk. 2 channels is o.k., 3 would have been more appropriate for this amp. the reverb on this amp is phenominal. the only feature i would add is delay... cause delay is a big part of modern and classic sound.
i gig with this amp a lot, with a backup of course, but i have full trust in this amp. this amp has more than enough power. i actually run it at 50 watts, make the tubes drive for a better sound.

i use an ibanez universe 7 string with a custom made emg at the bridge. i also use a washburn N4 relic with a handmade bill lawrence at the bridge and a suncan '59 at the neck. it fits the style of my band perfectly, yet it is versatile enough for my own song writing needs. a very quite amp, i only run the drive at about 6. this amp can make any sound, all sounding awesome. depending on what settings you use, the clean channel will stay clean and not distort. the distorion channel on this amp is pretty damn good, its a good clean sounding distortion that doesnt sound all stupid and obnoxious. when you crank it up, you're gonna have to back off on the distortion.

no problems with this amp yet... i just got it
i would gig without a backup tho, i do trust it that much

i bought this amp straight from carvin
they didnt mention a footswitch wasnt included, so that was stupid.
you get a one year warranty with this amp as well. i give it a 6 cause of the footswitch thing

i would buy this amp again over any marshall or mesa line6 shit
i bought the whole halfstack package so i got the badass cab with it
GO BUY THIS AMP! IT WILL BE GOOD TO YOU!

Pretty basic, 2 channels with reverb..although I rarely use reverb (I wish they'd substitute reverb for delay). Bells and whistles on an amp are usually crappy anyway, so I give it a 9..would be a 10 if it had a third channel.

Ibanez S470DXQM with Dimarzio Tone Zone in the bridge, stock single coil middle and stock bucker in the neck. Homemade strat-style guitar with a Duncan Screaming Demon at the bridge, stock yamaha single coils in the middle and neck.
When I first got the amp, I didn't have the Ibanez. I was using my homemade guitar which is a modified Yamaha Pacifica. With the Duncan, the thing was just a chunk-fest..but the guitar's intonation sucked, so I moved on. Plugged in the Ibanez and wasn't really impressed with the pickup, so I changed it to a Tone Zone. Let me just say that it's taken me about 3 months to get the sound that I like with this amp. I knew from the beginning that it was a great sounding amp, it just takes a lot of tweaking to get "IT". It's a mid-heavy amp, so keep that in mind. In my opinion that's great, though..because of the textures that the mid frequencies create. If you want more thump, get an EQ or overdrive/distortion pedal...makes it all the more versatile. It's a thumping amp, focused mainly on classic rock, but you can get just about anything you want from it.
Oh, and the clean channel is SO good, that I haven't even messed with the EQ on it..seriously! It chimes like nobody's business with signal coils. The lead channel gets a really great "gulp" with good single coils, too. Really great sounding amp, the 9 is just because it took a long time to get the sound the way that I wanted it.

Had it for nearly 4 months and no problems..but the tubes need to be reseated every month or so. I put a piece of isolation foam between the head and cabinet to ease vibrations...really oppened up the sound of the amp too.

Havent had to deal with them, except to ask a few questions..and they were pretty helpful. A friend of mine at work had some really bad problems with support with his guitar, so I'll give them a 7 from his experience.

You can't get a better amp for the money, bottom line.

2001-2002
it has the average stuff

I have had this amp for over two years I bought it new. This amp has a thick low end and with the presence nob one can get highs that will make your ears bleed. When I first got it I didn't know if I liked it or not.

The clean channel is sweet but on my amp the powertubes start to distort on 2 with a gibson les paul dc plus.

The overdrive channel took me a while to get used to because of how the presence and treble nobs work with each other. with the treble on 10 and presence on 0 this amp is muddy. One has to mess around with the presence and treble nobs to get a nice sound. I am disapointed with this amp in that with all of the nobs set on 5 this amp isn't even or balanced. The amp with the nobs set on 5 is fat, too much bass, and muddy. Maybe it was ment to be played with thined out carvin guitar. Don't even think about using the neck pickup in a Gibson Les Paul! To fat!

