Carvin SX-100D

Gain is poor. Two channels, but only the clean channel sounds remotely close to good.

I am in total agreement with Dangerous Dan on this one. You can kinda get a blues or jazz thing going, but forget rock tones altogether, and the volume is very pooor. I sat the SX100 up next to a Fender Bronco 15-watt, 8-inch speaker amp, and the Bronco smoked it! My supposed 100-watt Carvin didn't even come close, in terms of anything! And I mean ANYTHING! It's not loud enough to jam with, and I've tried.

Who knows. It's been in storage since I bought it. You know, I wonder if Carson Kiesel knows just why he sells so much product, yet so few professionals are seen actually using it. Could it be that most of us don't live close enough to Carvin to take the stuff back ourselves, and it's too much of a hassle shipping it? In my opinion, Carvin has a great marketing department, yet it often falters in its design of guitars and guitar amps. For all the wonderful features Carvin packs into its stuff, too frequently it will have some design flaw that makes the equipment nearly unusable without some kind of fairly expensive tweaking. You'd think Carvin would learn over the years......

It has its ups and downs, like everything else. I'm not particularly favorably impressed. Listening to your problem is not what they do best.

I'm an old professional, with over 30-years' experience dealing with Carvin, and at this point, I've had it with them. Someday, I might tell you of my recent experience regarding my new X100B reissue amps, but my situation regarding them has not been fully resolved, yet, so maybe later....

I originally posted this under SX100, but then noticed that thwas a forum for the SX100D, which I guess is what I have. I purchased this with footswitch and cover in 2007 from Carvin's eBay store. It was a "blem" having a small indentation on the back of the amp. I got the whole package for $215 + S&H. As other reviews have stated, it has two channels, with the gain channel also have a "Blues" switch. Built-in digital effects for each channel. 100 watts, one 12" Carvin "British" speaker.

I play a Gretsch 5120 archtop with humbuckers. Lately, I have been patching through a Digitech GNX 3000 guitar workstation. I play jazz, blues, country, and jam-band rock; you know, stuff that actually requires some chops, not just a string a distortion and mod pedals. I've been playing guitar for over 30 years. I took a 20 year hiatus from playing on stage professionally to pursue my other passion of drinking and druggin', but now that I'm clean & sober, decided to get back into playing live. I needed a cheap amp with enough power to play clubs, and I've always admired Carvin, so I went ahead and got this little combo. Not very impressed. The cleans sound solid-state, the overdrive and effects sound cheap, and the "blues" switch is fairly useless, at least on mine.

I had this amp about 6 months when I tried to use the line out to the PA for a large room. Suddenly, the effects didn't work for the clean channel, and when I switched to the drive channel, it howled like a banshee, practicaly deafening everyone in the room. Very embarassing. I turned the amp off and on, and the effects started working again, but the drive chanel has been hit-n-miss ever since. I finally bought a used Digitech GNX 3000, which I like, to get a passable amp tone.

Well, when I placed the order for the amp over the phone, they sales rep got my ZIP code wrong, so the shipment ended up having to be rerouted. As for any warranty work, a cheap amp is a cheap amp. I'll buy a good amp and pawn this off on Craigslist to some metal-head mirror-stars.

As stated, I've played nearly 35 years, many of those professionally. Back in the early '70s, I played through an all-tube Wards Airline twin, which I still have and am refurbishing. In the late '70s, I switched to a Traynor tube head and Traynor cabinet loaded with 2x12" Cerwin Vegas. It was designed for bass, but was tubes, so worked great with the Kramer aluminum-neck axe I was using then. Throughout the '80s, I played a variety of humbuckered axes including Les Pauls, an ES335, and even an Ibanez double neck, all though a Music Man RD 1x12" EV combo. Now THAT was a great amp!

Not only would I not buy another Carvin SX100, the poor sound quality and reliability issues make me question whether I would ever buy ANY Carvin amp.

From this whole process I have learned three valuable lessons:

1) No matter what marketing literature may say, a solid-state amp sounds like a solid-state amp. Now, if you're talking about a Roland Jazz Chorus or a Mini Brute or something like that, a solid-state sound isn't so bad, but when you're talking a cheap little Carvin SX100, it's bad.
2) Just because something is made in the USA doesn't mean it's made better or sounds any better than something made in China or Mexico.
3) Don't put too much stock in the reviews you read, especially when they're written by those whose music "experience" is mostly comprised of playing along to Pantera in their bedroom or tormenting their neighbors by playing heavy metal full volume with a bunch of other wannabes. Perhaps there should be another forum for those reviews, something like "Cacophony-Central".

