Crate GX15

Heres a plan and simple review from metal guitarists standpoint. I bought it from a friend who took up guitar, but soon quit afterwards, and sold it to me basically brand new.

As far as a simple amp goes it has what it should have. 2 channels, clean, and OD, with EQ's and a headphone jack etc.. so lets move on.

Using it with a Jackson RR-5, with stock pickups.. blah blah. I play metal, the likes of Hacride, Meshuggah, Gojira, Opeth, Psycroptic, Textures, etc..

Like everyone is saying, it sounds very muddy. I honestly cant believe anyone gave the sound quality higher than a 4. As far as the clean channel goes its super bassy, you cant get even close to a clear sound. So basically its going to suck with pedals.. I've tried it with a Boss Metal-Zone, and a digitech RP2000. Basically what will happen is you will get used to the ****** sound and start to think its decent, until you actually play a different amp and you start to remember, oh yes, its awful. The OD is just muddy also, cant get a nice high gain sound, very muffled, and poor.

As far as Crate goes I own this amp, and a Crate cab. Both have been beaten pretty hard over the years, but the sound quality never gets any worse (or better, sadly). I must say Crates stuff just doesnt break, so Ive never had to deal with customer service.

Refer to reliability.

OK amp for a starter maybe.. as long as they can find it cheap. I wouldnt recommend it though, because they will get used to a terrible tone and things just wont sound right. So playing along will basically just suck.

It's just has clean level, OD level, OD gain, Low, high, and mids. Nothing special, theres no reverb or effects. It doesnt come with a foot switch in fact you cant even use a foot switch with it.

Dark dark dark dark muddy muddy muddy. If it wasnt so muddy it wouldn't be bad, and it has a decent amount of gain. The cleans are actually pretty good it doesn't distort until around 6. I play metalcore, hardcore, metal, thrash, and melodic metal. I have a Ibanez grx20L with humbucker pickups and a digi deathmetal. Even my deathmetal sound muddy through the clean channel.

It's never broken down or anything pretty reliable, and i have had it since late january. I wouldn't gig with it because it says 30 watt max on the back.

never dealt with it.

I dont own but i've been using it since january and over all its probably a 5.5 all together.

Well, I didn't expect much when I was buying it, so I was a bit suprise. It has two channels (clean/overdrive) with a button used for switching between them, 3-position equalizer, volume knob, two knobs for overdrive (gain, level). It has a power but rather for use in home. It's made for versatile styles of music but in my opinion it's rather for rock and metal, than clean music.

I play rock with it on my Cort Z-42 and I'm satisfied with the sound. It's has very good basses, but not such good high noises, so getting them with bad guitar could be very frustrating. Distored channel is very dirty and I don't like it, very brutal and it can be used only for metal.

No problems with him so far (First owner used him for 2 years and now I'm using it first year).

Never heard of them

I play with some effects: digitech rp80, chorus koda, digitech hod rod and I'm satisfied, but it's pitty that it hasn't got even reverb. But for this price you can't get anything better for home use and beginners.

Pretty basic features but for a practice amp this seems to work fine.
Gain knob, Volume knob, Treble knob and Bass knob. Input, Output and Phone jacks. Powerking 15" speaker.
Single Channel but can be great if used with a distortion pedal.

This is my setup; Squire stratocaster, big muff pi (Russian), Boston GX-15.
When playing clean, this amp has a warm tone which is suitable for jazz or softer rock. With the gain knob maxed out it produces a fuzzy distortion which is pretty cool. I find my big muff pi works fine through this amp but I would only ever use this amp for playing at home. I would never gig with it. When the volume knob starts to get past 3 o clock it starts making an ugly distorted sound, but for playing at home it goes as loud as you need it to go before it starts distorting. Put it this way. I've never turned volume to full in the 3 years that i've owned it.

This amp has never stopped working. It is incredibly reliable

never dealt with them

I mainly use this with the speaker output into a pair of quality 2X12 Peavey Black Widows. I never use the dirty switch. Since I use multi-effects I put the EQ mids on ten, the high on zero and Bass in between. this is a little secret if you have multi-effects.

I tried a Crate amp 10 yrs ago in a studio and I was intantly addicted to the sound. I play classic rock/rhythm/blues. I use this as a practice amp, but it sounds like the real deal with the flex wave. I have 120 Watt Tubes on my Peavey, but for practicing I prefer to use this amp. It crunches tone. I use this with Boss ME 50, Aphex Exciter, Rocktron Nitro and Bad Monkey/Screaming Blues. I don't use the little speaker, except once in a blue moon. This amp has enough volume that I never turn it over half the way in my living room.

Rather dependable. No gigging with this little practice amp. Although who knows, Neil Young gets his sound from a 15W Fender pumped throgh a PA.

After 4 1/2 years the amp crapped out. I brought it in for repairs with the 5 year warrenty within the last week and had it fixed at Sound Check, Nashville. I didn't pay a nickle. That to me is a gift. The price for repairs was more than half the value of the amp.

I like Crate's tone. I also use this with Boss Amp Machine and I can live vicariously through Marshall, Fender, Vox, 5150, and Mesa tones. I just don't know about it's overall reliabilty, you get what you pay for.

Really nothing special. Non-reverb model.

Best one word to describe it 'Muddy'. Just not very exiciting. Can make some pretty good blues sounds, what it's probably best for probably. Haven't played many different amps, but this amp just seems a bit biased on the bass.
Overdrive Channel: Never left me wanting more gain.
Clean Channel: OK. Basically all I can say.
Speaker out has some hope in it, maybe it's the speaker responsible for the loss of brightness?
Seems pretty loud for a 12watt but what do I know?

Seems pretty tough. Had it for a few years now. One thing I just noticed recently was I had it on the overdriven channel and it would sort just lose some of the volume/drive, like the gain knob had been turned down. Pretty strange, happened a couple of times randomly. I'm not worried about it though.

You should easly get this for less than the $120 that was for at the time. I wouldn't recommend it unless you can find it very cheap (under $50) and you are just looking for a clean bluesy sound to practice on. It's not very bad and not very good, just an O.K. amp.

two channels, no footswitch (unfortunately), two of the useless jacks you usually find at the right in amps. Volume in the clean channel, volume and gain in the OD channel. High, bass and mid. made in 2001 or 2002.

2004 squier strat copy, single coils, and a les paul copy. Play mostly blues, prog rock, symphonic rock and a bit of everything.

Clean channel is muddy. Very unfenderish, even more dull than a marshall's clean channel - note that the owner's manual says 'crystal clear'. Not very usable - i usually just use the OD channel and turn the volume down on the guitar if i want clean sound, due to the fact that there is no footswitch jack. Distorts at about 6 - unusable.

From the OD you can eventually get a decent sound if you play around with the knobs, but just one that will get you through. It is plain dull, no spark, no passion. Just sounds mediocre. It doesn't allow much tonal variation, does not respond to different pick attacks or changes in playing strength. It has only one sound and it's crap. Just boring, sounds like shit at over volume 5. Absolute crud. Maybe i am a bit harsh in judging or my playing is still shitty but i've played with 15W solid state amps sounding loads better. This doesn't sound like anything - no wonder i got it new for $85.


Sounds quite loud for only 15W. Still not enough for rehearsals. Not noisy at all, even with single coils - there are amps far more noisy. You can get a quite decent sustain if you stand near the amp when it is facing slightly upwards - just find the exact point.

I suppose the amp is quite reliable, as it is simple. I can't see anything that could possibly go wrong, as it is just plain solid state. And if it did it would be cheaper to buy a better amp than to repair this i guess. Anyway, i've had this amp exposed to sunlight, rain, temperature changes, falls, humidity, lack of affection, everything. I even painted it white with regular wall paint - looks ridiculous. Hasn't suffered any damage. Sounds just as bad as the day i bought it.

Never dealt with Crate. And i wouldn't do so if the amp broke down or something - simply don't care. I suppose it wouldn't be any use anyway as i live in Chile.
Warranty is 5 years - quite impressive i must say, though i doubt anyone would stay with this amp that long

Been playing for about ten years since i was seven, but i only got an electric in 2002.
Only amp i own, don't have money for a tube amp. But i am saving for a valvestate which is more decent.

If it were stolen i would do nothing.

I only got it because I didn't know a shit about amps. But I guess that for 85 dollars it does it job well, and i am thankful that it has gotten me through various situations.

Vesatile enough for rock-blues styles.
2 channel.
Good Reverb.
No footswitch.
Headphone entrance.
Output for more expand or register (but a rec on pc with this amp will have some "zzzz" not desired.
You can use it everywhere, very good for home praticing, a perfect "first amp".

Mexican Telecaster 72 custom
American Telecaster Plus '95.

Not noisy but also not so dynamic when you're playng, reverb seems not like any crash in his area.

Clean channel ok.

Distortion's very brutal and rich. Rare to search in a Marshall or in featuristic amp of any type.

Solid as small.

After 4 years little malfunction in input entrance, corrected by myself with a little bit of attenction.

I hope i'll never dealt with them.

Good amp, you can count on it for homeplayng and also for homerecording.

I would buy it again but you've always to check every amp you can every year for a calm purchase.

El ampli que me compre es del a?o 2002. Es muy versatil cuando se trata de tocar algo de Rock & Roll, Blues, etc.
Mas caracteristicas lo encontraras por internet eheheh
pero a lo que se refiere a estructura es buena, sus efectos son buenos para un amplificador de 15W

El ampli lo estoy usando con una guitarra Samick, de 3 pastillas simples, y los estilos que toco son mas METAL & Rock
Mira, el sonido en general no es muy genial, de hecho cuando aplicas mucho GAIN con distorcion el limpio muere, aun asi tiene mucha mas potencia sin distorsion, mucha mas! solamente que no es distorcionado eheheh
El sonido distorcionado lo aplico con una pedalera de efectos que neutraliza el mal grado de limpio. SUENA POTENTE PARA SER UN AMPLI DE "10W".
Si quieres tocar en una banda, no te recomiendo un crate de 15W porque el sonido de la bateria o bien del bajo se lo comera.

No se si sea muy fiable.
Muy fiable seria si empezaras a tocar en tu habitacion, pero no para conciertos o tocar en una banda.
Pero, lo que quiero destacar es su estructura eso le da puntos extras :)

no se, no la he reabilitado aun.
Ademas que lo tengo en optimas condiciones, ninguna falla :)
sobre los a?os de garantia creo que es de 5 a?os.

Muy bueno para los que empiezen a tocar guitarra con este ampli, pero no recomendable para empezar a tocar en una banda.
El ampli de casa.

well..i got this amp free which was a step up from a silvertone smart III's edition amp i had..it was like 12 watts and the most god awful thing in the world., this one was definatley better.

speaker out is always good which this has, 2 channels one clean and one overdrive which the OD sounds hella better once u play it through a cab rather than the lil speaker it has in it. everyone else has teh features so just read there. would be good if it had a foot switch but hey..its a lil practice amp....live with it...and the OD channel could have a cuple more knobs but again the price...o well. the speaker out again was a nice addition

used a bc-rich warlock (pukes) bronze series then upgraded to an ESP/LTD MH-100FM (o ya baby) used a metal zone mt-2 (sounded alright thru this amp.

the clean channel is decent as well as teh OD but tends to break up and sound crap the higher u get.

done expect to much of good sound thru this..its a cheap amp....you want good sounds dish out the extra money for it.

if kicked...dropped this lil sucker as well as banged it aorund on accident...nothign damaged....very reliable

never had to deal with em

if your new to guitar...get this....its cheap...has a distortion channel...its good enuff till ur better than the amp and need something more pro.

ok guys freaking calm down

this is what now?
like a 50 dollar amp? what do you really expect from it? so hardcore distortion and sound? this isnt some marshall so dont rate it like one
geeze what noobs

ok this amp has two channels a clean one and a "dirty" channel for distortion. it also has a 3 band eq and a headphone and external speaker output

i am using an old charvel with and emg 91 in the neck and an 81 in the bridge.

the amp has some good sounds for a cheap practice amp. even better, turn the gain all the way up the bass on full blast, mids at about 2-3 and then treble on 7-8, then use the speaker output and hook it up to your stereo. youll get a metalish sound from it and is pretty damn impressive for a 50 doller amp

def not enough power for gigging but id say its good enough for practice

this amp has never let me down. great job crate.

psh never had to deal with em

ive been playing for a loooong time

if i lost this amp or if it got stolen, i might go out and buy another one and perhaps mod it to my delight. (i am an active electronics hobbyist.) it is a great amp for the money as long as you know how to use it

so stop complaining about how bad it is, and rate it as a practice amp not as some professional studio amp.

Mine is an early nineties, its not very versatile i use it for metal, two channels,i use the speaker out never the headphone,

when i first got this i used it as its mainly intended; a practice amp. Recently I discovered the preamp out and have started running it into my mid-seventies sunn(100 watts, 2x12) it sounds awesome. best metal sound very metallica-ish. if you dont play metal you wont dig this amp. I play clean stuff and jazz and the amp isn't good for that. I've played a standard Fender Telecaster through it and it sounds decent. Where it sounds great is my late eighties Charvel/Jackson which is a much better guitar and i do not car much for single coils. people that say the distortion is too harsh should learn to turn down the volume on their guitar, big difference can get Jimmy Page that way easy. The amp will feedback and his. if you dont like it use a noisegate or turn down your volume when not playing.

very reliable. a friend of mine had one that died tho so we smashed it at one of my bands shows. not worth fixing just buy another. Mine has been great though

never dealt with crate

i love this amp. i would buy another i would like to take the preamp out and cut the speaker wire and just use it through the sunn. who needs reverb i could care less

Well well, I really wish two separated foot switchable channels, but for the price and size what you expect?

