Carvin MTS3200

I bought this amp in 2007. Features are 2 channel (clean, distortion), and the others listed on this page. There is an effects loop, and a footswitch is an option but must be bought separately. 100W tube amp for a pretty low price, so you can't argue with that. The channel switching is very loud; chalk it up to the wiring issues I've seen highlighted by negative reviews of the amp. I hear a loud "bang" when I change channels either manually or with the footswitch. There is reverb and it's decent. The EQ is good, and I don't have anything bad to say about it. Very basic setup, but the channel switching is **** because of the very audible sound it makes.

I don't know who "Steve" is, but he's obviously just an idiot and is probably trying to bash Carvin by giving everything a 1. Go run a Crate with a Metal Zone through it if you want a bunch of distortion and no tone. Anyway, the clean sound on this amp is very good. Crystalline even. It doesn't break up until you jack up the volume past 7, and that's even with a Les Paul. Great stuff if you use single coil guitars or wish to have great, clean, clear projection. It also doesn't get in the way of a distortion pedal. The clean channel is kind of a blank pallet really, so you can do what you want to it to get good tones. The distortion channel though is a tad tinny and trebly for my tastes. 80s rock distortion comes to mind whenever I use it. Thus I use a distortion pedal (VS Jekyll and Hyde) for my dirty tones.

I haven't used the Carvin very heavily to rate its dependability. Based on that loud channel switch sound, I should have it looked at by a tech to fix that problem. I'm gonna have the tubes switched out due to regular maintenance, and because like most reviewers here I feel it would help a lot. Who knows what'll happen if I start using it more often.

Haven't dealt with Carvin's customer service. Heard they are good, and I've heard those who didn't have such luck. Based on friends who've owned Carvin gear, I'm leaning on the side of good. I can't rule out idiocy on the part of the customer, as most musicians are really, really dumb.

I've been playing for 14 years. I play rock, metal, and whatever. I like the Carvin because it was a cheap tube amp. I also wanted to try a Carvin product and see what they were like. It's not bad really, but I would like to have either the Peavey Valveking or Mesa/Boogie Stiletto.

Clean channel, distortion channel, reverb, presence, EQ for each channel, etc. Effects loop, power switch (50 or 100 watts), 5 preamp tubes, 4 power amp tubes. The amp is not at all versatile enough for me because it doesn't distort much at all. I can get more distortion out of a pedal!

This thing barely has any distortion at all. I can get more distortion out of the average pedal. I actually retubed it thinking that the tubes were old but alas same conclusion just a really crappy amp. To add insult to injury the clean channel doesn't even have that much shimmer to it. Sometimes ppl love amps that can only do 1 thing well like a good clean channel but this thing can't do anything well at all! Plus it's a 50th anniversary model. You would think that they would do something special for that but alas it's a dud. It was terrible. I had to return it immediately!

I've had numerous problems with Carvin products so I would think it wouldn't have been reliable at all if I didn't return it. I had a Carvin guitar fall from a guitar stand to the floor. Not a big fall at all and not with much force. The headstock came off and shot right across the room! Carvin wouldn't help me with that at all. They just told me to throw it in the garbage! Then I had a mini pa from them die on me after only 2.5 years of seldom use! Plus they don't play ball like local repair people. They'll never ship anyone a part because they want all the repair work themselves. So imagine you have a crappy product die on you and then they want a flat fee no matter how small the problem and you have to eat shipping time and costs to and from CA. Do yourself a big favor and avoid Carvin!

They never deal with local repair ppl and they want all the repair work for themselves. When my guitar cracked in half they told me to throw it away. These guys are horrible!

Hardly any distortion at all and a clean channel without much sparkle at all. All in all it was as useless as a solid state amp from the 80's.

Here's a nice 100 watt tube amp for mid to pro level players. It can do a wide variety of sounds with minor tweaking. Mine came retubed with Groove Tubes. I like the 5881's, have yet to try it with EL34's. Two channels, clean and scream. Effects loop. Onboard reverb is kind of neat, different from most spring reverbs I've heard and is Carvins own creation I have heard. It is a loud one, lots of power and you can drop to 50 watts if you want but only decreases the DB level by 3!! That's right, and if you know anything about wattage to decibel ratios it makes total sense, but the people who say when you switch to half power it is half as loud are not really understanding that concept. Anyway, this ain't electronics or physics class, it is music and this thing can be pretty musical.

Sounds are very good. Cleans are very clean, very little breakup at high volume on the clean channel. Overdrive channel is a lot of fun, the best place to start is turn the master all the way up and bring the preamp volume up SLOWLY!! The grind at the lower end is pretty Marshall like, sort of like a plexi in a way. I say LIKE because I have a couple nice older Marshalls and that sound is very evasive in other amps. This can get close and that is what Carvin does best, covers bases. The more you bring the volume up the gainier it gets, and I really like the gain at about 3 o'clock-Recto time! Sustains like a mother, hope your pickups are potted or you will be treated to bad feedback as opposed to good. Can get grainy but is great anyway, just sit back, palm mute and chug along to the metal hits!! Fun abounds in this amp. The lead channel is not as loud as the clean though, that seems odd. That's okay though, lots of volume/headroom to work with. Wish the effects loop had a level select like my Marshall 6100LM though, it is nice to run pedal effects through the loop without distorting the input level. This amp sounds great, gotta say it. I can't quit playing it!