Pretty much the same as other reviewers, noting that the"D" model out now has on-board digital effects: delay, chorus, flange, and reverb. The flange is virtually worthless, but the delay, chorus and reverb have merit. The ability to mix the level of the effect signal is a bit goofy and hard to nail at first, but a little practice and you find what you're looking for. The effects are decent quality, but not "in your face" like a pedal would be.

I bought the amp without hearing it because of Carvin's "satisfaction guarantee." I have dealt with Carvin before, having them make me a beautiful DC-127 out of Koa and replacing my Am.Std. Strat pu's with their AP-11's (a MUST for any Strat jockey! They are amazing. And cheap! Seymour Duncan, eat your heart out!) When I got it, I plugged it in and set the EQ pots to 5, which is FLAT because they are active, not passive controls. Then I set the volume on the clean channel to "3", thinking this would be moderate. I darn near went deaf! Sheesh...this thing is LOUD! So I turned it down and began to play some chord melody stuff (I'm primarily a jazz player). After some tweaks, I got the sound I was looking for. Full, warm, yet defined. It's not as clean as a JC-120 or a Twin Reverb, but it is still a good, pleasing sound. the dirty channel will give you anything from a smooth distortion to a raspy blues edge. Not bad for a SS amp. I did swap out the stock British 12 speaker it came with for a Mojotone V-30 (same specs as a Celestion Vintage 30), and this made it even louder! But with a tighter bottom (more efficient speaker=more volume!) All in all, a nice sound for jazz and blues, with some useable effects. You can travel light with this amp if you buy the FS-22 footswitch.

As with all Carvin products, it's build is strong and dependable. The cab is plywood, which I believe is poplar. It's tight, lightweight, and gives good resonance to the speaker, even though it is an open-back design. Good tolex covering and application. No slop in the fit. Good components. Pots are soldered directly into a PC board, but are high quality and feel "tight" when you turn them, not loose and cheap. I'd gig without a backup without fear with this amp.

Excellent. When I first got the amp, it blew something on the inside and I lost the effects. I called, and they sent me a new one, no argument. In fact they were most apologetic and sent it out while waiting for the bad unit to get back to them. Turned out to be a bad chip on the motherboard.

Been playing pro for 43 years. Got tired of the maintenance on two old Music Man amps, plus dragging around 60 lbs! So I decided to go back and visit SS amps to see if they were any better than they were 30 years ago. They are. Carvin's SX100 and the Roland Cube 60 are the best. I own them both. I like them both, although I think the Roland Cube 60's effects and control of same is much better. The Carvin is built to last, is a great bargain at the price they offer them at, and has a good, solid company backing it. A good value and a well-built product. Tubes are fine, but they are expensive to maintain and replace. This "tube emulation" circuit they have actually DOES cause the amp to behave like it has tubes in it! Amazing...this after listening to Music Man's for years! And my back shouts "hooray" everytime I lift the Carvin...

Two channel amp/clean and overdrive with digital sound effects (reverb, flange, chorus, echo,etc). Tube emulation circurtry (solid state(, 100 w British speaker, blonde tolex cover. Channel swithching and reverb on/off. Effects loop. Powerful - 100 watts.

Really good overdrive -- I set the gain to about 2 or 3 max and get a tube like sound. Really better than most solid state amps. Perfect for blues or rock -- I never crank the gain but I imagaine it would shred easily. Also, nice clean channel with a touch of reverb for blues. Sounds great with tele and my P90 les paul special.

Bought it used and have had it over a year -- no problems.

Never had to deal with carvin.

If you can find this used -- pick it up! Blonde cab looks good, it's lightweight and has excellent clean and distorted sound.

2005 Carvin SX-100 with "tube emulation" and DSP effects. 100 watts with 2 channels, headphone jack.

Horrible, horrible, horrible. The reviews on the Carvin site for this amp say pretty much that it is the hol grail of combo amps, and that the tube emulation circuitry is better than a tube amp. This is incorrect. This is the most flat and boxy sounding amp I have ever owned. I play with a Gibson ES-137 and a Fender Telecaster (not cheap guitars) and could not get this amp to sound anything near acceptable. It reminds me of the old Gorilla amps from the 80s. I will say, however, that the effects section is pretty good, especially the delay, but not better than a decent pedal. I traded this in to a local music store the day that I received it to avoid having to pay shipping back to Carvin.