First of all I want to say I'm not a newbie here. I play guitars for almost 10 years, I heard lots of big bucks heads, I've had a Marshall head and I currently have a Mesa Recto, so I've a bit of experience. I wanted something cheap, portable and with good distortion. And Oh man, I can't believe those f..ls telling you that the distortion s.cks. This little thing has the Flexwave digital preamp and when you run this thing with a 1x12, 2x12 or even a 4x12 cabinet sounds killer, very close to the big brothers tube amps like Blue Voodoo (also remembers me a bit of a 5150 sound), it's awesome, the feel is perfect for that thrash or power metal! But it's a bit dark and you must turn the treble all the way up and the mids as well for a tighter and richer sound. The settings found in the manual are very bad. And then, of course, the 8" speaker will not do justice, but it's portable and I'm not going to wait for a good distortion sound of a so small thing, never dud, never. Anyway for the small size it does the job very well.
And, yes yes yes, the bad part is that the the clean sounds very bad and breaks very easy and in the bad way.

I think this thing was made in China. One of the volume pot broke very quickly, which I hated that.

I live in Argentina. I got some warranty from the local store, but anyway I think it lacks in support.

I think that if you are looking for an awesome distortion this is the thing, plug this puppy with a 1x12 Marshall or a Boogie cab and be suprised. But, now there are a lot more options than this to try at the same price point like say the Roland GCube, Line6 Spider 15, etc... And don't buy this for clean please, buy a Fender Frontman 15 or Champ or whatever. Even that crappy squier 10 watts has better clean. Ok, that's all. Thank you!

Ok this amp has a 3 band eq and a gain, and a volume for the overdrive channel and a volume for the clean channel it also has a button for the channel selection.......so there is not very much variety

This is where the amp sucks.....the clean channel is not as crappy as the distorted channel.......the clean channel is ok but not very ok its clear but if you want a real clean sound get a tube amp.....the distorted channel is so crappy it makes me want to scream its that crappy artificial distortion that comes with most solid state amps.....if yall people want a real good amp get a tube amp

The speaker goes out every now and then so i give it a 5

Never had to deal with them

I got this amp when i first started playing about 4 years ago and i thought it was great but now i realize that it is a piece of crap....if you dont want a good sound out of your amp get this one.....k well im 13 years old and i can say this is a piece of crap and im not the smartest person in the world and i can tell it is cheaply made.....the speaker sucks.......okokokok ill admit its just fine for a starter

I think it?s a 12 watt amp, and not sure when it was made. I would suspect about 2002-2003. Basic features, 2 channels, and 3 band EQ, input, and ext. speaker jack. Very basic solid-state practice amp. Wish it had reverb, but usually you can?t get that in this level of amp.

The amp sounds best in clean mode. The overdrive channel sounds ok, but you really have to play with the EQ and gain levels to sound passable. In my opinion, the overdrive is the weakest point.

As far as noise, I did not really notice anything. With a Fender single coil guitar, the clean channel sounds really good and clear. Very pleasing sound. With a humbucker in clean mode, I did not care for it, but I don?t care for humbuckers in clean mode in general.

As far as overdrive, this amp actually sounds better with a single coil guitar, rather than a humbucker. Usually it?s the other way around, which surprised me.

Like other Crate amps, they all seem to have a decent amount of warmth. Good for Jazz or blues, or anything in general. Most small amps are lacking in the warmth area.

In clean mode, there is little degradation when you use headphones. Sounds about with the speaker or the headphones. That?s unusual also. Usually they sound worse with headphones, unless you have amp emulation.

Crate amps are always reliable. Solid state so there is little to go wrong. I doubt I would gig with this amp, it?s not the size, or the amount of output, it just does not have a good enough sound in the overdrive mode. If I?m going to gig, I need the versatility of decent sound with both modes.

NA

I?ve been playing a long time, and it?s an OK practice amp, but there are a lot of other amps out there for not much more that have a much better sound in the overdrive area. If all you play in is clean mode, then it?s a good choice. A single coil in clean mode really shines through this amp. Clean mode is the best feature of this amp. Warmth is it?s other strong point.

It would be nice if had reverb, but that?s another price range in general. If the overdrive channel sounded decent, it would be a good alternative. It does seem to fill the bill for low-end practice amps.

I'll try to be objective about this.

Pros: 2-channel switching
3-band eq
Headphone jack & speaker out

Cons- Channel switching cannot be done by footswitch, the button to activate the "overdirve channel" very small
No reverb (unforgiveable in this price range)
No separate EQ for gain channel

I used this little amp for a very short while with an assortment of old Dano guitars when I was first learning to play and a friend of mine had leant it to me. Now, some years later it ended up back in my apartment (after loaning it to a friend who was learning) and I plugged it in for shits and giggles. I played with it for a half hour or so with my American Tele and had to turn it off after that.

In short, it sounds pretty flat. The 8" speaker is unable to generate much depth in tone, regardless of how much you tweak the EQ. It does get relatively loud for a small amp but is painfully shrill. The "overdrive" channel is actually a distortion channel, and a bitter one at that. The amp is exceptional at picking up radio stations at high volumes, particularly AM talk radio and Mexicali stations. I cannot imagine what use one would have for the speaker out box.

The amp was tamed considerably when played behind a EH Holier Grail and a Vox Valvetone, but was still nothing to write home about.

It's lasted this long without showing much signs of wear, so I'll give it that.

Idunno

I hope kids researching their first practice amp get to read this because YOU CAN DO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS FOR THE MONEY. Consider a Vox Pathfinder 15R that has two channels, an EQ on each channel, is footswitchable, and includes reverb & tremolo. The Orange Crush 10R is a great amp you may need to search around for but you'll keep it for the rest of your life. I would even choose a POD over this & just play through headphones-- at least you can hear what you're playing. Do yourself a favor, save up a hundred bucks, check out Ebay, and get something worthwhile.

Bought it in 2002 brand new...You know the features, it a basic practice amp w/ clean and overdrive 15w. I use all of its features but i wish it had a reverb. I think all amps should come with reverb mandatory, o well. I never use the speaker out. I only use this amp to practice in my basement; it definately does not have the power to gig and such. I gave a 6 because it will get the job done for a beginner. You can get it real cheap off ebay. it's worth it for those prices not $80 bucks.

I use a strat copy with this amp but its still crap even with my friends $800 peavey. The clean is extremely muddy now, it was a little better when it was new. The problem is probly due to me having the volume on 6+ because it so quiet. The clean also has a buzz when you sit anywhere near the amp.
The overdrive channel is extremely noisy. You have to be about 10 feet away and find just the right place to stand so that you do not get an overwhelming buzz. With gain maxed you can barely hear yourself over the buzz sitting next to it. Feedback can also get rediculous. The overdrive channel isnt that bad if there wasnt a buzz. Because of the loud constant buzz and muddy clean it gets a lousy 4.

I would never use it on a gig...but who would use a 15watter on a gig anyhow. For the last few months a huge problem that is very annoying is that on the clean channel there is always a terrible echo. This probably developed from pushing this little amp to hard since the clean is so quiet. The noise also brings this score down It has always worked though so it gets a 5.

never bothered the amp so cheap anyhow ill just let it brake

I played guitar only 2 years but i play everyday at least 3 hours usually more. If this amp was stolen i wouldnt care since im getting a brand new marshall avt100 very soon. I would just go a couple weeks playing unplugged or with my epiphone acoustic.Just 2 weeks until i go down to nashville over spring break. Getting and epiphone les paul custom flametop too, amazing value the just throw a couple new pickups in and then a bigsby trem and your set. I chose this amp because it was the cheapest one at my local guitar shop and at the time i knew little about guitar. I'll give it a five due to the fact that it works and if your a beginner you wont know the difference between good sound and crappy sound, until it starts to buzz and echo(:

This is a great amp for jamming by yourself. You can play around with several style tones with the EQ and adjustable gain on the Distortion. Easy to operate and light to carry.

You can get lots of sounds. People who say it sounds bad dont know what they have. This is a cheap amp with small features small wattage and a small speaker. Thus you can do things with this you might not do with other amps. For example, I play my Ibanez Active 5 String bass through this. I can get an array of tones with the active electronics of my bass, and I can even get a true to life distorted speaker. The speaker just can't handle it. Sounds awesome. Use it for what it is, and it sounds great, unlike other amps which try to emulate sounds and end up sounding like crap.

Its reliable if you dont treat it bad.

People who say this sounds like crap give me a break. Its a cheap amp. Accept it artistically as a cheap amp. I think it sounds great, very cheap.

I don't need to make this too wordy....this amp is pretty basic, you have 2 channels, one clean and one distorted, that's about it.

I used this amp with a Squier Strat and also a Les Paul..This was my first guitar amp, and when i started playing i thought it was really nice, but as time went on i got kind of bored with it and moved on to a bigger amp with more features. The distortion is ok, however if you are too close to your amp you'll get a lot of unwanted feedback, and even if you're 10 feet away and playing at a high volume, you still get a lot of crappy feedback. The clean channel was nice, but if you turn it up more than halfway it sounds really muddy and bad.

It has never broken down on me, and was always reliable...so i give it a 10

Never had to deal with the company....

I've been playing for about 2 or 3 years, i'm only 15. I now own one a 30 watt marshall with digital effects...but I would recommend this amp to someone who is just starting out. I don't think I would buy a new one if this were to be stolen. The thing i liked best about this amp was the ease of use. A monkey could figure out how to work it. So for all beginners, this is a good amp, and the price is right.

this amp is one u use to get sound out of. it has the clean and od channels and theyre alright if ur not too concerned with your sound. its only 15 watts and it starts breaking up after u crank it past five.

i usually use an ibanez rx 20 r ( if u got one email me) with two humbuckers and its just for foolin around with. i tried a gig with this amp and it was a disaster because it was so quiet. basically the od sounds like that cruddy old kinks distortion but the clean is nice and sounds great with pedals at low volumes(get a boss blues driver perfect!)

basically i leave this sucka in my room and mess with it whenever im bored. the amp has never had any problems.

didnt need em

this is just my bedroom setup dont bother gigging or even practicing with a band with this guy. if it was stolen id wonder why this guy would even want this amp but i would probably just get something else with the money.

This is a basic beginner amp. The features are pretty much barebones. It has your basic clean and OD channels, L/M/H eq, and headphone + speaker out.

I play mostly rock and alt rock, and some older stuff (Simon & Garfunkel, etc). The clean channel is decent, but not great. It starts to distort at fairly low levels and seems to distort at even lower levels through the headphone out. I use high quality headphones but by the time I turn the volume up enough to hear the nuances it breaks up all to hell.

The OD channel is terrible. With the gain up, it sounds really cheesy. There's no body to the sound at all; it sounds more like static than distortion. With the gain low... well, it still sounds cheesy. If you're looking to play any type of music that relies heavily on distortion, stay far away from this amp. I have to use a distortion pedal just to get decent sound out of this thing, but even that doesn't compare to the OD of a decent amplifier.

I drag the amp around constantly and have not had any problems with it. It is very reliable.

I have been playing for about a year now, and my main guitar is a Mexican Fat Strat. Occasionally the amp lets the strat shine when playing clean, but not often. If I could go back, I would not buy this amp. For the price or a little more you can get something that sounds much better like a Ibanez Tone Blaster 15. The only positive thing about this amp is that it's cheap. If you're picking up guitar and need a cheap practice amp until you're sure you want to stick with it, maybe this amp is for you. On the other hand, you have to be pretty good to make this thing sound decent.

my crate was made in 2002 i play almost every kind of rock i dont use the channels because you can get much much better distortion through any kind of pedal then through a small amp like this i like it the way it is but it is too small and not loud enough i use it in my room and sometimes to play with friends and it doesn't have enough power

i use an Ibanez Icemen which has two humbuckers the sound is good for what i do but it ins't loud enough but what can you expect form a practice amp yes the clean chanel is distorted at high volumes and the distortion sucks

it will be gone in about a year or so because i play it so damn loud because it is so small but other then that it is reliable if you use it as a practice amp

i have been playing for about a year if it was stolen or lost i would do the unthinkable and buy a new amp i love how simple it is and i hate how quiet it is

This amp is a great begginner/private amp its got two channels clean and distortion with separate volume levels and master low, mid, and high knobs. this is perfect for my taste in music which is punk, and rock. I give it a seven because its not the best but its one of the best and i have had it for 3 years.

I use a fender strat with the regular single coil pickups and a gibson sg standard with humbuckers they both sound great through it. Like i said before it goes perfectly with my music style because you can find that perfect distortion. The amp isnt noisy all of the time its just like you would find in a regular amp. If you find that perfect standing spot you can have no noise. But with any amp you cant have absolutly no noise so I think its really good. The clean channel stays clean with high volumes. I give it a ten. with confidence

Like i said before i have had this amp for three years and i havent had a single problem and i have knocked it over accidentially i have transported it over 100 accumualative miles. I blast the amp at full volume whenever i want. Which is pretty often because i like to hear loud music. Its very reliable.

havent had to deal with them

I cant give the amp a ten because it is not perfect, no amp or anything for that matter is.

Very basic, but useable. I use this amp for practicing and as a monitor in low volume applications. The distortion is kinda cheasy sounding but I never use it(I like to practice clean).I always find myself wishing it had reverb though.

