Crate PowerBlock Head

The usual Fender-type options on the front panel plus a fair amount of hook-up options on the rear. See the other reviews or the net for deatiils; I prefer to write about its tone.

I've written for guitar magazines for years and am a working pro blues musician.

Simply remarkable if you're not a heavy-metalhead. If you are, you'll have to experiment to see if it fits the bill. For pop, blues, country, jazz, etc. it's quite good. For dedicated blues it superb. Put the gain on 11 or 12 o-clock for some fairly clean crunch and fatness.
KNow this: With a good cab, it's the greaest value ever--not to emtion the fact that it's a big as a small loaf of bread and weighs under 5-lbs. It abisoltely murders the DrZ Mini-Z and the Orange Tiny Terror. I sold my JCM900 the day after I bought this.

With Humbuckers, go up to 12 o'clock on the gain. With single-coils, try 1:00. It's quite loud.

Perfect so far and I now gig with it leaving a basement full of other amps at home. It sounds great and weighs nothing so it's wonderful for working pros.

Note that if you use two 4-ohm cabs, she might cycle on and off due to the variability of impedance in the real word; some 4-ohm cabs will drop to 2-ohms at certain frequencies. This is the protection circuit at work warning you to change the load. Do not bridge (for the 150 watt max) into anything less than 8 ohms.

I've tried to contact Crate repeatedly. Even when I told them in writing who I was and the magazines I write for, they chose to ignore me so I'm giving them a very poor rating for service. I even tried US mail! I only wanted clarification of a few things in the manual and could reach no one by phone (nasty receptionist) and they never answered my emails. I shudder to think what would happen if I were about to gig and needed advice. You are on your own with Crate.

It's a little miracle so as long as it works, I'm in love!

Features are few. Just a basic head with equilization, pre and post volume. I do like the options on the rear of the amp, like stereo speaker outputs and the bridge to double the power in mono. It's got an MXR out. Wish it had two MXR outs for stereo to go right to a PA mixer. Love it's compactness. Been having the Crate for about 2 years but never used it, until my Bandmaster broke. I normally play with a 1967 silverface Fender Bandmaster head going into an old Peavy Blackwidow 15" speaker and just took the Powerblock along in case the Bandmaster would go belly up at a job.

After divorce, I don't need the headphone jack anymore. I can crank it up. Yeah! But it was nice to have when I was still married.

Way more than enough power. Can be extremely loud.

By itself as a straight amp I would give it about an 8. It is not quite as clean as my Fender. Reasently the Fender developed some rumbling sounds (it's 42 years old). I play through a Digitech GNX4. After learning to tweak GNX4, it turned out to be the best multieffects unit I tried. I have used the output of the GNX4 into a number of amps; Line6, Peavey, other Crate amps and various Fender amps. I loved it plugged into the BandMaster. I started using the Crate PowerBlock while the Bandmaster is getting repaired..WOW. I was blown away by the full and open sound I was getting. I can't believe I am getting that kind of sound of of the GNX4/PowerBlock combination. I am going to compare it with the Bandmaster side by side when I get it back. I may have found my new sound. As of right now I am very happy with it for Blues and R&B.

By itself, I would give the PowerBlock about an 8 for sound. It does everything a simple amp should. It is clean, but not Fender clean. It is very full and warm with the right speaker attached, and it is plenty loud and full enough for up to 200 or 300 people event without being mic'd. Dare I say tube like?

With all that said, I am not using it by itself and never do. In combination with the GNX4, I give it about a 9.5. A lot of the credit goes to the PowerBlock. I have tried the GNX4 in front of quite a few amps. I was a little disgusted with it until I plugged into the Bandmaster and now the Powerblock. It is rich sounding. I am a tone freak. I am always looking for good tone but I keep coming back to this setup. Most other guitarist look at it in disbelief and can't believe the sound that is coming out of this unlikely looking setup.

Feels like a brick. I've dropped it a few times. No problems with it so far. Runs cool to the touch no matter how much I crank it up. I don't think I can hurt it the way I gig with it.

Never had a problem or needed to call on any Crate equipment that I ever owned.