I reached a nice eq with the presence on 3, treble on 10, mid on 7, and bass on 2. The distortion is chuncky and thick - it isn't the fuzzy type. It is not a shredders, 80s long hair metal amp. If you want to shred get a rhino amp. The distortion on the leagacy doesn't comprese enough for that- thanks to vie's hidden feature that allows the distortion to clean up when the guitar's volume is turned down. I know because I completed the Metal Methods Speed Kills Video.

Don't buy the amp because you want to want to sound like Steve Vie. To sound like steve you must then buy alot of fx petals.
You either like the amp or not. It is good for a roar chuncky distortion and sweet clean. I would say it fits in with modern rock. this is for some one who likes big fat sound.

After I had the amp about 6 months the reverb went out. And I forgot to change the power tubes after 2 years and the tubes overheated and fried the amp.

Carvin replaced the the PC boards and rebiased my amp for free without me filling out the woranty card. They probably fixed it because I have spent about 7,000 dollars with them. A whole PA system ect.

I have been playing absesivly for about 5.5 years. Its not how long one has been playing but how much one plays. I play several hours a day, almost every day. I am 19 and I feel like I represent a new generation of guitarist. I play a Gibson Lis Paul DC Plus and an Ibanex Prestige RG3120. I have played on the following amps- Rhino Beast, mesa booge-rectofier-nomad-triaxis, soldano slo100, dizel v4, marshall jcm2000, orange ad30, carvin belair, line6 vetta-flextone, vht-combo,------------I think I have heared tone before.

The amp is great for modern rock - Go play on one and maybe it is for you.

Features already listed, 2 independant all tube channels, tube reverb, 100 watts EL34 or 6L6
It has a unique voiced high and mid range, and ALOT of low end.

I use an Ibanez RG1570 w/ Evo pickups. I play a mix of southern rock and progressive, with everything in between. This amp is ungodly loud!
I use mine with 2 power tubes(run it at 100watts,8ohms)Ive found this way I can get a reasonable volume to practice on, this worked better than the 50watt switch, which I could not tell any difference at all, other than at loud volumes the clean channel breaks up on 50watts, but the way I run it, I get plenty of headroom with the clean.
Which by the way is an great clean channel. Ive always been a huge fan of Steve Vai's clean tones, this thing nails it.

Now for the lead channel. Ive had this a few months, and I'll admitt, I wasnt very impressed with it. Some people can just plug into and love it, others have to play with it for awhile before they can dial in "that tone". I have to say though, when you find "that tone" its hard not to love this amp. And make no mistake, I do love this amp now. the mid range on this amp is amazing. Even with the mid range cranked, the tone doesnt not get harsh, but enough bite to cut through mix, and get an incredibly smooth lead tone. Which is seems to be the major charactistic with this amp SMOOOOOTH. No, it doesnt have the gain of a 5150, XXX, JCM2000 or Mesa Rect.it also doesnt have the fuzzy highs, and muddyness of those amps either. Its more of say..an extremely hod rodded JCM800, with a Mesa Mark series lead tone. Make no mistake though, this amp has enough gain for any style.
The only other thing I could add, is this amp really tends to like high output pickups(or atleast my ears do)

Ive had no problems, other than some power tube troubles, but thats no fault of the amp. I depend on it, But I will pick up a backup head when I start gigging again. A Carvin MTS perhaps =)

It a tube amp. so its as dependable as it can be

Since I bought the amp used, Ive never had to deal with Carvin, I only hear good things though.

If anything happened to this amp, I would get another one. I bought it because I wanted something alittle different. I love everything about it. Steve Vai and Carvin made some magic with this amp.

Tried out the amp in 2004 at the san diego carvin factory.
My style is instrumental rock,metal,and some classical.