For what it is I think it sounds good. It's just a practice amp(obviously at 12 watts with a 8" speaker it was not made for gigging) and it works great for practicing. especially since it's small and dry so it makes you work, and it brings out mistakes in your playing. The clean channel is decent for practice purposes. The distortion is pretty cheasy at high gain settings but actually sounds good on lower gain crunch/overdrive settings.

I have been using this amp as a home practice amp and stage monitor(low volume applications) for about 6 years and i have never had a problem with it. Works great low maintanence

Don't know, no problems with amp

Great little practice amp. sounds decent enough, has never let me down. i do wish I had gotten the one with reverb though.

Crate GX-15 solid state probably made in the late '90s. I play pop, rock, folk, metal, anything and everything. Two channels, clean and overdrive. Three band EQ. Speaker, headphone jacks. I use this amp for practice only.

The main guitar I use with this is an Epiphone SG Special (two humbuckers). I have also used a Peavey TK-15 and an Ovation acoustic through the amp. It is a bit noisy but I am pretty sure that is the cheap SG Special humbuckers. With the SG the amp is fairly one dimensional. The clean is too bright and twangy and the gain is too muddy. The distortion sounds like really bad grunge (Mudhoney). With the Peavey TK-15 I played through it I could get really nice bluesy tones on the clean channel. Lately (after owning the amp a year) I have figured out that you can sometimes dial in nice sounds by being very exacting with the gain knob. I have never played this amp at high volumes nor would I. It is too noisy.

I doubt you can depend on this amp. I've never used it to gig and I never will. Nevertheless, for light daily use in a practice setting it works fine.

N/A

I've been playing guitar for only two years. I am primarily a bass player. I bought this amp because it was reviewed as the best of its price range. I would have to agree. The Fender Frontman 15W is even louder than this one, but it has better bluesy tones. I have also listened to one of the Ibanez 15W amps and it was horrible compared to the Crate. The bottom line is that you can't expect much from a 15W amp, but the Crate is definitely the king of the 15W amps.

It has 2 channels cl/over, 3 way eq (low, mid, high), annoying channel select button. quiet.

I use a Washburn WG-248 and i play death, this was my first amp the I learned on. The clean channel sucks after mid way, the overdrive channel is ok. It sounds better with a high quality distortion pedal. Its a good amp for learning though.

I would never gig with it. The sound isnt good enough. and it is kinda bad about breaking out sometimes, when i play on my other amp, that never happens, so I know its the amp.

havent dealt with them.

been playing a year, and will only use it for practicing at low volumes.

basic featured solid state amp single channel used in room single 8" speaker.

i am being very generous here, this little git has the boom of a little girl. If u stick any FX pedal into it which may add bass the amp cant handle s*it. i play alot differnet music from metal to the occasional pop tune an it can handle things like the beatles n the verve but try an play korn or anythin like that then is farts at u an cuts out the sound makin u turn down the bass.

i havent had it a year an it still works fine though. it is quite tough althouhg i wud of prevered it to hav a bak on it.

dunno

i havent even bin playin a year but i can tell when somet sounds good an this little turd doesnt go the extra mile an get somet decent if ure serious.

bought this in 1985' as a mini practice amp.
when you compare it to other amps for $79.99 new it shines.
great for small rehearsals so small it almost goes in your pocket :-)
I would never gig out with it.

its like 12 watts rms and I get decent tones from this little sucker
in spite of what it is. I have jammed with guys that cant believe this little box creates so much tone. 8" speaker...
sounds great for what it is.
Compare it to its peers.... size and price and it rates a 10.

I have done everything to this amp for 17 years and its like new.
Once again I would never gig with it.

never dealt with them.
It came with a 5 year warranty and it could have been 17 yeras and they still would have never heard from me.

I have been playing for 25+ years, I own many guitars and amps all superior to this little crate in every way imaginable and I know not to judge a $79.99 crate GX-15 against a amp that costs much much more. When you gain that perspective this amp rates well. Just the fact it still like new after 17 years it should rate a 10 and Because of its size and portability,features,price and sound I give it a solid 10

- Clean and overdrive channels with gain controls.
- Low, mid, and high tone controls.
- Headphone jack and line out jack.
- This amp is pretty versatile for a practice amp, especially one so cheap. I would probably buy the model with the reverb if I could go back in time but it's ok. One feature it could use is a pedal to switch to overdrive or at least make it easier to switch than to press an incredibly small button.

I have been using it with an Ibanez RG-220. I've been playing for a few years, but am really quite the begginner. I play mostly classic rock tunes and attempt some newer indie stuff. I play mostly on the clean channel because the overdrive sounds best turned way up and I don't want to piss off the neighbors. The clean channel is really clear and at the lowest volume I can barely tell it's on. With the overdrive on and it turned way up the distortion is really interesting with a lot going on. The sound is better than I expected.

I won't be gigging in the foreseable future since I'm not a good player - but I would like to use a larger amp so I could have room to play with it. As far as contruction though - this amp COULD NOT BE BUILT ANY BETTER. This thing is tough and just reeks of quality contruction. I've had it for a over two years now and it is still just like new. As long as you don't purposefully wreak havoc on this amp or do something stupid it will last longer than you ever expected.

I never dealt with Crate and am not sure what the warranty was.

If it were stolen or lost I think I would buy another one at this point in time. I would rather the one with the reverb though. I had only bought this amp because it was so cheap at Guitar Center and it sounded same or better than other similar amps. I now think that I made a good decision that day to choose this amp. By the way, all my ratings are based on the price/size category of this amp and are not comparing this amp to anything obviously out of it's class.

12 watts solid state combo with one 8" speaker (4 ohms). Two channels (Clean and Overdrive) with shared EQ settings, no way to connect a footswitch, which is the biggest problem I have with the features of this amp. Headphone out, speaker out for external speaker.
Not much features, low power, but hey, it's a cheap practice amp, so what can you expect (except for a footswitch connecter maybe)?

This thing was my first amp. When I got it, I compared it to the Peavey Rage 158, which costs about the same as the Crate, but the Crate sounds far better.
Now, it's a bit difficult for me to rate the sound of this amp, cause now I play through a Line6 Flextone II (1x12"), which of course sounds so much better, but then again, it also costs much more, so it wouldn't be fair to compare the Crate to that. So I base my final rating on how good this amp is compared to other amps in the same price range.

When I started playing, I used a Yamaha ERG-121 guitar, which I still use, but now I have the stock humbuckers replaced by DiMarzios (AirZone in the bridge position, AirClassic in the neck position).
I haven't used the Crate since a long time, but today I played through it again, just for the fun of it, and decided to note down my impressions.

The sound, which I used when I started (bass on 3, mids on 3, treble on 8, gain on 8, levels at about 4) sounded absolutely crap to my newly developed taste now, but after a bit of playing around, I found that a setting like bass on 5, mids on 10, treble on 5, gain on 7 and, what's most important, levels much higher (6 at least) sounds much better. Most people say that you shouldn't push this amp too far couse it then starts to "break up", but that's exactly what gives some life to the otherwise very static solid state sound.

The Clean channel is nicely clean and stays so until a level of 8. With the right pickups, it can even have a bit of shimmering in the tone, but as this is a transistor combo, the sound isn't really lively enough to sound good (on an all-amps-scale).

The Overdrive also sounds very static until you push it far enough to make the power amp crackle, which adds a lot of life to the sound. There's enough gain for all situations, no need for a distortion pedal at all (and it wouldn't sound any better, I tried the Boss and Danelectro pedals through the clean channel of this amp at a shop and they didn't even match the Crate's own Overdrive).

Overall, the sound of this amp is very "narrow", which can be attributed to the small cab with an 8" speaker. I didn't try it with an external speaker, but I guess that should make things a lot better (but on the other hand, if you invest in a real cab, then better also get a real amp).

The sound of this amp is pretty versatile, which is important for a practice amp. You can easily dial in just about any tone you want, it will never sound right, but always gives you enough of an idea of that sound to match the songs you practice. Today e.g. I played Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" (both fingerstyle part and solo), Led Zeppelins "Stairway to heaven" (again, fingerstyle, picking, solo), "Defy you" and "She's got issues" by The Offspring, "Back In Black" by AC/DC among others through it, just to give you an idea how flexible it is (but as I said, it never sounded right, just close enough for practicing). I also think that it's very important for beginners not to have to many knobs to turn, cause you should concentrate on your playing and not on creating great sounds (so a Flextone would be exactly wrong for a beginner, but it's great as the next step up, when you already know, how to practice).

It's not loud enough for playing together with a band for practice really (although I did in the beginning when we founded the band), and you won't ever want to gig with it (not only because it's far to silent, but also because you would have to be ashamed because of the sound). But it's definitively loud enough for practicing at home and will even be able to blow away your ears, if just you sit close enough to it (which doen't mean to have your ear on the front cloth, but rather 1 meter away).

The amp itself is pretty solid (I even dropped it once from 1 meter height and it still works), but the reason why I only give it a 5 is that the handle got loose after just a few month (and I didn't even carry it extensively with that handle) and couldn't be fixed, which really shouldn't happen.

Never dealt with them.

So overall, on an all-amps-scale this thing absolutely sucks and would at most get 1 out of 10 points from me, but this wouldn't be fair really, cause if you compare it to the other amps in the same price range, the Crate really outshines them all.

It's basically the best beginners practice you can get, because as I said, it's not really helpful to have too many things you can play around with on your amp when you start playing guitar. The biggest drawback (even as a beginners practice amp), though, is the lack of a footswitch connector (and you wouldn't really want to invest in a distortion pedal, which cost nearly half of the amp itself).

Great for beginners, but if you practice hard, don't expect to be satisfied for more than half a year, then you will want to take a step up and either get a modelling amp (like I did), or if you have some more money to spend, a real tube amp. On the other hand it wouldn't really be clever to invest in such an amp, when you just begin, because you never know, if you stay with playing guitar at that point of time.
If you have never played electric guitar before and want to start playing, get this amp NOW, if you have any experience in playing guitar, DON'T EVER get this amp.

My GX-15 was made in 1996, or atleast the speaker was. The amp is 12+ watts of solid state power. Which is enough power for solo practicing, but try to keep up with drums and your toast. It has 2 non foot switchable channels, clean and overdrive. no effects loop, head phone jack, external speaker jack, no reverb or effects. It has your basic starter amp features

I play a yamaha pacifica with 2 single coils and a humbucker in the bridge positionthrough a tuner, then a wah wah pedal, then a snarling dog american tube simulator, then through an ibanez distortion pedal. The clean channel is standable, though if you use humbukcers the tone is extremely flat and the lack of reverb doesn't help. the overdrive channel is pretty unusable because it operates at lower dbs then the clean channel. it sounds like your sound is muffeled.

this amp has never broken down on me, but try to drive a 2x 12 via the external speaker jack, and the sound starts fading, so i unplugged the cab and the speaker in the amp sounded rather muddy and low. it let it cool for a few hours and played it again and sounded fine. I woul not gig with this amp due to its power and tone but it won't break downdruing practice

i bought the amp used when i started playing and so it had no transferable warranty. therefore i haven't dealt with CRATE

I hate the amps tone and power. i bought it because i just started playing and needed a cheap amp. i have been playing for maybe 7 months now. i also have an epiphone studio 10, a crate gfx112, a few mics, and a feneder hotrod deluxe. if stolen or lost my keyboardist wouldn't ahve an amp, but i would not replace. instead i would buy the Vintager GM110 30w anolog modeling amp made by behringer. but now i'm working on getting a fender 65 twin reverb

Mine was made in or around 92. This is not the most versitile amp in the world...but for at home it's great. It's got plenty of power to get yer practicing done. This amp is totally solid state so if yer looking for a tube....go get one.

I always use mine with a Strat for semi-blues tones. This thing has an amazing clean sound...the reverb is awesome. The overdrive is pretty noisy...a commom problem for all Crate solid states. You can get a really good alt. rock sound out of this amp. If yer into the Seattle thing it's perfect.

I've had this amp for almost ten years now and I still play on it alot. Sure I've got others at this point, but it's still fun to mess around with it. Brings back lots of memories. It's never broke on me before. I used to play in a garage band with it and it could be heard easily over the drums and vocals. I used to play it extensively at 7 or 8 on the volume.

never dealt with them.

I've been playing a long time and I still use it from time to time. If it were stolen I'd probably blow it off and never get another one....but just because it's too small to gig with. Plus, once I discovered tube amps I rarely touch solid states for live stuff. Look people, this is a cheap amp...but it's been good for me. I was young when I got it because of the money factor. Yer not gonna get monster tone from something this small...simple as that. But it is fun to jam on in yer house.It's unreasonable to think it's gonna sound like a stack!! Crate is very good about making stuff young players and people on a budget can afford. But that being the case you can't expect it to sound like a Marshall stack.