I have been playing semi-professional for about 50 years (gasp!) I like Powerblck / GNXa setup so much I don't want to risk being without the combination of gear. I only paid $78 bucks for this thing. At that price, they are probably throw aways (if it ever broke). I am going to buy a couple more off ebay or where ever I can find them. I am so impressed with the sound in live gigging situaltions that I may just keeping using it even after my Bandmaster comes back from the shop. But I also have to give some credit to the GNX4 I am using it with. I may buy a backup for that as well. I don't give a damn how much or how little something costs. If it sounds good, I want it.

Very nice amp, but all it has is a gain nob, middle, bass and treble, with the necessary level.

People just don't know how to tweak the settings on this thing. I have the crappiest distortion pedal, yet this amp, with some tweaking, turned it into a very thick and brutal distortion.

Without even changing the settings from the distortion settings, If I turn off distortion, the clean sounds nice and rich. Using the bridge pickup, I can get a nice country, twangy kind of sound. If I switch to neck, I get a really thick and rich clean sound that is absolutely magnificent!

Only problem I have ever had is that the level know has a short in it. Other than that this amp is RUGGED!

I have owned this amp for 2 years now, and I have never had a problem with it. I love it to pieces. It's rugged, sounds great, and is amazing for recording, since it has an extra XLR jack for a line out to a mixer, with a seperate level for it. So you can be hooked up to your mixer and be hooked up to the power block cabinet. Wonderful!

Most of the other reviews have captured the few features of this amp. I am a casual player that does not want to invest a ton in a rig, but wants to crank it up with buddies from time to time. This amp is LOUD!

I use this amp with an Ibanez SA-i60 with S-S-H pickups. By itself the amp adds nothing much to sound, but is perfect with my POD 2.0. The POD creates all my tones, and the Power Block cranks out the sounds through my Fender 1x12" cabinet. You need some effects box or pedals to make this Block reach its full potential.

Works fine everytime. I use it mostly in my home setup, and occaisionally drag it over a buddies house. The size/weight make it a pleasure to carry around, unlike most equipment.

Never needed support. The small instruction manual was all I needed.

This amp is perfect for a guitarist with a POD, or similar, effects box, or some pedals. Save some major money and find a used one. Don't know why Crate discontinued thi sline.

This amp was made in 2006 and purchased new by our rhythm guitarist. Our band plays nu-rock as in Chevelle, Seether, Godsmack, etc. This is a one channel amp, which was fine as he uses a Digitech metal pedal for distortion. This amp was used for practice and a couple gigs. The I/O on this little thing is quite extensive and practical. Plenty of power amp output for any situation. The combo stereo line ins/effects loop send/return jacks are nice, don't understand the comments about being speaker emulated because that is not where that is used, it's used on line outputs for DI. I give it an 8 in this category for practicality, fun, and the extensive I/O.

I have owned a Crate GX15 with effects, and a GX120 with effects, and marveled at the gain structure of both, awesome practice amps and the 120 sounded great through a JCM900 cab. THIS AMP SOUNDS ABSOLUTELY AWFUL!! If you are looking for the Flexwave distortion of the GX's, you have no hope here. A light blues drive is all you get, which personally I don't understand. This amp would've been a killer with the gain from the GX series. As far as people commenting about it being close to a tube amp, I completely disagree and here's why. We fiddled and fiddled for an hour trying to get the honk out of this thing(Jackson w/EMG 81,85, Digitech metal pedal, 5150 cab) to no avail. I was sure it was the pedal until, as a last resort, we substituted one of my old VTM120's running as clean as possible for the power amp, going in through the low input. PROBLEM SOLVED!!! 1000% more detail, fullness, and no more honk. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT SOUND. Stop comparing this toy to a tube amp which is not a toy!! This thing is unusable for any kind of heavy rock without pedals, and it's a lottery there 'cause the digitech sounds AWESOME thru the VTM, and CRAP through the powerblock. Sorry, 2 for sound quality.

We've never had any problems with this amp. Tore into it to try to jack up the gain, the construction is average, very thin boards in there but a fairly rugged casing. If I dropped it, I wouldn't be scared of it quitting.

Never had to deal with SLM, the GX120 went down but got stolen by some idiot right afterwards so I've never had to contact them.

