Carvin SX-50 112 Combo

2006 model with Celestion 70/80 speaker. Has a line out but no line in, not sure why. It has the typical 2 channel combo amp features.

IT has a very good clean channel. Plenty of volume and holds together. Distortion channel is voice with a lot of mid and the treble control is set at 9KHz which is more like a presence control and makes it useless for modern metal. The fx work well and I agree with others the flanger is just yucky.

I have been buying Carvin gear for over 20 years and they have all been well made and dependable.

Sometimes good, sometimes not so good.

I have been playing guitar for over 25 years. If this were lost or stolen I would put the money in something else. I just don't like the dirty channel, its just ok. Again needs a line in to go along with the line out.

This is a very versatile amp to me. It features EQ knobs for both the clean and overdrive channel. The overdrive channel has a blues switch which gives a distinctive boost to the mids giving the vintage blues type tone. It also features built in DSP with echo,chorus,flange, and reverb. On the back it has a plug for headphones (essential to me), a line out,ext cab, and fs22 footswitch jack.

Just like it boasts, it can reproduce a wonderful tube like tone with the reliability of SS. The clean channel is quite good although I have heard better but for the money it is excellent. The overdrive channel has a warm sounding distortion but you have to set the drive above 8 or it tends to sound thin. Dont care a whole lot for the blues switch as it makes it sound too vintage to me. The effects are pretty good. The echo is fairly decent (would rate it a 7.5), the chorus is AWESOME (10)!!! The reverb is fairly decent (6.5), and the flange I dislike immensely (3 but I just dont like a flanger anyways). I use the Carvin DC127 guitar and I thoroughly enjoy the tones I get from this amp. It is quite responsive to picking articulation and harmonics. It is well suited to my playing style as I play neoclassical and some blues. For effects I run a Zoom 9002 (I know, I know, cheesy processor) and it even sounds decent through it. With no effects the distortion is well suited for 80s type metal and classic rock, but needs a good pedal to handle nu-metal.

I just bought this amp so cant truly give a rating for it yet. If it is like my other Carvin gear though it will last practically forever. To be fair I am not giving an opinion on its rating for reliability.

Never had to really deal with the company but from their discussion boards thet I frequent I would have to say they have good support if you need it.

I love this amp straight out of the box and would have to replace it if it got stolen. One thing I can say is that it can get brutally LOUD!! For those who are looking for a decent practice amp for under $300 you just cant go wrong with this one. This is one killer amp for its price.

2002 model. you've seen the details below. i don't miss an fx loop. i would like to have dedicated reverb though. the headphone jack output actually puts out a pretty decent sound for practicing. i use this amp for a church gig which entails mostly clean sound, but we do crank out some heavy crunch tones too. the effects have a built-in memory, which can get a little confusing if you switch from onbe channel to the next each with its own effect. the ability to do so is nice, but the controls will not show you your settings when you switch back and forth. once you change the controls, the memory is over-ridden. i'm new to built-in SS fx, so it's slightly confusing, but manageable.

i play a Carvin SC90 and a Strat with EMG pickups (DG-20 Pro Series). this amp has plenty of power for a 50W solid. i use it in church, so i don't need to bring down the house, but i rarely turn it up past 4-5. i find the clean sound very nice for both single and humbucker tones. i almost always play my clean with some chorus. i find the chorus quite decent, no need to bring out my Cool Cat Chorus. The Flanger is pretty bad, makes a lot of noise, i don't find it useful. The echo isn't too bad, i use it sparingly. because i run mostly on chorus, i also don't use the reverb much, but found that the reverb sounds were quite potent. i haven't used the blues-overdrive sound (separate control button) much, but i do use heavier saturation. i often run the gain on 8. it's a bit messy, but it works. by cranking the gain and scooping the mids, i can get a fair metal sound. i haven't had any out of control feedback with the heavy gain either. the active EQ is nice, gives good flexibility especially when using different guitars/pickups.

i've been using this amp for about a year now. use it several hours each week. no problems whatsoever.

luckily, haven't had to use them really. but my experience with the Carvin staff in the past has been favorable.

i bought this amp (my first solid state in a while) because i wanted something smaller and lighter yet sturdy and reliable. i also wanted built in fx to eliminate me having to lug around my pedalboard. i trust Carvin products and found this to be a good combination of tone and features for the money as compared to other small amps. it aint perfect, but i think it meets my needs quite well. it's nice to be able to walk into the gig with an amp in one hand and my guitar in the other...just set it all up, and play away. works for me.

Features: 7 ? Most amps have the basic features of this amp: dual channels, channel switching, separate EQ. Some things that it doesn?t have that were sacrificed were an effects loop, presence control, and the availability of running a touch of reverb all the time. I never realized how much I would miss that touch of reverb until I didn?t have it available without sacrificing other effects. My first amp was bought back in 1964 or so. It was a Premier ?Reverb? and reverb has always been part of my sound. A touch of it goes a long way, and Carvin would have been better off (and for a few extra bucks), have a dedicated reverb (such as the SX200 2x12).