I tried out the carvin head with an ibanez rg520qs with dimarzio pickups.I went into the sound room and tried out the legacy head on their 4x12 legacy cab.The clean channel was awesome,gave me a bluesy sound and I was very impressed with what I was hearing.Bass was good,mids and highs all sweet sounding.Now to the distortion that was in the amp.Total garbage,I don't think steve vai would use that distortion.Whenever I would play scale runs,tapping,arpeggios this amp did not sustain well at all.I was fighting to play any runs I was doing because this amp doesn't get enough distortion.It sounded like an old overdrive pedal from the 80's.Like a zz top distortion or something.I give it a 5 only beacuse of the clean channel.

I didn't get a chance to use it in a gig because i never bought it.Only tried it out at the carvin factory.

The dealers that were there were very kind.They let me spend enough time there to evaluate if I liked the amp or not.

I have been playing for 10 years.I own a peavey 5150 II now that I'm very happy with.The peavey 5150 II blows this amp out of the water as far as distortion,but the carvin sounds 10 times better on clean.

I own the 2004 model head, which I picked up with the Legacy 2x12 cab. The features at first seem to be pretty limiting in terms of specs, but I rate these specs highly simply because of the flexibility of the sounds you can get out of this amp. The range of the eqs are pretty astonishing and the reverb doesn't sound half bad either, although it would've been nice to have independant reverb controls for each channel.

For the acoustic stuff, I use a Taylor 612CE and a Godin Multiac Nylon, which both sound tremendous through the clean channel, especially with some reverb. I also use a Fender Thinline Tele and a couple of Ernie Ball MusicMan Axis guitars through the rig. I also own a Bogner Ecstasy 101B rig, which I am mentioning for 2 reasons: One - the Ecstasy, in my opinion does truly set the standard for high gain amplification - Secondly, the quality of the Carvin's tone is in the top bracket and A/B'ing the two amps truly reveals the benefits and deficiencies of the Legacy.

Now, the Legacy's gain on the lead channel is HIGH. I only have to use it at 50-60% with the Axis guitars to get a great, rich distortion which is surprisingly quiet. There are times when you can really hear Carvin's attempts to replicate a chunk of the Ecstasy's tonal range and they've done a good job of acheiving just that.

The Legacy's lead channel doesn't quite have the 'growl' of the Ecstasy, but it does blow the doors of anything Marshall have come out with recently or any Mesa Boogie stuff period. The clean channel, however sounds weak, primarily because it lacks a gain stage. I therefore ordered a Keeley modded BD-2 Blues Driver pedal to compensate for the big void that exists between the clean channel and the gain channel, to try to get as close to the untouchable 'Blue' channel on the Bogner Ecstasy. It hasn't arrived yet, but I have no doubt that this pedal will do wonders for the Legacy's already impressive sound.

The clean channel doesn't quite have the TWANG I strive to achieve with the Tele, when playing Southern Rock and Surf - but it gets pretty close. I think a gain stage would really help out the clean channel, so you can set it just to the point of saturation to really fatten the sound up AND give you more flexibility with your guitar's volume knob.

I give this rating an '8' based on the quality of what the amp DOES have to offer, instead of marking it down for lack of features which one can only speculate about.

Haven't had any problems thus far.

The guys at the Carvin store in Santa Ana where extremely helpful, friendly and knowledgeable. Kudos to all of them for making my Carvin experience a good one.

I have been playing for almost 20 years now, and I've gone through amps like a termite goes through wood! I found the perfect tone in my Ecstasy, and it seems I've got the perfect back-up amp. For the price - this amp is a steal, and it does sound almost Boutique. The distortion is CLEAN, instead of the MUSH Line6, Marshall and Mesa Boogie seem to produce lately. It's also comparitively light and is extremely portable along with the light 2x12 cab. I'm very happy with this amplifier. Would I get another one if this was stolen? Yes I would. Although this isn't quite the Ecstasy, if it were up to me, I wish a) I never heard the Ecstasy and b) heard the Carvin Legacy at the time of my search for the perfect amp! It would've saved me quiiiiite a bit of cash! No regrets though... I'm lovin' them both!