I GOT IT IN 98.IT HAD ALL THE BASICS OF A FIRST,I PLAY ANY THING FROM PUNK TO BLUES.IT HAS ONE CHANNEL,HEADPHONE JACKS AND OVERDRIVE, FEATURE WISE IT HAS EVERY THING YOU WHOULD NEED TO LEARN.IT IS WAY TO SMALL TO EVER USE TO GIG

I PERSONLY HAVE A CRUISE SINGLE COLL IT SUCKS BUT ITS CHEAP FIRST, BESIDES THAT I HAVE USED MOST POPULAR GUITARS LES PAULS,STRATS,AND SG.
THIS AMP RELLY SUCKS FOR ANY STYLE YOU PLAY. LARGE PLACES ARENT AS BAD BUT IN SMALL ROOMS IT MAKES A VERY HIGH SHARP SOUND.ON CLEAN I WHOULD GET A WEIRD VOODOO WOBLE IN THE SPEAKER AND WITH OVERDRIVE IT SOUNDED LIKE A TV GETING BAD RESEPTION BASICLY THE SOUND OUT OF IT SUCKED

I WOULD NEVER TAKE THIS AMP TO A GIG IT IS VERY UNRELIABIL. IT HAD BROKEN SEVERAL TIMES THE LAST STRAW WAS WENE IT STATED SMOKEING

I NEVER NEEDED TO CALL THE COMPANY FOR HELP DURING THE 90 DAY WARRANTY IT NEVER BROKE. I WAS NOT ABLE TO FIND AN AUTHORIZED SERVICE CENTER FOR CRATE SO I HAD A GUITAR SHOP I TOOK LESSONS AT FIX IT FOR CHEAP.

I HAVE BEEN PLAYING 4 YEARS AND FOR THE PAST 3 I USE A RACK WITH A CARVIN CAB,IF I HAD LOST IT I WOULD MORE THAN LIKELY GO TO A SMALL MARSHALL,IF ALL YOU WANT IS A BOX THAT MAKES SOUND FOR CHEAP GET IT,
BUT IF YOU WANT A QULITY AMP GET ANYTHING ELSE BECAUSE ITS MORE THAN LIKELY BETTER "HATEING IS STILL HATE BUT WENE IT COMES TO CRATE HATEING IS GREAT"

this has pretty much beginner features: basic eq, gain settings, thats it.

i play a yamaha pacifica through it and it sounds OK. you just have to mess around with the EQ to your liking. i have the low on 10, mid on 5, and high on 7. the gain is on 8. that pretty much makes the best possible sound that can come from this POS.

very reliable. the black tolex will start spliting where the screws are. no biggie. i replaced the tolex with duct tape. looks mighty nice now.

ive never had to call them up so i dont know.

The bottom line is that this amp is good for the beginner but, nothing more. dont expect to get marshall sound out of the little box. if it were stolen i wouldnt really care. i compared this to the fender frontman and this was better. this is probably the best amp in its class.

2 channels, little button to switch them (a pain), one 8 incher inside, solidstate

Using an epiphone les paul standard with it. I play mostly classic rock and that kind of stuff. This thing is horrible, unless you like distortion that has no tone. I'm not saying is sucks next to a Marshall or a Boogie (it does but...), I'm saying it just plain sucks. Horrible distortion that sends me into convulsing fits on the ground while frothing green stuff seeps from my mouth. Yes, it's that bad. Clean is ok but too muffly. I thought it was cool when I was a beginner. I think I finally heard a Marshall though and now this thing doesn't impress me. Either that or I messed it up some how.

Ripped the tolex I thought was tough. I have to frickin fidget with the input every 5 seconds. I have to have the cable dangling half in and half out.

Don't wanna deal with the people who made such a horrible machine...

I have another Crate which I like much better. If it were stolen, I wouldn't notice except when i go to prop my feet on it while watching tv, my trusty Crate foot rest won't be there. It does make a pretty good foot rest. I also go out in the garden and produce horrible sounds which scare away pesky animals. Sometimes I let little kids in the neighborhood use it for a base in baseball. Overall this things sounds are hideous, but its a good household object every family needs.

three band eq, distortion switch, not that complicated. I've taken the amp to rehearsals and it's been loud enogh to deal. I kind of get afraid when turned up past halfway, but for eighty bucks, I couldn't be happier

I use a DS-1 with a single coil pickup. If I can't complain about noise then all you 13 year-old wannabe poser f'up slipknot guitar idiots need to shut up. Clean is awsome for such a small package. THE AMP ONLY COSTS $80. IF YOU WANT A HALF-STACK SAVE YOUR FUGGING ALLOWANCES AND BUY THE HALF-STACK

I've had this amp for about three years now. I've gigged with it (with speaker a attachment) and it still works. Everything I've played that is crate has seemed very well built.

I'm going to preface this by saying anyone who hasn't graduated third grade shouldn't be reviewing anything. Anyone who has a problem with this amp needs to pull their heads out of their nether regions. Those of you who are dissapointed because you didn't get a half-stack for eighty dollars need to shut up. If you don't like the distortion, buy a pedal. If you don't like the clean sound, buy a reverb pedal. Shut the hell up. Quit bitchin'cause your amp sucks. Turn the amp down and learn how to play first...

Pretty simple amp distortion channel clean Channel, get's the job done, much better then my old Fernandez POS (piece of S***).

The amp has a nice crisp clean setting goes up really loud and does not distort when loud. Distortion is not bad it's a pain to turn on when playing, you have to pause and hit the tiny little button on the amp.

I've never had one problem with it and probably never will great litle amp

I've been playing for 7 years I just use this to fool around with I also have a Trace Elliot Super Tramp For my gigs. Overall a great practice amp. Buy it if you have the money.

good for the price, fine practice amp, but nothing more

The distortion can get out some punk sounds for the size, and you can play a little Blink 182 on it. The clean channle is crappy, but that's cause I play a Fender Power Chorus.

I've beat this thing into the ground and it still plays, and it was used!! Don't ask me how this thing stays together, cause I have no clue.

don't know, always fixed it myself [or got dad to do it]

fine for a beginner, but then go with a DX100H or something big with a load of power.

I play mostly rock and blues. This amp does quite well for its size and quality. It has two channels, clean and overdrive. The button to switch between them is kind of small, but when I'm using a practice amp anyway, I'm just practicing, or more likely, writing on it, so I don't need to switch conveniently all that much with it. I wish I had gotten the one with reverb, since it's not much more, but I didn't. It has plenty of power for pissing around in the bedroom and writing things. If I turn it up and use a distortion pedal, it'd probably be plenty to get me arrested. The Flexwave emulation is good for solid state, but I'll still probably upgrade to a tube amp eventually. For what I use it for, though, it's really quite a nice amp.

I use Epiphone guitars, a strat-copy and a Dot, and both sound great on it. It does fairly well for my musical style. I kind of overlay it with pedals and only occasionally use it straight, but when I do, the clean channel has some nice gain on mid volume levels to just saturated tones, and the gain on the overdriven channel is plenty scathing to my ears (in a positive way). It buzzes a little bit, but most amps do, really. I can get lots of different sounds from it, which is always a good thing from a practice amp. The clean channel gets slightly saturated at high volumes, but pleasantly, ending off where the overdrive channel begins. The distortion, at full blast, is a fine kick in the teeth.

It's very dependable, it's solid state, they tend to be. It's also fairly light on the components. There's not a whole lot in there to mess up. It's never broken down on me, and I've punished it like crazy, by hauling it all over creation and exposing it to the elements. If I were ever to be in a situation to use it in a gig (I'd hope not. I'd rather something with a bit more power), I'd feel alright using it without a backup. I don't think it'd break down on me.

haven't tried it. Got it used, never sent in the warranty.

I've been playing for four years. This was my first amp, and I still play on it from time to time. I've had a vintage 70s Fender twin reverb, a Dean, a no-name tube amp, and some others, and while those have great sounds, this one is the one I started on. It's a comfort thing. But it does have a nice sound, really. If it were stolen, I'd be pissed off majorly, since I like it, but then I'd probably invest in something with reverb and some edgier distortion on it. I chose it because it was the cheapest one at the store when I bought it, but it turns out, I got more than my money's worth, I think.

It would be better if you had a footswitch between channels

I use the cheapest POS wannabe strat there is, and i get great sounds. I listen to alot of metal, and I can play anything on it and it sounds great as long as you have a separate effect pedal(BOSS DS-1). It makes a pretty nice sound on the Overdrive channel at 5 and the distortion all the way up on the pedal.

Never had any problems

The best practice amp you can get!

I wish this amp was just a little bigger. Like 20 watts would be perfect. I read some people say that it's worthless for gigs, and band practices, but I disagree. I used it for a couple of large hall gigs. It's not that complicated. YOU PUT A PA MIC IN FRONT FO IT!!! It sounds great during practice. My drummer would drown it out if I didn't know how to ajust the settings, and put it at a frequency contray to the drums.

I am using an Epiphone Les Paul. FOr Beatlish type stuff the standard distortion is good, but I often find I use other distortions. The clean channel is great. Its the most crisp clear sounding thing I've heard in a combo amp.

I have had it for more than fopur years, and I think it's starting to go. I may be wrong. I could just be my cords, but I have replaced them a few times. Overall no major problems. It never stopped working.

nope

I've been playing for 8 years, and Ive had this for 4. it's a great amp for it's price. if I had more money I would but a bigger version of the same amp. A GX-50 perhaps.

2 chans: clean and overdrive. Equalizer, low,mid,high, 1 level for each channel. 8inch speaker. The power suplly cord could be longer.
The channel switch could also be bigger, if you want to switch between clean and overdrive, get a pedal. The headphone jack is a good idea since i live in a apartment building. Power is ok i guess if i play without a drummer, if so you cant hear me even at fuill level. But its enough for practice or room. Not very versatile cant get much different tone or dist effect.

im currently using a Stage fat strat shitty guitar with unknown REALLY cheap pickups so i may not be getting the best out of that amp.
The clean channel is okay at low level and with more highs than lows, when i crank it up i have to use distortion because all i hear is a mud like sound. The overdrive chan is way better but there is no intermediate: if its not at 8.5 or more its clean. The tone and dist are comparable to pop rock. Since i mostly play nu metal like korn or slipknot and some pearl jam i switch to .11-.52 strings. Thats the best thing i ever did, i get a full rich sound from the amp when i eliminate mids. IF you play with distortion you can achieve good sounds but forget the clean chan ..

ive owned it for 4 years now and i had no problem with it at all. THe sound is the same except when i crank it up, im afraid it'll blow so i dont really play real loud. It aslo screech alot without dist. But in all, its very reliable. I dont gig yet but i definitly wouldn't use it on a gig, not enough power and i wouldnt even get trough the intro of any songs by slipknot without exploding

Ive never dealt with Crate. It came with a 5 years warranty from the vendor (2 from Crate i think. Since the vendor is not a authorized dealer anymore i hope to find one if something ever happens...

Overall its not a bad amp. IF you dont crank it up you can get good sounds out of it. But as i said forget the clean chan, play with overdrive at 4 or 5 its much better. it satisfy my needs for now but since im getting a Ibanez RG and a pedal im considering upgrading my amp as well. im sure the sounds gonna be much better with that guitar. if it were stolen id probably get some other better models
Overall its a good practice amp but not for gigs...

2 channels, overdrive and clean. Low, mid and high eq-switches. Speaker and headphone out. Nothing special, just basic practice amp features...

Crap. The sound is muddy and unclear, some people may like that but I don't. The overdrive sucks too (I have always used an effects pedal for that instead).

I guess it's very reliable. I have had mine for over two years now and it haven't let me down yet. I have had keyboards, guitar and bass connected to it at once at full volyme, and it still works fine.

Never had any technical problems with it yet.

It's cheap, and you can tell that by the sound. It would be a great practice/home amp if the sound would be better/more clear. I have tried to tweak the eq settings but the sound is still muddy and unclear.

But if you are a beginner and don't have that mutch money, then it could be somewhat good. It's cheap, small and has basic features as eq, overdrive/distortion etc. Before I bought my 100w amp I tried to use it at my bands practice, but it was worthless. There isn't enough power in it to play with a band or on stage, it's best to use it home for practice etc. But then you could acctually buy a smaller 10w or a mini-amp with good sound and for less money.

2 channels, Clean and distorted. Headphone jack, basic tone and volume controls. Nothing special, but all the necessities are there. Read the other reviews for more information

I play lots of metal and some nostalgic classic rock on an Ibanez GRX-45. Decent sound, good, cunchy, thick distortion on the humbucker. Nice clean sound on the top single-coil, almost acoustic sounding. Sounds kind of messy during distortion solos, however.

Seems pretty solid, although I've never really abused it. I try to take care of my equipment as much as possible because anything can break.

Never had to deal with Customer Support

overall it's a good little practice amp. I didnt get a chance to compare it to other practice amps, as it was a christmas present, but It works for me. I wouldnt use it for a gig simply because it's not powerful enough. I tired it one or twice for a band practice and the drums and bass absolutly drown it out, but thats due to the fact that this little amp wasnt designed for performances. If it was stolen I'd probably buy the GX-15R with reverb controls, but overall it's a good amp for 100 bucks.

This amp has 2 channels (Overdrive and Clean), one 8 inch speaker and nothing else. Bare bones, down to playing amp (the way I love it). The features are useable and good.....nice amp features over all for a combo.

Great! This was my first amp! I loved and love it! The sound is good for bedroom use, thats what I use it for. I bought a Fender Princeton (BIG MISTAKE) to play bigger rooms and band practice, but I still use this one for practice. Good clean and very crunchy distortion. The Clean distorts at around 8, which is normal, but not annoyong and the amp looses all distortion when the gain is not on 10.......

VERY! I've had it for 4 years! Great amp! Its fallen, been kicked, knocked over and even had coke spilled on it! This thing has earned its stripes!

Never dealed with em....

GREAT! Good for practice and fucking around! Nice amp!

My Soon, but not Current setup now is a......