Sound Quality: 7 ? I found that the amp was very trebly with my strat, and I would have to back it off quite a bit. I was disappointed with the clean sound, not that it wasn?t clean, but that it was nothing out of the ordinary. I?ve played other SS amps such as Fender, Roland, and Yamaha, and they were much more to my taste of cleaness. I found the distortion/overdrive channel sound good, as long as I had the drive at 8 or above. It seemed that the amp would not sing well enough for me with any setting below 8. Maybe a Les Paul would have been a better choice for tweaking at a lower overdrive setting.

Reliability: 10 ? I?ve had several guitars and have played through several SX amps. I think Carvin builds good gear. I thought the SX50 was a great looking and well constructed amp. I wish I could have kept it. I believe that it would have lasted forever.

Customer Support: 10 ? I have no reason to believe that Carvin doesn?t stand behind their products 100%. They have to, being mainly a mail order company. Within reason, I think they would go out of their way to keep their customers happy. I had no problem with sending the amp back, and didn?t have to answer any questions as to why I did.

To all my fellow guitarists,
Well, I have finally had a chance to sit down and spend some time with my new toy?.my SX50. What I have to say is strictly my opinion, based on almost 38 years of playing for the pure love of music. I also played professionally (as my only source of income), as well as part time in a Top 40 / wedding band. I play an older American Standard Strat, and now my only music outlet is playing at home and in church. I?m a self taught musician, and not a gadget person. I like simplicity.

Your comments and what I have read generated quite an interest for me in the SX. Since it was time to buy an amp, I was looking for a small, medium wattage, package such as the SX50. It was reasonably priced and boasted an array of effects. I had purchased an SX100 back in the mid 80?s, and was disappointed with the sound of it. It sounded very nasally and decided it wasn?t for me. Unfortunately, this SX50 is going to go back to Carvin too. Again, these comments are my view and road test of the amp. I?m sure that you took your time and made a good decision based on your individual needs, expectations, playing style, and budget. But here is my opinion of the SX50 and why I have chosen to send it back.

Overall Rating: 6 ? I look for an amp to inspire me and this was not a good match for what I was looking for. I was disappointed with the overall sound and could not bond with this amp. It was very small, compact, well built, great looking, but failed to make me say ?wow?, good choice. I have since told myself that I will take my time and be more patient with choosing an amp. I will try and retry them all, until I find the one I think is right for me. I will spend more money for it, and it won?t be perfect, but the bottom line is, I want an amp that tells me I spent my money wisely.

2001 model. The others reviews cover the features so I won't detail them. The 50 watts was enough for gigs, but in retrospect the 100 watts would have given some headroom.

When these amps worked (I had two, more in a minute) they were fabulous sounding amps. The clean channel is fantatic for jazz--crisp with a warm middle. The lead channel had that "ideal" tube sound they talk about. Not exactly like a tube, but warm and with a pleasing character all its own. Cranked up, great for punk, etc. In the middle just right for blues.

Went through two of these... neither worked. The first one didn't have any effects in the lead channel, and it took THREE calls to customer support for them to determine that it was a flaw and not how it was supposed to be. (More in a minute.) The second one worked for I think two weeks, then one night started making a wailing sound so loud I had to dask across the room to turn it off. When it came back on, there was no sound. Customer service accused me of cranking it too hard. They didn't believe this would happen with the volume set on ONE in the clean channel. But it was the truth. The think blew up set on ONE.

Like I said, it took three calls for their customer service to figure out that my problem was a defect and not a "feature." If I had believed the first guy I spoke to, I would have gone away thinking that there weren't supposed to be effects (reverb, chorus, etc.) in the lead channel. The second guy sounded like he'd been surfing all day and his mind was still waterlogged. He had no idea about what I was talking about and couldn't figure out how to get an answer. After 15 minutes of "dude, I don't know what to do" I hung up. On my third call I demanded a supervisor, who impolitely admitted there was a problem and gave me an RMA.

To add insult to injury, they charged me twice for the same amp--and that took another two calls to clear up.

Then! I got my second amp, which as I noted above, blew up while I was practicing quietly some jazz. It did last a week or two. The customer service guy I spoke to next had the audacity to not believe that I wasn't abusing the amp. They finally gave me an RMA. After all that headache I still didn't have an amp, and I was out $40 for shipping stuff back to them. They couldn't understand, too, why I didn't want a third amp. If I had been treated more kindly by their customer service people, they might still have a customer.

Been playing on and off since the mid-80s. Been totally acoustic until a few years ago when I got into the blues and jazz. (Played jazz trombone for 20 years too.) I won't give this amp a zero because it did sound fantastic. Just wish they had worked and I had been treated more kindly.