I've been playing guitar 36 of my 40 years, and don't play country or jazz, why bother. Jackson dinky reverse no trem w/81,85 wired 18v, Washburn Nuno N4 Padauk, '62 Tele with little '59, Ovation Balladeer, ART SGX2000, 3 Peavey VTM 120's, Peavey Duel, 5150 cabinets, have owned Crate GX15 and 120, Mesa Dual Rectifier, Marshall micro stack and JCM900 standard/vintage cabs, original Danelectro stomps, Digi milk box compressor. Indianapolis is about the deadest town you could imagine for music.
If this amp were stolen, I'd have to replace it because it's not mine. T is a block mason, so I could probably just send him after whoever stole it lol. I'd not own one of these amps, it's tubes or nothing for me. Only one short life, too short to spend using inferior equipment. Like the I/O, would be an ok practice amp if you play blues or standards, possibly alright for some experimental/clean recorded tracks, unless you can find the dist pedal that this amp likes to work with. Great utility piece as others noted, just super crappy sound on its own, though YES I have heard worse. I just don't dig solid state amps, except the Marshall AVT which sounds great but I still wouldn't own that either. I'm going to try as soon as I find my compressor pedal to see what happens when you hit the front end hard. This amp is a good product and a good value, but like I said before, to get pro sound you got to have pro gear. I can't even practice with this thing. Sorry to the guy who dropped $1800 on the Mesa, should've bought a peavey classic 50 and been done with it.
Fun and features=8/gain/sound quality=2= 4 overall

The features have been well covered by earlier submissions. It's simple and straight forward and lets my sound come from my pedals. That's mainly what I bought it for.

Also, I sometimes play in a band or as solo act. This is real easy to schlep around. That's what I'm talking about!

I play an Ibanez 8 string. I like progressive rock, pop and some jam band stuff. That's right, I'm an 8 string player who doesn't really dig metal. I'm running this through two matching Crate 1x12 cabs. For effects I got wah-dist-chorus-delay-reverb.

This amp sounds really cool and surprisingly clean. Tons of volume with no noticeable breakup. I think its one of the best solid states I've owned / played. I like having the two 1x12 cabs. I can take just one cab with me if I'm doing a solo gig or both cabs when jamming with the guys.

I've had it for about 5 months now. No problems at all. Its built very well as many before me have documented.

I had a new Fender Supersonic head and cab before buying the Crate. After replacing a couple expensive tubes in a very short time, I cut my losses and got rid of it. Glad I did and never looked back. Considering the marginal difference in tone, I'll stick with solid state from here on out.

never dealt with them.

I would buy another one if something happened to it down the road. For the price, you can't beat it.

This is your nice, basic amp head. It has more features that one would think first looking at it. Most folks have gone over the basics, 3-band EQ, Effects loop/amp insert, cd in's, line out and headphone jack. It's not channel switching, but that can be gotten around. The size is what's so cool. I assume this is a class D design but don't hold me too that. Look for a lot of class D stuff in future. Especially bass amps.

This area is so different for so many people. I have come to my personal conclusion. If you look at the block diagram in the manual, it seems that everything runs through the speaker simulator all the way to the speaker jacks. No plugged into a cabinet, that sounds a little lifeless. That's a little curious, but there is a solution. The cd inputs go straight into the power amp. With a TRS y-adaptor, you can hook a cable from the ring side of the adaptor, and insert the other (RCA) side into the left cd input. With the speaker simulator bypassed, you have a very useable stand-alone amp. The sound is lively and great and the distortion is around AC/DC territory. With nothing but a simple booster like a LPB or treble booster, you can get some solid metal sounds out of it. I use a MXR Zakk Wyld overdrive and it can really scream. Pod folks could also benifit from using the cd inputs if you can control the master volume from the pod. If I hadn't got this worked out I would have been a little harder on the sound quality score. I use humbuckers and a Les Paul Classic with the 500 ceramics (is that right?) and an SG with Duncans. I'm mainly out for a good crunch and a heavy lead tone. Even with a pretty fair amount of distortion, it's still pretty quiet too.