Crate VC6112 All Tube Combo
Fender Tex Mex Strat

2 Chan clean and overdrive. NO REVERB

Gibson LP Custom and 79 Strat with EMG SA's. Play rock, metal and some jazz. I bought this because the distortion in the store sounded good for a practice amp but when I got home it was just so so. I have a POD 2 going into the clean channel and this amp can't handle the lows without the POS speaker on the verge of jumping out. Turn the bass and mid all the way down along with volume and it's ok for practice. I hear others saying they gig with this thing??? I can't imagine that.

Had this about 6 years now. Not problems. Keeps on going.

2 channels, 1 overdriven and 1 clean with a line out and headphone jackabout 15 watts solid state amp. This is strictly a small bedroom, camping, living room, sun deck, very portable pratice amp. Don't ever on your life expect to play any gigs with a low power solid state amp. It's called a pratice amp for a reason.

69 Gibson SG with P-90 pickups. I play anything and everthing.

Has never broken. Very tough a have a toddler who like's to fiddle with it, play with all the knobs and stick things in it.

14 years, I own a '67 (tube, like duh)fender deluxe reverb. I love the sustain in this amp that you can pracitce anything through it from open chords to two handed tapping all without a distortion pedal. It is very compact and I use for in the bedroom and infront of the T.V. for when I don't want to drag my fender out of the basement.

12 watts...Two channels...Shared EQ. I guess those are pretty standard features on a practice amp. Then again at 12 watts does it even classify as a practice amp? This thing isnt loud at all. I tried practicing with it once....

Ive actually used a few guitars thru this p.o.s. First off an ESP M-155. Then another ESP this time an EX-350. Also Ive used a Fender standard strat and a cheap Les Paul copy thru it. Basically they all sound like garbage clean. It just sounded flat to me but hey what do I know Im just some punk kid. OH yea and dont expect to play louder than maybe five. After that it starts to break up. Its awful. The overdrive channel is alright though. If you set it up right you can get an OK hard rock sound. Only OK though. Its really noisey and you cant really crank it or it gets all nasty on you.

Alright heres what I dont understand. I thought solid state amps were supposed to be these super reliable MACHINES. Maybe I have really really bad luck with amps I dunno. Well at band practice one day I had to bring this hunk of junk along cause the amp I usually use isnt mine and well wasnt available. ANYWAY. I plugged in and turned it up. Trying desperatly to over power my drummers MUFFLED set. It worked alright for maybe an hour and then it just died. Does anyone know why? Its not the speaker thats fine. ALL the bastard does now is hiss and buzz. Anyway I wouldnt suggest turning the gain and volume on the overdrive channel to ten for any length of time or you might fry it like I did.

Alright not quite loud enough to be a good practice amp and the clean channel blows asshole. Distortions only OK. Dont even think about buying this or any other Crate similar to this one. Even as a practice amp this thing cant measure up to a Fender Frontman or a Marshall MG series.

Basic practice amp. As such, features are limited - which is a good thing. Practice amps are for practicing, not fiddling with.

I'm on vacation and brought my guitar to practice with. Turned out I was invited to play with a group while I was here. The only amp available for me to use is this Crate GX15. My reveiw is based on my experience with it.
I was pleasantly surprised. I expected pathetic performance but found otherwise. Sweet overdrive and warm clean sounds. My guitar is a hybrid (godin LGX-SA) and capable of both strat and Les Paul sounds. My guitar sounded good through this little puppy. Yeah, it's no tube amp but for a crappy little practice amp, who woulda though? Ok, so it only has an 8" speaker. I put a mike in front of it and put over the mains. No problem. Plenty loud enough.

who knows. it's solid state. probabley reliable.

Like I say, I was impressed. I expected a lot less performance than what I got. I consider it a good value for a practice amp. I wouldn't get it for any other purpose though.

ajem... ehhh. 2 channels, 1 overdriven and 1 clean with a line out and headphone jack(nothing out of the ordinary), about 15 watts (sometimes I think it has about 100 watts!!!) it's a practice, solid state amp; nothing more.

I have a Yamaha SE200 with 3 single colis(very rare and old guitar, but I love that guitar!!) connected to a zoom 505-2,> Ibanez CS-9 chorus,> Crate amp. I play anything I heard and like its a bit noise but, what the hell, anything that has dist is a bit noisy. I think this amp its in the middle of the sound caracteristics of a mesa amp and a marshall. the clean sound produces warm sound, not as good as the clasic tube amp, but, hey it's a $100 am. the overdrive channel is some times good for some power chords, but for those warm solos, the amp produces a very thin and weak dist. one thing about this: the amp is very loud, so if you will use it at high volume levels, make shure you use a external speaker!!! I can't believe it!!! even at 1/4 of the level (cln ch) a peavy speaker was almost exploding!!! another thing I don't like: when a chord is falling into silence, the sound starts to crack!!!...

this thing is very dependable... I sometimes use it as a chair. is a tank.

don't know

about 2 years playing, if stolen, buy something better..., although it is a fantastic value to a novice guitarrist, I know when a dist sounds good.

8 inch speaker, 12 watts rms, two channels, 3 band eq, headphone, line out.

it sounds good for a 12 watt beginner amp. nice clean channel, eq works smoothly, the distortion is nice, but really really noisy. keep the gain low or pay with feedback. use a metal zone and it's fine.

I would depend on it but it's beginning to show age after being lugged around everywhere, it's a crate, they're built pretty strong in general.

never dealt

It's a great beginner amp, most of crate's small ones are. The distortion's a little noisy, but hey, distortion is noisy. :)

two channel: distortion, clean

If I put the volume over 3 and it crash... the distortion is horrible

It work for the 2 first week but I crash it by playing with high distortion (boss metal zone pedal) qith the volume over 3...

It work only for blues when you start but this amp can s**k my a**

It work only for blues when you start but this amp can s**k my a**

Not many options but it should suit a begunner well. It has clean, distortion, high, mid, and low.

I use a samick with a humbucker in bridge position and two single coils. The pedals I use through it are a DOD grunge distotion, Morley switchless wah, and a danelectro flanger. The amp is noisy when turned up to 5 especially with the grunge pedal. My amp has a lot of bottom end which is good because all you get from the grunge is highs.

This thing is built pretty well. I haven't thrown it down the stairs or anything but it still works pretty good. The only thing wrong with it is it makes a buzzing sound every now and then and I think the speaker is ready to crap out.

I have been playing for 4 years and have had this thing for all the time I have been playing. The bottom end is good but the cabinet can't seem to handle it when turned up. If it got stolen I would kill the theif cause no one takes my shit. I have just recently bought a Randall Switchmaster 150 for $76 so it's now time to retire this thing to late night practices only(this is what this amp is really made for). Very good beginner amp.

This amp has 2 channels. 1 clean, 1 dist.

I use a ibanez cadet and a fender mex strat. 2 hums in ibanez, 3 singles in fender. I play all types of rock and this amp just sucks. the clean channel is ok at low volumes, but the dist. channel "locks" into distortion if played past a volume setting of 4. in other words, it makes a "BLAHHHH" winey sound. better.

I used this for my 1st gig, a birthday party, with a 2x12 cab. it sucks. it lock into distortion during the 1st song. i switched to my backup fender frontman.

I played it for 2 months. sold it, and bought an ibanez ds-7, gfx 707 processor, and a fender dual showman from our schools band teacher. Fender kicks butt.

This Amp have 2 channels which is clean and the other is overdrive.
3 band equalizers included.
A standard feature of a practice amp.

I'm using a heavily modified Squire Strat with 2 dimarzio humbuckers and 1 fender texas special single coil.
I mostly play rock and blues. This amp is very suit my playing styles.(It's built for Rock!!)
The distortion in this amp is pretty good with outstanding harmonic.
I set the low and high to 10 and mid at 3-4 and I'll get the Paul Gilbert(One fo my Guitar Hero) like tone.
The clean channel is ok , not so bad with correct setting.
Conclusion: This amp is versetile.

So far I have no problem with it.
It rugs.

Never deal with them.....

I'm playing electric guitar for 3 years.
I use a Boss ME-8 Multiprocessor with my Squire super strat and I can get any kind of tone that I wish.
For those can't get thier tone and had complained to this amp, I'll tell you that the problem is not come from the amp, but is you. You have to learn how to operate the guitar amp correctly. Don't just blame to the machine.
For myself, I give a 9 to this amp.

Not sure what year it was made. All it is is a 2 channel solid state amp. Its pretty good for practice i guess.

I use it with a les paul studio. No low end can be achieved with this amp! The dist breaks up really bad if you even turn it to like 4. Very sissy distortion. Clean channel is ok.

I can depend on this amp. Never had trouble with it. Its pretty tough too. It gets thrown around all the time but still looks good.

This amp is cool if you just want to sit down and play. But I don't think i would ever let anyone hear me play on it. It is cool for just writing some ideas for songs and stuff.

Solid State, Not sure of year, probably 1 year old. 3 band EQ, Distortion, clean, speaker output jack, haedphone jack, 12 watts I believe. Wished it had reverb, but I didn't know about guitars/amps when I bought it. Besides, they have a model with reverb. Note: this is a practice amp and if you're going to play stadiums, don't bitch about the 12 watts. Also, all the ratings will be in comparison to other solid state, practice amps.

Sound is pretty decent. I play anything. Mostly classic rock and blues, but, with the right guitar, you can get good tones. It's has a bit of a hum, but nothing compared to my guitar. Damn, it hums loud! Anyway, if you put the low and high all the way up, turn mid to 5 or less, distortion at 5-6, use your bridge pickup, and turn your guitar full up, it sounds almost identical to "Train Kept A Rollin"

Well, it hasn't broken yet. Asolutely no problems EXCEPT that I turned it WAY up and almost blew out the speaker. There was a bit of a rattle in the speaker for about 3 hours but it went away.

Never dealt with

I've been playing about a year now. If it was stolen, I'd just buy a Music Man 212 130. It's a good starter amp and is to be used for practice.

Bought it in a pawn shop. Not sure how old it is. Looks like it has been through a few wars though. Great for practicing AC/DC, Ted Nugent and almost all 80's rock. Sounds great through my 4X12 cabinet. If your locked,cocked and ready to rock,this will warm the blood.

I have a Les Paul Studio, Peavy with a Super Distortion Dimarzio and a Washburn Rock Guitar and only play rock. This amp is great! Great for harmonics and handles muted strings with a tube sounding thump (a good thing). Suits me fine.

Looks like someone dropped it off the Empire State Building at least twice and it sounds great - need I say more?

It's an American company so support should be OK if they aren't on lunch or having a coffee break.

I've been playing for about 25 years and have a Marshall Midi pre-amp and a JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead going into a 4X12 Celestion cabinet but the Crate sounds great going into the 4X12. If it was stolen I would buy another one (it's kinda cute). Alot of guys are really blasting this amp and giving it a bad rap but I like it with the controls on (LOW) 8 (MID) 5 (HIGH) 8 and think it is a great value at even $100.Plug a good guitar with some decent pickups into it and it will sizzle (I would have said it will smoke but that's why God created Mesa Boogie and Marshall). Some of you guys out there need to plug into an old Traynor or Kustom with a fuzzface distortion and then you'll realize that the stuff you've got now is pretty damn cool!That Flexwave thing that Crate has put into their distortion circuitry sounds real good. Great practice amp. I just might try it live sometime miked with an SM57 and see what develops.

I bought the amp 2 years ago, in 1999. The style of music I play is mostly unk and heavy rock and it fits my style greatly. It has a headphone jack and a speaker jack. I use this amp at home for practice and playing with friends, although it is not the best to be playing with a drummer.

I am playing on a Yamaha guitar with the pickups that came with it. (I want a seymore duncan though) It fits my music style, which is rock. It is not that noisy unless if is distorted. Unless the volume is at max, the clean sounds good.

I can depend on this amp every time I use it. If I were playing a gig I would use this amp, but on a PA system. (I want to get my own PA soon.) This amp has not taken any falls that I know of, but it is realiable.

I have never delt with the Crate company before. I think the warrenty was 5 years.

I have been playing for 3 or 4 years now. I do not have any other amps, but I want a small PA system. If it were stolen I would not buy the exact same amp, but probably a Crate amp, like the GFX-65 or GFX-50TT.

My amp is a 99 model. I play 80's rock like ozzy, poison , motley crue,ect. Versatility doesent relly matter in a practice amp, it has a clean channel and distortion. good practice amp only if it had reverb.

The distortion is very good compared to almost all other practice amps of its size. both channels distort at high volumes but, practicing in your room it offers enough headroom.

I have had two of these amps and I have a crate GT DSP something I had it for about a month before it fucked up and i mean totally fucked up electronically it was a peice of SHIT. I also have a Marshall JCM 2000 the tube sockets fucked up once but the little GX 15 kicks ass in reliability Ive blasted it at full volume many times, dropped it, kicked it around and no problems yet.

Ive never had to consult with them but they do offer a five year warranty.

I have been playing for four years now and I will practice through it until it fucks up. This is probably the best crate has to offer Ive played through crate stacks, crate p.a equipment, mics and a bunch of other crate shit in my opinion crate SUCKS ASS I piss on their logo FUCK EM ALL if it werent for this dependable little practice amp not givin me shit I would kick all crate users ass.

This amp has very little features. It has a 3 band eq and a overdrive and and clean channel.It has solid state distortion which sounds terrible.

The clean channel sounds okay but the distortion is terrible it's so bad that it is hard to cover any songs. It also breaks up very easy when turned up even half way.

That is the only thing good about this amp it never broke down on me.

I had a one year warranty.