I've actually waited two months to write this review so I could cool off. I hope you read this review Carvin and review some of your customer service people. I know it's a hard job, but there's no excuse for how I was treated--over and over again.

The Carvin SX50 1X12 guitar amplifier is a solid-state, fifty-watt combo that features digital effects, clean and distortion channel switching, line-out for slaving to another amplifier, headphone output, and 8-ohm speaker output for another cabinet. This amplifier features Carvin's "tube-emulation" circuit to provide a warmer, natural sounding overdrive in the lead channel.
While I like the amplifier in general, I do wish that it came with a full effects loop and the ability to use more than one effect at a time. The effects given are limited to reverb, echo, chorus, and flange. The 100-watt model has a separate, non-adjustable reverb that you can punch in from the footswitch (FS-22). Carvin provides the footswitch free when you buy the combo or the head in the SX series.

I am using a Fender Yngwie Malmsteen Stratocaster, B.C. Rich Assassin w/ dual humbuckers, and an Alvarez Telecaster with Strat pickup configuration.
The clean channel is crystal clear with virtually no hiss or microphonic noise anywhere. Studio quality tones and a really nice job with the active EQ (Bass, Mid, and Treble). You can get Wes Montgomery tones from the humbuker guitars or glassy smooth Strat and Tele tones with no hint of clipping.
The dirty channel is OK but has an annoying high-end frequency that cannot be EQ'd out. It is edgy but not to the point of being buzzy. I would like to have seen a little more saturation at high gain levels with a little less rawness to the tone. The active EQ controls work well enough. At high volume, the distortion smooths out a little but is still a little too edgy. Single coils do well enough while humbuckers sound smoother. Needs more gain and better processing.
The digital effects are quiet and very good. It has the best digital reverb I've heard in an amp. Effects are decent and so well in their appoint positions. Has no ability to chain effects together and that is a shortcoming that will catch up to it. The price is the redeeming factor in this regard.
There is no effects loop! A good graphic EQ could probably do a lot to make the distortion channel more tenable. You can slave it out to a power amp and probably use it as a preamp but what would you get? You have to have the speaker in the combo hooked up (semi-open back combo, that is...) for the secondary speaker output to function.
By the way, overdrive channel gives some decent semi-distorted blues tones and does a neat Santana Mesa/Boogie MkIIc imitation. Gain colors are affected by rolling back the volume knob on the guitar and is somewhat sensitive to picking force. Not bad in this respect and to top it off...it only weighs in at 35 lbs.

Well...this is a 2002 model and I really don't think it's going to break down. Carvin has a good reputation for reliability and it's a solid state circuit design.

Three-year limited warranty. Never had to use it.

I've been playing for 19-years and play all kinds of musical styles. This is a good practice amplifier for the money but I probably would go with a different amplifier in the future for gigging and studio use. The MTS Tube Series amplifiers that Carvin makes would probably be a good choice or the new Rhino "Black Star YJM" tube amplifier might be in the cards. But for the money...This is a good choice from a good company.

2002 amp, the new model in black, with DSP effects (echo, reverb, chorus/reverb and flange). Two channels (clean, distorted), each with separate treble, mid, and bass controls--a useful feature. The tone controls are active, which takes some getting used to. The SX-50 does not have an effects loop, but it does have a line out jack, a headphone jack, and an external speaker jack that lets the amp power a cabinet. The amp came with a footswitch (currently free, otherwise an overpriced $30) that switches channels and turns the effect on or off. I play blues/rock music by myself and with a band (drums, bass and 3 guitars). This amp works well with the group. It is loud enough, and fits in well with the vintage type amps and sounds my bandmates like. It also has enough guts to let me make some wild noises! It only weighs 30 pounds, which also helps make it good for practice sessions. The line out jack is cool, as I can use another small amp as a personal monitor--and also to get some extra feedback.

I use a Carvin DC-127 guitar with coil-tappable humbuckers. I also own a Fender Stratocaster with Lace Sensor pickups. Both axes sound good through the amp, and even with the effects turned on, the character of the different guitars comes through loud and clear. I find that I get a satisfying overdrive sound with the amp drive on 3. Higher gain settings sound nice and heavily distorted (though in a musical way), but it isn't my bag. The clean channel is very clean, and with a light chorus selected on the DSP, it sounds amazingly beautiful. The slapback echo sounds nice, and the reverbs are very pretty. The flanging is noisy and weird, but I dialed in a very nice tremolo type sound with it on a low setting. Carvin advertises the amp as a "tube-emulator"; the salesman told me that the engineers tried to make it mimic the response of preamp and power tubes as much as possible. I think they did a good job. Rolling off the volume on my guitar cleans up the tone without taking away too much loudness;it works like a tube amp in that respect. The amp is also pretty loud. My bandmates use a Marshall with a 15" speaker, and a Kendrick with 3 10" speakers, and they used to totally drown out my Fender Princeton Chorus. In practice the other night, I kept the Carvin on 7 and cut through just great. The amp really accentuates the otherwordly sustain of the Carvin (you've gotta love a neck-through body).