I would say this thing is pretty bullet proof as long as you observe the speaker impedances. Modern solid state stuff seems very intolerant of this. If you have one cab, use the bridge mode. I'm not quite sure how it would be possible to hurt it otherwise.

Never dealt with Crate/SLM whomever they are now.

Overall this is a neat little amp in a small package. I would most surely troll Ebay for another if it was stolen. I've been though a lot of amps, and this little guy can hang with some pretty nice tube amps I have.

Just as some background I'm 27, been playing for 15 years and teaching for 7, have played on a multitude of amps ranging from cheeeeepo combo's to high-end tube amps.

First off, I bought this for $150 and like it better than any head I've ever played. Do the math... :)

This amp is wonderfully simple, gain, 3 band EQ and level, THAT'S IT. Very simple tone controls, don't really let you mess up the sound. The BEST feature of this amp is just the way it sounds, best emulation I've ever used honestly. I can't seem to get a bad sound out of this thing, I've tried, it always sounds good no matter what I do to the controls.

Also has some very useful back panel and under the hood features. Such as: XLR out and headphone jack both with speaker simulator, a mono 8ohm speaker out and also stereo 4ohm speaker outs, it functions as a 150w power amp (great if you're using a line 6 pod or similar preamp) and has stereo RCA inputs for a mixer or CD player etc. And of course an FX loop (useful for this amp as it comes with no FX) personally tho I like to use it dry. One of my favorite features of this amp is the fact that it's SMALL and LIGHT. Fits nicely in it's little shoulder strap bag, easy to lug around.

I use this with several guitars, but mostly with my Washburn HB35. I play Punk, Blues and hard Rock N' Roll.

The sound is phenomenal in my opinion. Warm, smooth and full tube emulation without the worry of tube maintenance and the weight and size of more expensive heads. The only other amps for me that have compared in sound are heads costing over $1000. I've never played an amp I like BETTER however, for my taste this matches up to anything else I've tried, including the JCM 800 or Crate's more expensive tube heads.

This is not for most metal players to use on it's own, people who expect a really high gain would have to use a distortion pedal. It does get quite heavy tho when you crank the gain, in my opinion it's brutal enough for metal, but I know most would want more. Also the more gain you give it from your guitar or preamp the more it distorts.

The clean sound is nice, if I max the Level and use the gain to reach my peak volume for shows I find this amp stays perfectly clean at a volume loud enough to play over drums. It seems Crate have balanced the gain and level perfectly for all applications. It breaks up around half way which gives me a lot of room for the sound I like which is a crunchy, bluesy, hard rock overdrive, it does this sound amazingly. So if you like hard rock, punk, blues, classic rock etc. this is definitely the head for you.

Also, VERY low noise, nice and quiet even when cranked.

I've had it for a couple years, it's never given me any trouble of any sort at all. I gig all the time with a couple bands, I kick it around at gigs, it's built like a brick and because of it's size it actually does resemble a little futuristic looking brick. All the controls and parts seem really sturdy and not plastic/cheep AT ALL.

Never had to deal with them, once I wrote Crate about the head tho asking why they discontinued it and if they were planning a PowerBlock II. I got a prompt, polite and informative response.

Again, for me it was $150 (with case) for an awesome sounding 150 watt head... can't beat that value.

I love everything about this head, period. If it was lost or stolen I'd replace it right away. In fact I am currently looking for a secondary one to keep at my practice space for guest guitarists and to have as a backup. If you're low on cash but need something loud good and worry free, if you want something that sounds good straight away without the need to "find" your tone, if you need a backup head, if you're tired of carrying your big heavy one, or if you need something to use with a preamp or as a simple 150w power amp... you should buy this head.