I've been playing now for about 3 years i play all kinds of music anywhere from pantera to jimi hendrix and this amp isnt good for any music. Let me tell you if are going to buy a practice amp dont buy a crate buy a marshall mg 50 like i have now i payed 200 for it used and it sounds great. I will never buy a crate again in my life. If someone tried to steal it i would give it to them gladly

Bought brand-new in 2000. It has two channels (clear and distort), it's solid-state, and it includes a three-channel GEQ. No effects (reverb, i.e. the GX15R was $30 extra that I didn't have), but what's there is fine.

I'm still learning, so type of distortion doesn't matter much to me yet (and my rating reflects that). The clear channel is crystal -- I wound up buying it solely for that (though having less jangly distortion than the Fender Frontman I almost bought helped).

Just bought it -- can't really say. It's nice and solid, though.

I use it with a Peavey Raptor 1 (more strat-like than their current weirdly voluptuous and sorta Jaguar-like models) (my first real guitar) that I've had about two months. It definitely seems like the best low-cost amp that I've tried out (though I never did get around to trying a Peavey amp). It's sufficiently loud to annoy the neighbors, though I don't know about gigging (wouldn't dream of it at my current skill level). Would I buy one again? You bet.

Bought used in '94. Probably an early '92 model.
Versatile little PRACTICE amp.
All the features listed by others. It has all the features/power you would ever need/want for a PRACTICE AMP.

Play an early '90's MIM Strat, 2000 Big Apple Strat, and a cheap little acoustic through it. Not all that noisy. Good enough for playing in the den or bedroom, or jamming with my friends. This amp is NOT a tone machine, it is a PRACTICE amp.

Extremely dependable. Dropped on several occasions. Keeps on playing. This amp has been neglected and it keeps on playing.

Don't know.

10 YEARS PLAYING TIME. CURRENTLY OWN A PEAVY CLASSIC 30 LOADED WITH A CELESTION GREENBACK AND A '64 GIBSON GA-175 RECORDING 2X10. DON'T THINK I'D BUY ANOTHER PRACTICE AMP UNLESS I GOT A DEAL ON A MARSHAL CD AMP JUST SO I COULD USE THE CD INPUT. LOVE THE DEPENDABLILITY OF THE AMP. IT'S NOT A STAGE AMP, IT IS A PRACTICE AMP!!!

I have owned two of these amps. The first one was made in the early 90's the latter in the mid 90's. This amp wasn't really meant to be "versatile". I feel that any amp can suit an array of styles with a pedal or two. This amp has two channels, clean and overdriven both switchable from a small push button on the front of the amp. If anyone reading this were to be considering buying one of these I would definitely say you should save up your lunch money and pick up the one with reverb. That was the only "effect" that this amp really should have. This amp is not meant for gigging or playing in any sort of band situation. It is good for jamming along with friends or practising your chops. So power is not really an issue. As far as features go this amplifier does well for it's price range, though I still say pick up the reverb version. I give it a 9 because it fulfills it's purpose in this area but doesn't have reverb.

I used a Charvel/Jackson strat-style guitar with EMG pickups and a Kay strat-style guitar as a beginner. My music style at that time was mostly overdriven Tony Iommi, James Hetfield, Dave Mustaine sort of riffage and leads. It seemed to fit this style well though it is hard to play along with someone on a song that goes from clean to heavy, heavy to clean because of no footswitch capabilities. The clean channel distorted a bit at high volume but it is a 12 watter. The overdrive was quite good. It did tend to make some of my chords muddy and less defined but this is always going to vary between guitars and pickups. The amp was loud for it's size and is very fun for jamming.

As I mentioned earlier I have owned two of these amps. The first one just wouldn't come on one day and when I took it to be serviced they said the circutry was burnt. I was running a Boss distortion pedal through it with the wrong adapter and the pedal crashed too so I presume that was the problem. The second one has been in use for about seven years. I kept it until about 1996 and then sold it to a friend. He uses it constantly and seems to be happy. So they seem to be dependable but this amp is not for gigging. I'll give it a seven here because I'm not sure that the first amp wasn't the cause of it's own demise.

I've never had to contact the company since we have an amp tech in my town. The plus side is that Crate is an american company so if you ever had to contact them it would probably be easy enough.

I have been playing for eight years. I don't own this amp anymore but enjoyed it when I needed it. I now have a Crate DX-212 Digital Modeling amp now. I loved that amp at the time and was thankful for it. I was only about fourteen when I first started out on the guitar. My parents weren't rich and I was young. I used these amps because they weren't bad for the money and it was a good starter amp. It's a shame that some audiophiles shun Crate. Because they do make a well-priced quality product. Just because it doesn't say Marshall or Fender doesn't mean it's not any good. If you've got a hundred dollars and need an amp go ahead it's a good place to start and later if you get a more powerful, more expensive amp you can always leave this one in the bedroom for those late night practice sessions!! :-)

This is a '99 edition amp. I wish I would have sprang a few more dollars and got the GFX 15 with reverb, but none the less this is the one I have. It has one channel and no foot switch connection. It does however have a headphone jack and a jack to piggy back it to other amp or PA. I use this amp at all my concerts. It has enough power for what I need it for.

I use a Lotus Les Paul copy with this amp and I am pleased with the sounds it makes. I wish there a more crunch on the distortion side but it still sounds good. This amp suits my style nicely. The clean channel can produce a good varierty of sounds from a nice high tone for soloing to a low bassy sound for banging out power chords. Overall a good amp for the money.

I have used this amp exclusively for the past year. It hasn't even whined at me. Very Reliable!

Haven't needed it

I bought a CRATE because a friend of mine had one and it was awesome. If I lost this amp, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one. I am really impressed with this amp. And to the haters on the small Crate amps....... BITE ME!!!

Well, You can plug your guitar into and turn it up and down. It's two channels, but it's a pain to hit the switch between songs, or as I prefer to play, a couple measures of a whole crapload of intros.

I'm running my Fender strat with original pickups through it, and it sounds okay. If you're trying to play with a set of drums or anything, this isn't for you, which is why they call it a practice amp. You don't need it very loud to practice. 1/4 up does the trick for me. Clean sounds alright at what I play it,but I'ce never tried turning it up, so who know's. If you've got the distortion all the way up, it's pretty hard to make out a tune if there's a lot of single string notes. But if you mess around with the gain and tone, you can fix that.

Comfortable seating, great for channeling your aggression, if you want to try to brak it, you might as well try an "unbreakable comb" while you're at it.

If I had a strong enough explosive, just maybe, I'd have to deal with them, but if not, I guess I'll never know.

It's a practice amp. The Idea is, you carry it around, practice wherever you godrop it bang it in to a few things, and still sounds bearable so I like it.

made in 98. this amp suits my style well(rock and harder stuff).this thin has nothing but a cord and a speaker its a beginners amp what ya expect.it has two channels(clean distorted).non footswitched.you have to push a button on the amp and its rather annoying.also has a speaker and headphone jack.i wish it had reverb.i ONLY use this amp to practice BY MY SELF.if there is someone in the room talking you cant hear the damn thing.its decent for a 12 watter but come on.

actually this amp sounds decent on clean i dont know why people say the clean sounds bad .when matted with a zoom-gfx 707 its not half bad. the guitar i use is and electra(westone) les paul custom 1980 model this guitar is friggin bad ass.im also gonna get a squier double fat strat both with dual humbuckers.but there is one big complaint the distortion sounds like a constipated man taking a crap.this amp has good mid range pretty decent high but man the lows are horribly muddy.the distortion is better at low volume with low range at 5.

this thing is very tough and built VERY well.i wouldnt ever take it to a gig you might as well not bring an amp.

never dealt with

ive been playing guitar for half a year(i have a good ear though). i have a zoom 707 pedal,elecrta lp guitar(bad ass)1980 model, and i also have a rogue bass(by fender).if that amp was stolen id just laugh at the man who stole it. im gonna buy a crate gfx 65 (check review also).i like the fact that it weighs nothing.i hate the distortion.i didnt compare it to anything because the guitar store guy said "its a good beginners amp" being stupid then i really didnt think this amp wasnt very good.but i give it a six

Not sure what year. I don't know why people give this little amp a bad rap. It's a practice amp!! I think some peopel expect way too much outta this thing. Anyway it has 2 channels and an external speaker jack as well as a headphone jack. Standard practice amp...

It sounds good distorted and clean. I like it. No big deal or anything.

Never used it.

Good PRACTICE amp. People who diss this amp should read more closely into what they are buying.

Just the typical solid state practice amp setup...nothing more...nothing less.

I have tried this thing with multiple guitars with multiple pickup configurations, and man...its pretty horrible. The sound I go for is an AC/DC kind of crunchy distortion, which this thing is just NOT suited for. Is it just me or does this thing sound like it's stuck behind a brick wall. It just won't open up. Ive tried playing though some pedals into this amp(Fab Tone, Zoom 505), but the clean channel is really bad, so the effects dont help. Save yourself the trouble and buy sumpin else...unless you're into the dark/heavy metal thing, which i guess might sound ok on this amp.

Ive only been playing for 2 years, but I know what sound I want and how to get it, and this amp just doesn't fit into the picture. I got this amp because the dealer threw it in when I bought my first guitar. I didn't know any better, and I think the dealer just wanted to get rid of the damn thing. I will soon be selling this thing and buying a Fender Princeton 65 and a pedal or two.

DECENT AMP BUT THE CLEAN SOUNDS SHITTY (NO REVERB) 2 CHANNEL IT CRANKS FOR A 12W GOOD 4 METAL AND SOME BLUES

I GOT AN EPIPHONE LES PAUL HOLLOW BODY AND THAT WHAT MAKES THIS AMP TOLERABLE. DISTORTION IS ACTUALLY OK AT HIGH VOLUMES

I CRANK THE HELL OUT OF THIS THING AND IT LOVES IT

DONT TALK TO EM

BEEN PLAYING FOR ALMOST 3 YEARS AND HAVE HAD THIS 4 ABOUT 1.5 YEARS. ID NEVER BUY AGAIN BECAUSE IM NOT A STARTER ANYMORE. IM GETTIN A MARSHALL MG 215 RCD. IF YOU PAY 100$ FOR THIS I PITY YOU. I WISH IT HAD SOME CHORUS AND REVERB. I ACTUALLY SOUNDS DECENT WITH A FAB TONE

The features have been mentioned 45 times if not more already, so I'll skip it. I play whatever, but mostly soft rock. I just wish it had a master volume knob.

I have a strat imitation model. Pretty crappy guitar, but the sound isn't too bad coming outta the amp, so I guess it ain't too bad. I have a ZOOM 505 connected between the crate and my guitar, so i actually just like to leave all the settings at eq.

no one would use a 15watt or is this a 12watt i'm not sure, but yeah, no one would an amp this size in a gig. but haven't it moved in and out of my dorm room, and having it sat in a wet cardboard box for a while..i guess its pretty reliable.

I've been playing the guitar for almost 3 years, but only as a hobby. This is the first amp I've owned. People say its good for beginners and i guess that's true, since its not expensive and pretty decent overall. I have it in my dorm room in college, so its size is good. I think it suites me well, but I'm looking to get a "real" amp sometime in the near future.

The only saving grace of this thing is the fact that it has two channels, but that's available on other amps that sound a whole lot better than this one.

I've been using this thing with a brand new fender strat with the orignal pickups. I play mostly rock and roll, and the sound out of this amp just doesn't cut it. The clean channel sounds thin and distorts like mad at anything over 5, and the distortion channel is way too harsh for what i'm looking for. My fender squier-15 practice amp just walks all over this thing.

Well, this thing's been all over the state of indiana with me, and it's been dropped and kicked and everything else. I kinda wish it would have broken, but it still works just like the day i got it. I guess i could use it without a backup, but personally, i wouldn't use it at all given another choice.

I've been playing for about 5 or 6 years now, i've also got a fender squier-15 practice amp, which is a much, much better unit. I'm currently looking to upgrade to a half-stack because i just can't get the sound i want out of a little piece of crap like this

It's pretty decent for a practice amp.

I play almost anything on that one. I use Ibanez RG520, RG570, Ibanez Custom (I bought the parts from Hoshino and assembled it by a luthier), Clean sound kind of stale and artificial. Distortion sound is very good, not brutal, but has that distinctive roar (I think it is much better than a Fender Bullet or Bronco with the same wattage). I usually set the gain up to 10, then the volume knob on 3-4, it sings.

Probably, but I will not use it for gig or during a band practice.

Never did.

Most people say that this is a beginner's amp. I beg to differ. I've been playing for 15 yrs, and I use this for private practice. I have Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier head with 2 4x12 Mesa Celestion Vintage 30 speaker cabs, Mesa/Boogie Mark IV head with Mesa Celestion Greeback half-stack. Iv'e tried many pracice amp with the same specs but I wasn't convince. Crate GX15 stands out from any of them

pretty basic features. Got this thing when i started out with my guitar 2.5 years ago and its great for just that, beginners. Nothing special, just the basics.

I prefer playing heavy metal/alternative and this thing just doesnt cut it at high volumes. Cant stand the crackling noises and even when its not distorted it sounds pretty harsh.

This thing could survive a bomb blast. Wouldn't want it as my backup at a gig though. but it handles the stress test very nicely. 2.5 years and going and not a problem with it.

never needed any cuz it wont break

Great for beginners, and maybe jamming with a friend or something, thats about it.