It seems somewhat secure in construction, though very light and exhibiting a "cheap" quality. It would be fine for gigs if you don't want a warm, even sound but a cheap solid-state tone.

I have dealt with Carvin before and they are fabulous with Customer Service.

Been playing for 14 years and have owned tons of amps. This one is on the bottom of the list. I will say that you get what you pay for, but with the reviews that I read it seemed I was getting the ultimate amp for a small price. I would recommend a Tech 21 or Line 6 for a similar amp in this price range for much better tone and quality. Carvin's guitars are amazing, but this amp is a poor indication of of the company's craftsmanship. I will never buy another Carvin amp.

This is a 1x12 combo 100 watt (according to specs). It has two channels controlled by a footswitch. This is a solid state amp that I expected to be louder than it was. It has on board DSP effects for flange, Reverb, delay and chorus

I use a jackson dkgmt with humbucker pickups. I'm in a working rock cover band that plays music from '60s to todays hard rock. This amp is very quiet. The clean channel is very clean and in my case louder than the dirty channel by a long shot. Its much better than I'd expect from solid state at high volume. The dirty channel is good too. It could use some more low end tone but its got great tube emulation distortion.

This is where I had problems. Reliability is bad. The knobs are very cheap and much too easy to turn. I tripped over my cord one day and it ripped out the whole input jack. Its not like I dropped an anvil on this thing either. It was simply walking over the cord and kicking it out. The input jack was made of cheap plastic. A electrical guy opened the case and replaced it with a much sturdier model. He said all the components are very cheap but he also said just about everything in there was available at radio shack. That makes repair easy. This amp had a major volume drop when switching from clean to dirty channels. The dirty channel also decided not to work one night for a gig. It was fine the next day.

I sent the amp for repair regarding the volume drop and they couldn't find the problem and just sent it back to me.

Overall I'd give it a 5. I wouldn't buy it again.

Brand new in 2002.
Very versitile two channel solid state combo amp with built in digital effects.
Wish there was a volume pot to control both channels at once, but oh well. Has an extension speaker jack which in my opinion, is a must on any combo amp. 100 watts, very powerful.

I've been using three different Carvin solid body electrics with various single coil and humbucking pickup configurations for 15 years now. This little amp accentuates thier tones very well. The clean side is very clean and just bright enough to sound good. It's virtually impossible thought to coax any dirt out of it, but that's why they call it a clean channel, I guess.
The overdrive side is very tube like in it's tone and textures but not it's feel, it's my opinion that there's yet to be found any tube sound like the real thing. It's capable of sounding classic and modern depending on how much gain you apply, which is unusual in a solid state amp, most of them become muddy when you back off the gain but this one does well to maintain it's clarity at any gain level.
I play mostly hard rock/metal tunes and this little bugger suits me fine for horsin around or informal rehearsals.

No problems as of yet.

One year warranty, pretty typical.
Carvin people are average.
I don't like buying things mail order because of shipping costs in the event of product failure.

I've been playing for twenty plus years and I've owned or tried nearly every solid state amp out there and I highly recommend this one.
I own two other tube amp heads and use this one for back up in live situations for it's sound and solid state dependability. I would likely purchase another if this one disappeared or was destroyed.

100W 1x12 Solid State combo. 2 channels, Overdrive and Clean. in the moment I was at the store I had my doubs about it, but I don't regreet my buy. you can buy the optional footswitch, but I don't need it, because I use a effects processor, but in the future I will buy it. I wish the DSP were less noisy, and more flexible effects switch.

ok, I have and old yamaha, an SE200, very old guitar, it is a strat copy, so it has single coils, maybe the original ones. the guitar itself isn't very versatile, and since I don't have played it with other guitars I don't know if it will do the job well in others areas, but for my taste, it is very warm sounding. I play various tropical styles and sometimes a little of rock. this amp is not aimed at the very heavy distortion styles, so if you are a metal fan of something like that stay away from this amp. it's not noisy at all. I'm not a big fan of those old styles of rock so I don't use the overdrive channel, because I think It doesn't have the sound I am looking for. I don't have cranked it up, but it can go vERY LOUD, and it's not like most other SS amps, that get distorted in their clean channel at the 1/2 of the volume. I think the DSP sounds should get some work, but they are very useable, especially the reverb and the chorus.