really,all of the "features" on this amp are state of the art...and it's LOUD


AND SMALL

this amp only sounds decent when it's played cleanly,but if you want to get REALLY,REALLY heavy metal sounds you'd need a pretty nice distortion or overdrive pedal....which i don't have

i haven't really gone through hell and back with this amp(because i can't get my sound),but because of it's "slim-lined" design i'd say it's pretty sturdy

i haven't had to deal with the customer support,but because this amp has been discontinued(and it'd be hard to get),you can go on crateamps.com and print the user's manual...which is pretty handy

this is a nice amp for traveling(if you prefer cleaner tones),and it's got alot of useful featurs on it...so yeah

it's ok if you're not looking for HEAVY distortion sounds

This is a 150W Solid State power amp designed by SLM Eletronics in St. Louis, MO and manufactured in China.
On the front: Input jack, headphone jack, 5 knobs: Gain, High, Mid, Low, Level
On the back: Mono & R&L Stereo speaker outputs 75W RMS per side -4ohms. w/ a "Bridge Mono" @150W - 8ohms. button. Cd RCA inputs, Output level knob, Line Out XLR jack, Line in stereo or mono/effects loop snd/rtn, power button, AC Line in for the power cord.

The whole thing is smaller than a lunch box, under 5 pounds, and less than a foot wide and 4 inches high.

I think the reviews(and ratings) have been misleading on this piece of equipment so I want to state up-front the purpose for this amp. No it's not for jumping your car, no it's not for powering your auto-body shop welder, no it's not a PA system or a pirate radio staion transmitter, and no it's not a bass amp.

It IS a 150 Watt Stereo Guitar Amplifier. It also has an even more specific design purpose which I will discuss later. I will rate it as such.

Crate built this amp primarily for the "POD Heads". The POD line of electronics by Line 6 is(in case you have been exiled to a 3rd world country) a very cool multi-setting guitar amp modeler and guitar effects box among other things. The Crate Power Block gets the input from POD(or other effects boxes) and boosts it out any one of a hundred different speaker cabinets. This was and is it's primary design function and it does this VERY well. Yes I know it has a lot of other holes for allowing some flexibility. You CAN play a Marshall Stack on the clean channel at a 1 setting all the time too. But it's not it's intended purpose!!! you get my point...

Considering the purpose, the Crate Power Block can be configured to really adds nothing of it's own to the sound being amplified. Great! Excelent! Outstanding! If you are using cabinet/microphone modeling and dial in a Marshall?? 1968 Variac Plexi miked through a Shure?? SM-57 Off Axis with some Big Muff Pi?? and Arbiter?? Cry Baby Wah mixed in, what you don't need is adding another whole set of amplifier characteristics on top of it. The Power Block does a good job of just passing this setup through my Peavey 6505 4x12 cabinet without much else. Yes of course whatever you play it through is going to add some character of it's own but for me this is a great match. The perfect match actually.

I also have a single 12" fender extension cabinet that I use with the Power Block for jamming instead of lugging around the big cabinet. The Fender doesn't do quite as well being transparent. It seems to like the Fender models and is fine with the VOX stuff but it lacks some of the very defined highs needed to cut through when doing metal.
The Power Block runs it like a champ.

The Crate PB does have gain and some EQ and these are great for helping to match up a speaker cabinet with the modeling desired. It is not meant to be "the ultimate tube overdrive amp" or anything of the sort. I use some gain to add a little extra punch over the top of the POD effects sometimes which actually lends itself to some amazing overtones.

The bottom line on sound is that the CPB does an outstanding job of doing it's job, making my POD and effects boxes really, really LOUD.

What you put in to it is exactly what you get out of it, times 150.

It is dependable, seems solid as a couple bricks wrapped together with an aluminum heat sink. I never gig without a backup. Runs cool, even with driven hard, has never clipped on me during performances or gigs.

Firstly I hate most of Crate's products. I have played with several hundred guitarists over the years and I don't know any of them that said "Wow I can't wait to get a Crate amp" For the most part I think they make junk. BUT the Power Block and the newest tube Crate amps in the "V" series seem to exceed expectations. I have tried the "V" series V-33 twin and I love it. It's an entirely different tool than the Power Block I will use both as intended...

I've been playing professionally since I was 13. I am now after 25 years still playing and I love where technology has taken things as much as I love old school tubes. The Power Block is a great amplifier in it's own right for a specific purpose. If you're going to buy one(used since they are out of production) then know what it's good at doing at least. No I'm not going to sell my Fender Twin or my M-80 or my JCM2000, but I love the Crate Power Block and none of these does what it will do. Boost the signal I am putting in it without influencing it. They also don't fit under the seat of your F-150 if you go to the bar after practice... The Power Block does. For $150 you can't ask for more.