This amp waz made in the early 90s. 1x8, 12w, overdrive (Crap), clean
i play metal mostly and some soft rock, it is ok for some aplications but if you are using the overdrive al it is your NuTTS. clean is ok when level is under 5.

i use a Jackson ps-4 performer and an old washburn lyon, the jackson with 2 humbuckers and the lyon with hum, sing, sing comf. the jackson sounds ratty and distorted in the clean, shitty in the overdrive, the lyon sounds very full and rich with tone (if at low volume) in the clean and ratty and just not potent in the overdrive.

god this amp will never break (exept when i blew the overdrive when hooking up to my metal zone pedal) but the strang thing is that the overdrive started working agian after a while (wierd) overall it is a tank.

never delt with them

i have been playing for about 3 years and i started out with this bad boy and if i could go back i would buy it agian. it is great for a little practice in you room type deal. but after you learn and stuff you just got to move on. and get a bigger rig. i dont know what all these reviews are talking about, what do they expect from a 12 watter anyway they are just cheap skates. they are talking about a practice amp not a half stack. what do they expect, of course it is not going to sound good at high volumes it is not an amp for that just practice not full out jamming.

this is an update to a previous review, recently.

i'm liking it more as i use it more though i have discovered with the volume on 10 it sounds very ugly. clean is horrid - chords fart when turned past 5 - possibly speaker (probably).
Tone i've matched
Santana - Smooth (Boogies, Marshall, fender)
Hendrix - fire, little wing (Fender, GT, Matshall, whatever else)
incubus - all (Trem O Verb)
System of a Down - all (Triple recto)
TooL - all (Triple recto, Diezel, Marshall)
Rage Against the Machine - all (Marshall)
Staind - all (Marshall)

To my ears they match perfectly. I have good ears but not good money, or else I would by a Trem o Verb or Diezel - yummy!

if you are willing to spend some time with it, you'll get whatever tone ya want. but then again why would someone spend time with something they don't like - unless they have to.

I mainly play the blues and this amp is pretty good for that, though the overdrive when used at maximum is pretty hard to handle. It's clean tone is nice, but could use a little reverb in my opinion. This practice amp has, besides the input, a jack for headphones and for an extra speaker, but it doesn't really work with anything other than another 15 watter. I've used this amp for about 4 years straight, just practice, and it holds up pretty good. Some of the knobs, like for the bass, treble, and middle are missing, but have been replaced with some retro knobs (not permanent).

I mainly go for double humbuckers, which is on my Harmony and my Les Paul copy, but I do have Cort Strat-copy that has a humbucking bridge. This amp is good with the humbuckers because, in my opinion it accentuates that creamy sound associated with them, but I like to turn everything to zero and leave the treble on ten to get a real raunchy, muddy sound. When I do this with the Harmony, it could almost sound like Townshend on LIVE AT LEEDS, just with 15-watts. I consider myself a blues player, and this amp does help with the raunchy stuff, but it kind of lacks on the softer playing. I discovered at least 10 different tones, but I only really got them from messing with the bass, treble, mid switches. HAVE FUN DISCOVERING YOUR OWN!!! The clean channel needs a lot more reverb, it sounds kind of flat and non-resonant. The distortion is just intolerable. You have to watch out with this. The feedback is relentless and you can barely get a clear note in, but who the hell's going for clean here.

I've never had any problems with this amp as a practice amp. I doubt if it would be good for gigs, but I can play for hours at a time without any problems (ie crackles, buzz, breakoffs). The amp has been good to me, all I've ever done to it was let it get a little dusty!

I've only been playing seriously for about 4 years, and this as been my amp for all of that. I am trying to sell this to get something a little bit more powerful. If I could possibly make a trade let me know, but I'm not trading for another practice amp, this would be like a few bucks off a 100-watter. I think this was the best amp I could start out with, it is great for starting guitar players, because it has a lot of options, for a starter, on it (bass, treble, distortion) and is would help a lot in the development of a starting players style.

who cares when this piece of crap was made. 12 watts into a 1x8 speaker. two channels(distortion and clean. well, duh) and both channels share the eq. DONT BUY THIS PIECE OF CRAP!

I use an Ibanez rx-20 with emg's in it. this amp,..well, it basically sucks Janet Reno hard. distortion sucks at high volume, clean just sucks anyway. just get $300 and buy a Line 6 POD

jesus. i threw this thing out my window and it didnt die. i have kicked it and it didnt die. very dependable, but it is 12 watts, so dont gig with the thing

never dealt with them

good god. if you want a beginners amp, dont get it. dont be a cheap skate and pay the extra $20 and get a fender.

two channels, unfortunately not foot switchable, but it is a beginner amp. no effects not even reverb, darn. lovely headphone jack. blew me out of the water as far as power, but maybe I shouldn't play in the bathtub. super portable wish all the "better" stuff I have now was as portable as that little amp.

Ibanez rg270 yeah,nice'n'crunchy, used to add marshall bluesbreaker peadal for extra sweetness, nice metal sound just not through that 8-inch speaker

very dependable, it would be the backup. never broken but took it apart anyways

If stolen something like it would be ok

It has 3 little equalizer knobs, to master volume knobs, and a little button that makes distortion happen.

I use an Ibanez RX-40 Crapmaster Plus, and it sounds fine on the amplifier. I play a style of music known as "tabs that are easily found on the internet," and the GX-15 suits me pretty well... I play in my dorm room, so I didn't want anything loud (it's only 12W)... The distortion is thick, and the clean is quite nice. However the speaker can't support bass at high levels. It starts making an unpleasant farting noise.

It hasn't chipped or broken, but when I plugged my roomate's bass into a bass amp, and then plugged THAT into the GX-15 (I did that because the Crate has more low end than my $10 Rogue does), some chip inside blew up. So don't do that. Other than that it's swell.

I went and got it fixed after the bass incedent and didn't pay a dime thanks to the warantee. They fixed it good.

I've been playing for about a year, and this amp is perfect for beginners like me. It has nice distortion, and gets loud enough to make your dog wince when he walks to close to speaker. So, if you're a pro or something, don't by this as a practice amp. If you're a beginner, I highly recommend it.

I've found rat tirds with more features. they have been covered below

This is the first amp i ever bought. I purchased it about 9 years ago. It has a terrible clean sound. May as well plug your guitar in to a radio shack stereo. The overdrive sounds like a mix between overdrive and fuzz. That gives it a really muddy low end and the speaker doesnt help. If you are looking at this as a gift for a beggining guitar player spend the extra $25 and buy one of the small fender or ibanez amps.

This is the funniest thing about this amp. Crate made one of the worst sounding amps in the gx15, but it is very reliable. It has fallen down a flight of stairs (I may have pushed it) I tried to kill this thing when i was younger, but to no avail. It's like that big bully in school. It taunts you and laughs at you, and you can't kill it no matter how hard you try

If you only have a hundred to spend there are other amps out there for just a bit more and they all sound better.

it says in all the other columns.......

I use a Samick with one hum. and two singles it sounds decent for a samick but I still it. I guess it suits my style ok.I get lots of radio interference when in overdrive no matter what I do and it feeds back if you turn it up. It has terrible distortion but the clean sounds amazing until you turn it up past 7 or 8.

I've totally gutted this thing many times just because of sheer boredom and it still works like new, it holds up excellently

never dealt with them, nor do I care to, if it ever did break (doubtful) then I would pitch it. The warrenty is 5 years on the electronics and 1 on the speaker, good warrenty

I haven't been playing long but I can see that this amp sucks, I would never replace this amp, I the distortion , and I crate they suck

1x8in speaker, 15w, 3-band universal EQ, volume for Overdrive and Clean channels, ext. spk. jack, headphone jack, power switch (ooohhh aaahhh). Many amps have much more, but for an amp only about a foot in width it has enough.

I use a Fernandez LE-2 which I would rather have than a Fender any day and I have been able to get every sound I wanted from it. I can get exclusive Rage a TooL sounds. I've even found settings for seperate songs in conjunction with which pickups I'm using (which are 3 single coils). It's not hard at all to get the sound I want. I've also been able to get that Limp Bizkit sound (though I hate them). Its reasonably loud for its size, but it doesn't make too much of a difference when going from 5-8 or so on the volume. Never use clean channel, I would just mute it in a certain way to get a nice "clean" sound on the overdrive - If I ever wanna play clean I just use my acoustic. Once I started turning the volume and gain past 6 it feedbacks REALLY easily which sucks. There is pleanty of noise (which could partially be due to the fact that I can see one of those towers (that supposedly warn or prevent planes from getting to close to ground) from my house). The single coils don't give me any noticeacle hum (which could be because it is drowned out by the main hiss and radio chatter).

No problems with it ever.

never called em.

As a practice amp it depends on the player. A newbie could easily be satisfied, but a seasoned tube-junky would typically reject it. I personally think there are much better practice amps out there (Vox, Marshall, specifically) and those are around 20-50 dollas more. I think I have used it to its full potential and am ready to buy a new amp (I've had it for more than 3 years).

Clean, Overdrive, Equalizer, Headphone Jack, Output Speaker Jack. That's it. Not real complicated, not too bad. Don't need a footswich, I run through a processor and controll everyting from there. Set it on clean and go from there. NOt bad for $80.

Pretty good overdrive channel. The thing that shines through everything is the clean channel. Beautiful. It can go pretty high before distorting, (7-8) Distortion is pretty disappointing, I don't need to use it though.

It's a damn tank. I'm a big guy and use it for a stool all the time.

I dunno.

Excellent for a practice amp. I run it through a huge P.A. system with a 600 watt power amp thanks to the line out. It pulls through.

They're all listed below. Not many.

This amp sounds terrible. I know the price is small, but I knew it sucked when I had it, and I was assured of how terrible the tone was when I got a Marshall tube amp. I hated the thing. No consistency with tone. But it was only 70 and a first amp.

I hate Crate overall. They are not professional. The amp was terrible, terrible, terrible. To get a certain tone, I could only get "near", with my Marshall, I have the tone. But there is a huge price difference. Tone is all that matters.

This amp is 15-20 watts. Several different styles of this amp were produced. Basically, it has a built in overdrive, a headphone jack, and a speaker jack out. It's pretty limited.

The overdrive effect is great, especially considering how small of an amp it is. And despite it's rebuke, I really like the volume and bass tones it puts out (of course, I don't use the original speaker).
This is the loudest 15W amp I have. Nice metal sounds.
But then there is the hissing sound that it puts out whenever you try to plug a stack/cabnet to it. It is unplayable. It also feedbacks pretty easily.

The jack input is loose and the controls are cheap plastic. I blew out the original speaker and had it replaced with a much better 8 incher. This is a practice amp, don't expect any more from it.

I play using a Crate Electra. I've tried other guitars through this amp and it just can't get anything close to great out of it. But for the price I didn't really expect to. But it's a good backup practice amp for my Roland DAC-15 (35W). I love to connect this crate to the roland and together they crank out an awesome sound that can make you deaf.

It's got input. It's got output. There's even some EQ and distortion. Otherwise it ain't got much (not even a freakin' pedal). I bought it at a pawn shop about 3 years ago.

I play R&R, ragtime, blues, folk (and just about anything else) with a '50's Silvertone Meteor hollow-body with 3 humbuckers; this little bastard clips everything at any level. I thought maybe just the driver sucked, and ripped the actual amplifier out of its cabinet and installed it in an old ammo case to drive a "14 Heath speaker. Now it just sucks louder. The distortion's fine, I guess - sounds distorted to me. The EQ is OK, but anything above 5 distorts too badly to be useful.

I've dropped it, thrown it, gutted it, I could probably burn it and the damned thing would keep pumping out its distorted noise. I've used it as a bass amp (with the Heath driver) at gigs, and it actually sounded OK. It didn't break anyway.

If it broke, I wouldn't waste the money to call them.

I'll probably keep it in case I wind up playing street corners for loose change; I'm sure it could take it. It looks freakin' cool in it's ammo case, anyway. I'm buying an old Ampeg B25b to replace it. If nothing else, I've learned to never waste my money on a cheap crap amp again.

just your basic practice amp two channels...abot all you can exspect in this price range

if you have a cheap guitar its noisy as hell..my friends squire pics up mexican radio stations..but its no problem for me and my fernandes with active pickups...the distortions beter than most at this price..i tried a kustom,rocktron,and peavy and this had the better overall sound quality

this is my second crate ive never had problem with them..im runing a zoom 1010 through it an it sounds like the speaker will pop but after several months it hasnt

never had to deal with them..but local stores dont seem to have any problem with honoring the warrany..from what ive heard

ive been playing for over 15 years and just bought this to replace a g60gt that was stolen.i bought it for the price..its about all you can expect out of a practice amp...im running a zoom 1010 through it so it sounds fine to me..its enough to get you bye til you get the money for a bigger amp..ill be replacing it with a gfx212 this month

It is a small practice amp, 2 channels, headphone jack, 3 band eq, ext. speaker out, 12 plus watts and an 8 inch speaker. You cant get more out of a practice amp, so it serves its purpose well.

I use an Epiphone SG400 and the clean is really nice accually. The distortion is noisy (bad epi pickups) but sounds surprisingly well. If you put the bass on 10, mid at 0, and treb at 6-7 you can get a great hardcore/metal sound (well for a practice amp anyway) The clean distorts at about 8, and the distortion cant go past 7 for fewar of horrible horrible feedback

Its solid state, its crate, nuff said

cant say

Id say it is a GREAT first amp. I got it to satisfy my need for an amp before i get a half stack ( i just got a job, im saving) Ive been playing for 5 years and it is the best little amp ive heard. For the price you CANT go wrong

Made in 1998. It's your basic, el-cheapo practice amp; sooner or later, you'll outgrow it no questions asked.