I had a 3200 I bought from someone who forced the power tubes in without lining up the pin guides! Fried a few resistors was all. My tech replaced them and voila! Fired right back up!! That is impressive! That one got sold a while back. I found this in the used section of our local Guitar center, in new condition with a new set of GT tubes in it. Got it for $190, no kidding!!! Thanks Nate, I thought I would ebay it but have had so much fun playing it I am keeping this one!!

Carvin are decent people. They have to make money as well though, so cut them some slack. They try to take care of their customers, and do a very good job. How long have they been in business??? LONG time!!

I have everything a player could want-vintage Marshall, Fender, HIWATT, you name it. Every guitar group covered as well. Sometimes you come across one you really have fun with, and that is why I play music. It doesn't grind like my plexi does, but it is close and does high gain sounds really well. Great rock and roll amp with the capability of playing any other musical style. Love everything but the looks of it, that powder coated white chassis is just not right.

First off I'm guitarist of 26 years! I bought this used as backup for the guitarist in my blues band which I play bass in, I changed the tube to matched set of EL34's and re-bias the amp, only mode I did was change the LED on the clean channel to yellow!
other wise it has the same features as the rest...

The clean channel is clean smooth very versatile; the drive channel is good but was designed for metal hard core! Over kill!!
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I was using Ampeg SVT-3Pro head but wanted that Ampeg SVT classic all tube tone, for the heck of it I tried my Fender USA bass with EMG J-bass pickups pluged into the MTS3200 running into my Ampeg 4x10 BXT cabinet WOW!!!, I also tried it through my cheap BSE4x10 and did it come alive!!!<p>
Yes it's only 100 watts RMS all tube amp but compared to my 450 watt @ 4ohms SVT-3pro it just blew it away!

time will tell!

great people very helpful

I have owned more equipment then I can list over the years and carvin is no better or worst then the rest as every manufacture has there good bad and ugly. I have carvin PA mains TR1502 ad the are fantastic I also had RL600 bass head which sorry carvin but lack tone as it had it's own sound which is good for originals but not for cover band as you will lacking the tone needed. Sorry but Ampeg bass amps such as V4b and SVT classic to name few are the driving tone that made history! and yes the MTS3200 guitar tube amp used as bass amp head can reproduce that tone! Now if Carvin would get in the running with Traynor who makes 200 watt all tube bass amp head, and produce 200 or 300 watt all tube bass head using some of the MTS3200 circuitry and make the tone stack suited for bass they would be ahead of the game.

great features as listed by others!

Tone is versatile and as any amp head it also depends on the cabinet you play it through not all amp heads or cabinet sound the same???through Marshall with V-30 sounds great through Marshall with seventy 80???s not so great??

still going just changs your tube as needed...

very nice people!

just all out great sounding and well built amp!

The features on this head have been goe over a million times. No need to do it again

I own several heads. 3 Marshalls and a 5150. Picked this head up from a friend for 300.00. I tried to talk him out of it but he has his heart set on a 5150 lol. This is a 50th anniversary edition and already has good Russian EL34's installed. The clean as mentioned by everyone else is amazing rivaling my Twin. The dirty is mean but I back it down a tad to sound more Marshallesqe on steriods. Absolutely love this head. Would ad will take it on a gig

Only owned it for a day but my friend got trouble free service out of it.

Never needed them.

I have been playing for 28 years in numerous cover and original bands. I already mentioned most of the amps. I own several more along with about 18 guitars. I would prolly by it again if one crossed my path. A lead boost would be nice.

dual channels with seperate EQ, footswitchable channels and reverb.also has effects loop. USA Made,more power than I'll ever use

Clean is to my ears as good as, Maybe Better than fender. Overdrive will go from mild breakup to all out metal. I sold my JCM 900 for this and still prefer it. The JCM wouldn't give me the sparkling, punchy clean that the MTS does. I play in s christian southern rock style band and in the worship band at my church,therefore I need versatility as the worship tends to be less intense. this amp covers both bases well. If you get one be sure to get the British series speakers, they are carvins best. check out the reviews.

Never had a problem. some other reviews have complained about sound quality, but some of them bought used amps, maybe off EBAY. and the tubes may have been changed. You start messing around like that then its no wonder that you have trouble. They come stock with 5881's although it does have a bias switch to use others.I gig my equipment but I also baby it.

OK this is the only downside to owning any Carvin..If it breaks then your gonna be out shipping to California. they dont have any local repair centers. still I'm ok with it. My AG 100D messed up once and they had it for about a month. they were very friendly and courteous

playing 36 years. ownlots of gear.definatly would replace Usa made all tube amp for around $700 what a deal

The features have been noted before. The footswitch was optional, which I purchased. This is a basic amp that doesn't have too much to it. 1 channel is clean and the other one is dirty. The Presence control on the clean channel is nice, but that'll be covered in the Sound Quality section. Compared to most modern tube amps with 3-4 channels with multiple settings on each channel, not to mention features like individual EQ's, reverb, presence and so on for those channels, the Carvin is simple on a 2nd grade level. That's one of the reasons why I bought it. I didn't need much more than just 2 channels, and so that's what I got. The only feature that sucked was the footswitch. It's noisy and there is a very loud pop when going from one channel to the next. Very bad.