I'ts very dependable, in one ocassion at a gig, I was playing and there was a voltage drop and my effects processor went off, and the amp were still working well, although it obiously sounded bad, coz of that. other than that, the only complain I have against it is the speaker, wich seems to be weak.

never dealt with them

overall I think it's a very good choice. I especially bough it for the clean channel, and this is a very difficult thing to see in most SS amps: a good quality and warm sounding clean channel. although I only have about 2 years playing, and despite the people here have my own age playing, I know what sound I want.

2001 model, twin channel, solid state amp, single 12" "British" speaker, very solid case, controls well laid out. The general features and effects have been well covered in earlier reviews, so I won't repeat them. The layout is logical, the controls all work fine.

Some negatives - Footswitch is an expensive optional extra for what it is - should come with the amp - so I made my own. Speaker cable has to be popped out when using headphones and the rear mounting most of the inputs is a bit of a pain. No manual, just a single printed page describing the various knobs etc. Mind you, I'd probably never use a manual, but it would be nice to get something.

Nice and loud when needed, doesn't seem to max out at 5 or 6 like a lot of solid state amps. Certainly OK for small to medium halls and can take a cabinet. Very versatile in comparison to the other solid state amps on the market.

I play 50's and 60's blues - the old stuff - and Rockabilly and R&R to the late 60's. I currently use an Ibanez Studio (great blues guitar and very underrated), an Ibanez Artist and a late 60's Yamaha hollow-body blues/jazz box. This amp works very well with humbuckers - set the overdrive to 4 or 5, effects to 5 or 6, select one of the reverb settings and it's blues heaven. Mellow, understated and a lovely howling blues tone. Haven't tried a single coil through it as yet as I recently sold my Strat. I have no reason to doubt that it would be just as good with any guitar. Even with overdrive the notes, chords, harmonics etc remain quite clear and it has to be driven quite hard to start mushing it all up. Not an amp to go for if you use heavy distortion to cover poor technique.

I used a Fender Twin Reverb for years and this is the nicest sound I've come across since the Fender. Doesn't sound exactly like a tube, but it sure as hell sounds better than all the other solid staters I've used.

The effects are OK, but not footswitchable - selected by the rotary panel knob, only one on at a time and either on or off. I'd swap everything but the reverb for a decent vibrato... As I don't use the echo, chorus, flange and so on, it's not much use me commenting on them as I really don't know how good or useful they are. The reverb is very good, and the different types are very distinct, so all the choices are useable. Clean channel is very clean indeed, as others have mentioned. Quite outstanding in fact.

It is possible to dial in just about any sound you want through the EQ as the range on the controls is quite broad. Useful with the hollow-body as it needs a slightly different boost to the mahongany Ibanez guitars. I'd rate it as quiet to very quiet, and it doesn't seem to provoke feedback with the Yamaha as much as others I've used.

Like all amps it needs to be fiddled with to find the best settings for each particular guitar. Not hard to do and once you've got it, you'll never get the smile off your face.

Seems very solidly built. I think you could use it to jack the truck up on while you change a wheel. Best thing is that it is quite light as well. Nicely finished too, like all of Carvin's products. I have a feeling that it could take a fair amount of abuse in its stride as a couple of my friends have been using Carvin amps for years without problems. The only possible downer is the same for all solid state devices: after a decade or so the electronic components can start to decay and in the worst case, goodbye circuit board. But that's 10-15 years from now, so what the heck!

The Australian distributors for Carvin are local to me. Without that, I wouldn't have a clue how you'd go for support.

Been playing 30+ years and that's a lot of beer and Rock'n'Roll. It's too depressing to even start thinking about all the equipment I've owned over the years. Overall I'd rate this as *the best* solid state amp on the market. The only thing better would be the twin speaker SX200D. The sound is absolutely beautiful, the build quality is good and it is (surprisingly) cheaper than many of the others on the market. Bargain. Read the rest of the reviews and believe them. One final point: as you read the reviews for Carvin's guitars and amps you may notice that most of the users are very experienced players - ie, the people who buy these things seem to be the ones who know what they are talking about, rather than buying gear because some band uses it. It's the main reason why I went and tried this amp out in the first place.