It sounds better than the little Peaveys, but the old Fender 15-watters blow it away all afternoon. For $100 new, what do you expect?

This thing doesn't really get the sound that I wanted on clean, and the distortion just sucks compared to a decent stompbox. It doesn't get very loud (I think the 12 watts is optimistic), and doesn't push much air.

Still, if you're poor, it's better than one of the cheap 9v-powered beasts, even if the speaker will start getting static-y after a few months.

It's a Crate; no matter how much you hate it, it just won't die. I remember my last Crate amp before the GX15 (some 80s equivalent to this one), and it made an admirable extra seat at parties, and no matter who sat on it, what stairs it got kicked down, or who tried to be rock god on it, it never quite died.

No idea; I haven't ever managed to kill one.

It's a cheap, American practice amp. It doesn't do Marshall, it doesn't sound like a Fender, and the main selling point is that it isn't a Peavey.

It sits in my closet just in case my real amp dies, but I don't expect to need it any time soon.

1999. has a pretty basic tone, good for the basics of any music i guess except metal. two channels clean and distortion with a button to change them (no footpedal). it has a headphone jack and a jack to hook it up to a bigger amp. i never use overdrive cuz i got a Boss PW-2 Power Driver (great pedal) plus the overdrive on it sucks. I use it for practice thats what its for. there is definately not enough power or controls for me cuz i like metal and this thing gets really weak sounding at anything near a high volume. its a solid state.

I use a Fender Squier Standard Fat Strat but am getting an Ibanez RG270 soon. i will need a new amp too for some good heavy loud music. the clean channel gets a bit distorted at high volumes. the distortion sucks on this thing so bad, don't even get me started.

this thing is good for practising but u might destroy it if u used it for a gig or something plus everybody would hate u if u did that. (thats just not right!) never broken on me though, sounds broken at high volumes (i hate that!)

i've been playing for 3 months and this thing has been good for me but its time to move on (to a fender champion 30, princton 65, or deluxe 90 i hope). if it were stolen or lost i wouldn't get it again unless i was completely broke. this thing is a good beginner amp or practice amp. for the money, very good.

It has ok eq, a really crystal clean clear, clean channell, has a metal head's overdrive channell its good for a solid state practice amp.

I used it through two guitars, a alvarez ae200cs equuipped with humbuckers, and a american standard strat, with the alvarez, it was quiet, even at high volumes, with the strat, it hums only a little bit the over drives can be for begginers blues, or for a metal head

sure you can depend on this amp, Ive abused it, in rain, school bus, loud volumes, everything, it still works as if it were new

Ive never had to deal with crate on repairs, But they are friendly people, Ive ordered catalogs, got manuals and info, and located a footswitch.

This is a great amp, for practice, or if youre a begginner , it is really reliable

Hmmm...I think this amp was made in 1998, I know it was made in the US. It is a solid state 12 watt amp with an 8 inch speaker, no reverb, three mode eq, overdrive channel, headphone jack, ext speaker plug in (why the hell would you use that on an amp this big?).
It is not made for being full of features, it's just a dinky little practice amp that they want the begginning players to buy, and it works. It's exactly what a first time player needs...so I'm going to give it an 8 for features, it would be nice for it to have reverb, I think the do have one with reverb, but why should there be a difference?

I got this amp about a year ago, I play through it with a Mexican Tele, mainly on the lead pickup...I play hard rock (like Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin), also classic rock (Stones, Beatles, ya know), blues (SRV, Allman Brothers, all kinds of stuff) and a lot of other styles, Jazz and stuff. Basically the sound isn't killer but it has taken me a year to figure that out, because I was a semi-novice player then, I have been playing guitar for four years, three years on an acoustic and then last year I started on electric. Now I know what a real amp should sound like, and i am probably going to ditch this, but it is a great amp for anybody who is starting out because it is so easy to figure out and the distortion is pretty good (for a solid state).
By now I don't LIKE any of the sounds, because I am getting a Mesa Boogie which is AWESOME, but the sounds are pretty good, although the clean channel is pretty much crap, it's all sharp and edgy, I am trying to practice rambling man, by the Allman Bros. and it just sounds like shit, so I have to play with distortion turned way down.
To me, now, the sound is crappy, but to someone who is looking for a first time amp, it wouldn't be that bad, so maybe like a 6

I've never played live with it, I have been playing live with my friends Mesa Boogie, and a Lone Star strat that I anm trying out from my uncle and I like that setup, throw in a tube screamer, a wah-wah pedal, and you are pretty much set...but I think you couldn't really play live with it because it is so small..but will probably live forever in your basement, where it will probably stay...so no opinion because, you can't use it live

nope,haven't had to use it, but they don't have a phone number easily handy so I couldn't call them when I wanted to find out about what was wrong one time when I thought the amp was going to blow up, was just something wrong with the power that day, but needless to say I wasn't able to get throught to there customer service because I don't even KNOW IF IT FREAKIN EXISTS!!!

I've been playing for 4 years, and I am playing to soon own a Lonestar strat, and a Hot Rod Deluxe tube amp or one of the Boogie amps, but I'm not sure, I have about a thousand to spend, so I need to start getting some equipment because I am start playing in a band
Anyway, the product is good for a begginer, very good, but get something else if you want a good practice amp, like the Blues Junior by fender, that is a nice amp, like 300 bucks I think

This amp is really easy to use, has 2 channels, overdrive and clean. It has a headphone and external jack on it.

I use a Washburn BT-2 straight into this amp and it just doesn't cut it. This amps distortion is weaker than hell. I like to play alot of metal and this amp can't even come close. It is more like a dirty blues sound when you have the overdrive all the way up. The clean channel really sucks and distorts at 3.

This thing will never break and wouldn't use it at a gig if there was a gig.

Never delt with them.

This amp is definently not made for playing metal or anything like that on it, it is more of a blues amp, the DOD grunge pedal sounded better than this thing and that really sucks.

15 watt, solid-state, 3-band equalizer, two channels (clean & overdrive), headphones & speaker jack. It has a button on the amp to switch channels but no footswitch
very limited and unpowerful but that's what every practice amp is so that's why it's okay.

I use a fender strat (3 single coil pickups). Its overdrive channel is rather weak and fuzzy and it does squeal a bit at high levels of output so i recommend getting a distortion pedal to overcome that problem. I don't really have a problem with the clean channel.
Sound quality has dropped a lot after two years of solo practices and a year of band practice. it's not loud enough to be heard over drums

Crate amps are built like tanks but I've been using mine very heavily so the sound quality has gone down quite a bit. I would never use it at a gig (even at a small one) cos it just can't handle heavy usage.
the amp is a practice amp and i only recommend it for that use.

Never dealt with them

I've been playing for about 3 years and i guess this is an okay practice amp. it served me well for a few years. If I lost it i wouldn't buy another cos i'm already trying to replace it with something bigger. I would try to find a cheap one or something else that can withstand frequent rehersals.

Clean/overdrive switch, and that's it really! 15Watts A footswitch can be fitted, but the circuit has to be changed. Find a decent guitar shop who'll do it for you - it'll be worth it!

Excellent! The best hard-rock distortion you can get for a small amp. Clean channel is fine, but try plugging it up to a PA or large speaker system, that's when this little baby comes into a league all of its own! The sound is brilliant and immense!

Sturdly built, survives gigging and jamming well. No problems so far.

Never had to.

An excellent start out amp, for those who wanna rock! The king of all practise amps, definitely!
I'm serious, i cant understand all the others who hate it - are you rubbish guitar players or something... remember a bad workman always blames his tools!!
only kidding chaps.
If you find it second hand, and you want to play hard rock / metal stuff, pick it up immediately!!!

12 watt practice amp with 8" speaker, no footswitch which is a pain For the price of a pedal, what do you expect?? I think it delievers well as a practice amp.

After looking around for a cheap practice amp <$150, this was the best buy I found. It was a very nice clean tone right out of the amp until it is turned up past 6 or so. I use my RP-1 for clean sounds and it is very nice. The distortion is not as bad as everyone says. I have a Metal zone and use a nice Kramer guitar and cant seem to get a better sound using the pedal. I can get some better sounds using the RP-1 though. I am very happy with this amp. It is more your fingers than the guitar and amp and this amp puts out a standard rock sound that is noisy at times if the gain is too high or if the amp is idle. It is only a practice amp, but is perfect solution for my apartment. I got tired of wearing headphones and trying to play Van Halen. Dont even try to compare this to a real amp as this the the cheapest Crate they had at the Crate dealer. I havent had a chance yet to turn this amp up super loud, but i keep it on 2.5/3 and it is loud enough for me to start worry about the apartment neighbors (middle floor). The amp has good string definiton and is not mushy although the distortion can be chunky instead of smooth if the gain is too low. THE HEADPHONE JACK SUCKS!!! I cannot get a good sound at all from the jack using good Sony and awia headphones, but from the speaker I am happy. I have been playing for awile and liked this amp enough to buy it because of the sounds. Flex tube technology sounds great, as I played other practice amps that had no personality, this one has a voice and doesnt sound like a solid-state turd.

Looks very reliable. Great warranty.

Dont know yet..

I have a Wolfgang Special and a Kramer Nightswan and a RP-1 and Metal Zone and a Fender Blues Deluxe. The Fender is too loud to play, in fact it is almost new condition as it is too loud. I was tried of playing through my rockman and headphones from the RP_1 and bought the Crate. Anyone is a fool to spend more than $150 on a practise amp. You can get a awesome amp like 5150 head for around $400 on the net. But if you want to practice and work on your skills, then the amp doesnt matter as much as getting a good basic rock sound which this amp delivers. This amps distorts and does things my main Fender amp cant do, so this is worth the $100 I paid. i am happy. Needs a footswitch. I thought the non reverb amp sounded better and want worth the extra 20-30 dollars.

this amp was made in 92. dont expect to use it on a gig. its a nice practice amp. its good for punk and crap like that but if you wanna play anything good blues or anything it will sound average. it has 2 channels, no footswitch, no fx loop, it has a headphone jack. 1 8inch speaker with 12+ watts

im using an ephiphone g-400 custom (3 humbuckers) and a zoom 505 pedal. it gets noisy w/out the pedal after about 5 on clean and 8 on distortion. the clean distorts around 7. the distortion is weak as hell but i dont use it.

it is a good practice amp for sitting up in your room and just playing by yourself. your an idiot if you use it at a gig cause it doesnt get very lout at all. ive never had any problems with it

never had to deal with them cause its pretty reliable.

its not bad. if your looking for a good practice amp this one is ok. i have a fender princeton 112 that i use for gigs (its too loud for practice). i probably wouldnt buy it again if it got stolen. its better than a fender frontman 15. i wish it got louder and didnt distort. bottom line -- its ok for just practicing.

Amp made in 1990. It's great for plying all kind of styles, I play rock, blues and some heavier rock and it works perfectly. It has only one channel, with a basic overdrive distorion that is pretty good for playing any style since it has level and gain knobs. I wish it had a foot controler for the distorion but it's ok since I don't use it very often. I use him in rehearsels, for practicing and gigs in small places, but I could use it in any other gig, it has a really loud sound! It's considered to be a practice kind of amp (only because of its size), it's solid state, mono with a 8' Crate Custom Speaker, and it's in the manual that it is a 17 watt amp but in the back says 30, and its not the power consume!

I use two models I had made where I live: a strat with strat-similar pickups and another PRS body/Gibson Hawk neck with two DiMarzio pickups (Super Distortion and PFL). It sounds great with both of them, I plug my guitars on a Digitech RP6 before the amp obviously and i set the amp's volume on 7 and the RP6's main on 3 it is loud as hell! And very clean sound! It doesn't get messed up even when I put it both on 7, it still sounds like a clean tele jazz.

I used it on a few gigs with a medium-high volume set and it never let me down. I never had to play more than one gig at a night, so my experience it's not that big. I have it since 1991 and I never had to send it for repair or anything. I wouldn't use it on a gig for more than 300 people without a backup.

Never needed.

I've been playing guitar for about 7 years now, it's my first and my only amp, I wouldn't buy it again if stolen, but I would certanily buy another (more powerful this time) amp from Crate. I love it's clean lound sound, I think it's the first thing to check on an amp. One again, I wish it had a foot controler for the distortion and an Effects Loop input, so I could use the RP's preamp only. I compare it to a 30 watt Marshall, same features and the Crate just blowed the Marshall away, 'cause it has a cleaner, louder sound and it was cheaper! By the way, I bought here in Brazil, so in US i must be around 100 bucks or something. If you're looking for a practice and rehearsel amp , this could be the one. There's no problem using it on a full band rehearsel it's loud enought.

2 channels, headphone jack ect... One EQ so it sucks.

I use a Jackson KingV with EMG pickups and play mostly metal. Its noisy at all volumes and settings. You cant get any sounds that are even close to average. My acustic guitar is way louder than this crap. The distortion is weaker than my grandma. Petals make this thing sound even worse cause after about volume 1 it gets to the point where you think its going to blow up.

It will never break

i dont know

First of all the guy who steals this amp has to be a complete moron. If I caught him I would thank him. I got a Crate Blue Voodoo BV-120 head and a 412 cab with celestions now and its AWESOME. Its probably safe to say this is the worst amp in the world. Wait a minute , those samick craps are even worse. This thing SUCKS. DONT GET IT!!!!!