The clean channel is very crystalline and sparkly. Adding presence is actually a little too much for my taste, as I prefer a warmer, rounder tone. But if you must have absolute clarity for your notes the Carvin delivers on the clean side of this amp. Add a Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive or any other OD that lets you blend the distortion with the clean channel and you'd have yourself a very articulate set-up. The highs get spiky at worst though, so back off the treble a bit or it will kill you.

That feature carries over to the distortion setting. I found the gain from the amp a little tinny and I had to trim back the treble to about 2 o'clock to rein it in. With an A/B selector to another amp, the Carvin was very noisy at higher gain levels and volumes. I think there are reasons this amp is so inexpensive, and it goes beyond being sold direct and the reported quality of its wiring and insides as stated by other reviewers.

Carvin has started putting Groove Tubes in its amps instead of Sovteks or whatever unknown tube had been in there before, so that is an improvement. The 6L6's give it the more, "American," sound that helps with the clean channel and is probably what makes the distortion channel a little light on the low end. Through a Marshall cab the Carvin beefs up a tad, but through the 2x12 available in the catalogue, which is open-backed, it is very bright. Not being a fan of that tone I started playing with options and found that running the amp into both the Carvin and Marshall cabs created a balance. I also started running a Visual Sound Jekyll & Hyde to create distortion. I didn't want to do this as I'd prefer using the amp's gain, but for my taste the Carvin didn't deliver the midrange and bass I desired. On the other hand, that's not to say the tone of the gain channel is bad. Some might like a brighter tone. It's just not my cup of tea.

I've only had the amp for a few weeks. I have no idea what could happen to it other than damage from moving. I don't have a band at the moment so stage abuse isn't a factor currently.

I haven't dealt with Carvin.

I've been playing for 13 years, and the other amps I own are a Peavey Classic 30 and a Marshall MKII with a JCM900 2x12 cabinet. If the Carvin were to be lost I'd probably just save up and get a Mesa Boogie, or possibly a Peavey, or maybe even that new EVH head. I like the simplicity of the amp and its clean channel. It's very easy to operate and that's all I wanted for messing around. The footswitch sucks and the distortion is just okay. If I compared it to other products I'd say the Carvin is up on the level of Crates and some Peaveys. It's a little better than Crate but not as good as the recent Peavey models. It does not compare to what Mesa Boogie has been putting out lately and even Marshall's getting back in gear with some stuff. The Marshall AVT series is about on the level of this amp. If you're serious just save up and get a better amp, but if you don't feel like dropping a lot of cash and want to fuck with a tube amp you can shape with some stompboxes or preamps, then go with the Carvin.

This is a follow up to my earlier review called " What's that noise."
I have to eat some crow. I had originally thought that the amp could not cut through. I replaced the preamp tubes, but it did not make much of a difference. What made the difference was the cab. I usually play thorough a pawn shop peavey, but after plugging it into a brand new mesa cab, holy cow, this thing unleashed. So looks like I have to buy a new cab.

Even though I was able to get it to sound great through a mesa cab, I still had some hum and noise. My friend thought it was normal, but I thought it was a little excessive.

This model was made around 2005, before they came stocked with the groove tubes. 2 channels, and is pretty pretty versatile, compared to a jcm 900. Good for old style metal, but not good for super distortion style metal. The distortion is very smooth, almost like a suped up tube screamer, but does not have much bite.

The clean channel is very good, and will probably reflect the instrument you are playing.

Here, is where the problems start.
The amp has a great distortion, but very bassy, with little or no presence. No matter how I adjust the knobs, the eq does not change much.The reverb only slightly changes, also. Same with the presence knob. I get a decent tone, but do not cut through the mix. Leads get totally swallowed up.The sound just seems stuck in the speakers. I am going to start trying other cabs, but can not afford any right now.I have tried with a cheap epiphone, and a 67 reissue gibson v. The 4x12 is an old peavy with sheffields, that I picked up at a pawn shop.

After very little play, I had to replace a tube because of a very loud glass breaking sound. Now, I have out of control hum. The amp also picks up a staggering amount of noise in my apt. It sounds like a waterfall. At first, I was excited to have a Carvin because their guitars are such high quality, but I am not so sure about their amps.

Carvin support has been great, but the warranty is only a year. If able to, I probably would send this head back.

I have been playing about fifteen years and have had a jcm 900 and a 5150.(Not sure if that amp had original tubes.) This head breaks up alot nicer and the lows are tighter than the 5150. Way more versatile and probably more gain than the 900. At first, I really bragged up this amp, but I am starting to get tired of all these noise and sound issues. At this point in time, I probably would not buy it again if it was stolen.