The amp seems very sturdy. I will use it without a backup. I am very pleased that I can get what I consider to be 90% of the tube amp vibe without having to pay tubes. I will gladly trade the other 10% for reliability, durability, and never having to buy tubes

The sales person was very enthusiastic and helpful. I've had mixed success with Carvin in my time, but overall, I think the company does a very good job supporting their customers and the products they sell.

I've been playing electric guitar for 16 years. I've owned several amps, guitars, and effects processors. My Carvin guitar is the best I've ever had, and this amplifier is a very good match for it. If anything happened to it, I would definitely replace it with the same model. I compared the amp to several small tube amps, and went with the Carvin because the price/performance ratio looked good, and the durability of solid state is appealing. I also liked Carvin's 10 day money-back trial period. I'm very happy with this amplifier, and I think Carvin has a winner on their hands. Really, I can't imagine anyone buying the SX-100, which is totally identical except for 50 extra watts (which psychoacoustically make very little difference in perceived loudness). I recommend this amplifier highly.

I bought this amp directly from Carvin last year. Versatility is not bad. In fact it's pretty good (DAMN good for a DSP amp). Biggest problem is that it doesn't allow you to have reverb plus another effect (e.g. chorus). It's one effect at a time, which sucks. It's got plenty of clean pucnh, but lacks that "glassy" Fender tone - the "bricks and mortar" for any good bluesman. Overall, it's a good compromise between the reliability of a solid-state amp and the tone of a tube amp.

I use custom-built, Strat-style guitars made of components from various manufacturers, mainly Warmouth, Fender and Carvin. The SX-50 is very quiet, very responsive and can make a variety of sounds, from "training-wheels" versions of SRV to smooth Benson-like Jazz. It's a sweet-sounding amp. The distortion is just so-so.

Stone-solid. Nobody's better at customer service than Carvin. Nobody.

I've dealt with Carvin on other matters. These guys got CLASS. They're helpful, responsive and don't give you the run-around. I wash Carvin would buy Fender!

I've been playing for my own pleasure for more than 35 years. I've owned low-end Fender and Supro amps, Standel amps, Crate amps and others. This one beats all of them. I've also tried out a number of other DSP amps, and this one is one of the better ones, not to mention it's reasonable price!

2 Channel with channel switching via push button or footswitch. 3 band eq (no presence knobs) and volume on each channel. Digital effects on each. Fair delay, adequate reverb, ok chorus, and , oh yeah, flanger. Effect "intensity" and level controls. Effects footswitchable. Apply to clean & drive channels. 50 watt solid state. 12" speaker. Plywood cabinet w/ nice black tolex. Face plate has plastic overlay. 0-10 knobs. I got the footswitch. Price I listed includes shipping.

Contemporary church music. Blues for fun. Occassional rock. The Using Fender Strat American Deluxe with noisless pickups. Clean channel with a touch of reverb is good enough for most of my needs. Can't get smooth bluesy overdrive. Not enough honey & sustain in this one. Also, no metal drive. Drive seems a little harsh, but can sort of eq out. May sound better with humbucks. Very quiet amp. No stray noises. Can dial volume from 0 to 10 without missbehavior. Base is very clean and tight. Doesn't get out of control if you vary pick attack widely. No flab. Biggest Like: Clean tight tone without mud or flab. Biggest Disappointment: Overdrive is over hyped. It is just OK. The predecessor to this amp was reported to be ok with acoustic. This one isn't.

It is new, so who knows. Cabinet is sold as a rock, no parts-is-parts board. All components tight with no rattles. Have had a previous Carvin tube amp & guitar. Their stuff is usually very reliable and tight. If it isn't, they fix it right!

Previous experince with Carvin says nobody is better. They treat you like a real person on the phone. Never needed repairs, just info. They were great. Even told my how to clean corroded switches on guitar( out of warranty). Warranty on this amp is 1 year.

Playing 30 years. Seriously for 10 years. I also own a Taylor acoustic. I have decided to keep this one until I find the right small size tube amp (got to have those shimmering tones). I compared with Crate, Roland, and Fender solid state amps. Liked the Fender tone better, but it goes sour when you turn the volume up. I took a chance on Carvin because of the return policy and previous experience with their products. I wish it had a better overdrive. So I'm hard to please, so sue me! This was the main reason I got rid of my Carvin Belair. The Belair went from mild OD to mud. This one does too, but not as much mud. "Where have all the blues tones gone, long time passing..." (You get the drift). For the money, you can get some nice tight clean tones that amplify well from this box.