Money well spent and I'd certainly buy this or the SX200D again. Love it.

This is a solid-state, footswitchable 2-channel 100W combo amp, 12" Carvin British speaker, with footswitchable digital effects onboard, plus dedicated effect loop, voiced line out, headphone jack, 8-ohm speaker jack, and aux input (clean channel only).

For those who didn't stop reading at the words "solid-state": yeah, this is a transistor amp, which claims to have "tube-emulating" circuitry. Yes, I know they ALL claim to have tube-emulating circuitry, and yes they are all pretty much liars, but I'll tell you, Carvin comes closer than anybody else going. I've owned this amp for almost 4 years, and I'm still trying to quantify just what it is in the overdrive sound that doesn't QUITE sound like real tubes; this OD is exceedingly subtle if you leave it at about 2-3 and set the level at around 5. Clean sound is super-clean and sparkly with proper EQ settings (4-band eq includes presence for both channels), and it's on the clean that you can easily tell it's not a tube ONLY because you don't get that tiny edge of clipping when you pour on the gain.

I don't use the FX unit for much lately, cause unfortunately when you use the FX loop it cuts the onboard unit out; this is tragic, because until I became a pedalboard junkie I just LOVED the reverb settings on this to death! 6 flavors of reverb, plate/room/hall algorithms... oh yeah!! It also has flange and delay, which are relatively useless, and some pretty excellent chorus effects which are great in the studio if you want to keep setup simple (all non-reverb effects are automatically mixed with a tasteful touch of plate verb). Bar none this is the greatest onboard effects I've ever seen, and honestly if there were 2 (one just for reverb and the other for whatever else) I'd probably never have bought a processor.

I play a stock Am Std Stratocaster, and occasionally an ES335 copy, though I have a tiny Fender tube combo I prefer to use for the 335 cause the humbuckers EQ differently than the tubes; plus I play most of my blues slide on the 335, and I like the breakup you get on the real tube model. I won't play the Strat through anything but the Carvin however, and on the Strat I cover the range of music from modern rock to grunge to pop to reggae to psychedelia to southern rock... There is really nothing you can't do on this amp! And for a long time I did it all with the onboard FX and a compressor pedal... Clean and uncompressed you can get nearly acoustic clean tones, compress the clean and you've got lite rock/reggae lead; go to uncompressed drive and you've got good rock crunch, compress it for hard rock leads, peg your ax volume and you get grungy. And because it's transistors, you get the right sound at almost ANY volume you want!

It's only a little noisy on the bridge pickup of the Strat, and really what isn't with a stock p/u?

Let me tell ya, this amp is the workhorse of my band! No matter what else I ever get, I will keep this amp around AS my backup for any other amp! Hell, thanks to the auxiliary clean channel, last Saturday this became our other guitar player's backup amp, cuz his brand new toy blew out and we BOTH ran through the SX, which was not ideal but beat the hell out of a DI into the soundboard...

Really, with the hell I've seen guys go through with amp breakdown, this baby has been so good to me this deserves about a 14 on a 1-10 rating scale; it's never so much as blown the fuse.

Can't say, cuz I haven't had a single issue with the amp. Did I mention it's reliable? :)

I've been playing for 15 years, gigging for 3. Just before I started gigging seriously I worked in a music store, so I demo'd just about every Fender, Ampeg, Crate etc that I could find, plus played through friends' combos and stacks, and I STILL say that unless you can spend the grand or so for a Mesa then Carvin is the way to go! Not that I don't love my little Fender 12, or my Crate VC, but this amp has greater range and function than any of them and barely breaks the 30 pound mark; this is the first thing in the car when I gig, and probably always will be.

If it was stolen, without question I'd buy another; it'd break my heart right now, since I'm trying to save towards a nice giggable 50W tube (leaning to Carvin, again, if I don't find a used Mesa), but since the plan is to always have the SX to back me up, I'd cry for about 5 minutes and be on the phone ordering a new SX...

I wish it had a second processor onboard, and I kinda wish they'd not recessed the controls so far under the top, but in my search for the perfect 50W I have reaffirmed for myself that there is no such thing as THE perfect amp, and Carvin is one of the two companies that come tantalizingly close.