Crate PowerBlock Head

New Powerblock head.. single channel, Gain/High/Mid/Low/Volume. Output section has many uses from mono out to stereo and FX in/out.

Doesn't sound like much, but it is deceptively useful. Set the front panel right, and it has more than enough clean power.

Use the FX in for running a POD etc.. and use the tone controls on the POD for a noiseless power amp. If you use the front end, you won't be happy, but don't blame the amp, it's not what it was design for. All the modeling pedals are designed to be used as direct boxes, preferably in stereo. Don't blame the amp for your laziness.

The clean tone from the front end is very "spanky" sounding. I like the clean tone, though other say it's not clean enough. At what volume? You can't have big volume and clean tone. Not even my old Twin Reverb or Deluxe gave crystal clear clean at gig volume with humbuckers. Back off the volume knob on the guitar and use the neck pickup and it's as clean as about any amp I've ever played through. There is a slight "fizz" however, on the trailing end of clean notes. It's exceptable though and live you'd never notice it.

The gain at full is more an OD tone than distortion, but I think most folks buying tis amp are doing so for the clean, and using pedals. My Line 6 DM4 shines with this head. very fluid and articulate, alot like a Fender deluxe reverb clean channel with a good Distortion pedal. Notes are very pronounced.

I tried this amp with everything from my LP, to a Strat. I like it better with a hubucker, but I feel that way about most amps. I think with the right setup for you clean tone, and a good set of pedals, the front end is way useful. POD, GT-8, RP and GNX users will be better served using the line-in and making sure their models are setup properly on the processors.

I don't know how reliable it is yet, but I will try to use it at practice first before taking it to a gig instead of my Mesa.

It is built pretty f'in sturdy though....

Also, to the guy before me that complained about the amp "turning on/off" like a tremelo... I experimented with mine and found if you plug the 8 ohm out into a 4 ohm cab it will do that. It must be some kind of internal protection circuit on the output stage. When plugged into either stereo 4 ohm out, it never did it.

n/a

When Guitar Center was blowing these out for $70 I couldn't resist geting one. I had looked at them before and thought it would be good for the 2nd channel of a stereo rig instead off hauling around a whole other head etc.... But, it was way over priced initially. At $70 who cares if it is the be all end all amp! After getting it home, I found it works great through the line-in with my RP2000 and works even better with my pedal board going thru the front end.

One thing that would have made it an even better amp, would be an on/off switch for the gain knob. Most people buying this head will be using it with somekind of effects board (thats how they marketed it), and will want it loud and clean.

Single channel, 150 watt stereo head.
Weighs 5lbs
Fits in a superb dedicated gig bag.
Effects loop
CD Input
Headphone jack
Line out xlr
Level control for effects loop
Gain, High, Mid,Low tone controls and Level (Volume) control.
WAY cool blue on off LED in the A of CRATE which shines like a beacon on a dark stage. It's shallow but when I plugged it in at rehearsal the other guitarist in one of my bands said, "That's a cool gadget before you plug it in , but now it's beyond cool..."

I've used this amp in 2 different ways:-

1 With headphones as a practice amp.
2 Plugged into a Marshall 2x 12 cab in mono.

Rounded clean, tubey in character. Good as a "flat" power amp for V-amp, POD etc

With the Gain wound up to about halfyou can get a really nice "crunch" very Marshally in character.

With Full Gain on it is also Marshall like in tone, not massive gain but more than sufficient for Classic rock tones.

In band rehearsal I've used it with the following set up:-
Tokai Love Rock>Morley Classic Wah>Marshall Chorus>Marshall Bluesbreaker>Crate
With the Bluesbreaker set to "boost" it really does sing. Plenty of volume (the other guitarist is using a Marshall TSL 100 watt head and 1960B 4 x 12 cab and couldn't be heard!)
Not a great deal of variation in the tone controls but sufficient.
Give plenty of "clunk" when you hit the strings hard and sounds very similar to my Marshall 50 watt JMP Combo. responds to playing dynamics well. Not quite as warm as a real Valve amp but very very close.
Simple to use and get a good sound immediately

Some noise inevitably when you wind it up but not obtrusive.

The band play classic rock to 90's punk and beyond e.g: Green day, Thin Lizzy , Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, RHCP etc

Not gigged yet but am looking forward to not lugging loads of gear around.
I'd use without a back up.

Playing for 31 years.

I play in 2 bands.

Band 1 is a girl fronted Corporate rock band playing from the Beatles to Dusty Springfield to Guns N Roses
Band 2 is all bloke punk/rock band playing Clutch to green Day to Lizzy etc

I use a genuine Marshall JMP 50 watt 2 x 12 comobo for Band 1, The Crate for Band 2

Not yet used my Fender Strat through it but Tokai Flying V sounds pretty damn good.

At ??49.99 it's criminal, I've already got one for my son.

Any body who uses a Valve head should buy one immediately

2006 model (no changes since inception)
Small, powerful, good tones for the price.
A superb amp for jobbing & when the bass player/keyboardist blow their rig. It's my default amp (with a Mesa 1-12" EVL cab) for jobbing. Solid state but had a respectful amount of tone. But be aware: you have to use a stereo y-cord in order to use the FX loop.

Pretty clean w/ a decent distortion. Shredders & metal players: you will have to use a stomper or some sort of pedal to get to your sound. Works with singles or humbuckers, active or passive pu's. Surprisingly low noise & hiss too. Many jobbers use this amp for keys & guitar here in Chicago.

Seems to be reliable; solid but the knobs protrude a bit. Comes in a rugged little bag that you can carry or sling over your shoulder (there's a pocket of the power cord on the side).

Here's the snag: you can wait forever on the phone when you call. Or wait a few days (if you're lucky) to get a response to your e-mails.
A woman wrote me back to ask the model & serial number: and she seemed to not know anything about the actual product. All I wanted to know if the various y-cords they talk about in their owner's manual are available at a store or via some other means. She never wrote me back. Pretty lame for a big company that sells zillions of these little things.

Playing for many years, and own Boogie, Fuchs, Bogner, Yamaha, et al. This little item will save your back when you have a tux gig, and will help anybody else if another amp fails. Light, compact, and has deceptively good sounds. Get a decent multi-use pedal and you're set for those small gigs or in the studio.

For what it is the features are not bad. Single channel mono and stereo out, XLR out, headphone out, effects loop, line input, cd input. 3 band EQ, gain & master volume. Nice small form factor, metal case. Solid state. 150 watts RMS @ 8 ohms mono. Can go from clean (more on that later) to crunch.

Here's where this amp comes up short in my opinion. Even at low volume with the gain set low, around the 9 or 10 o'clock position there is a noticeable and annoying distortion (rattle/fizz sound.) At first I thought my speaker cabinet had some sort of vibration or the speakers were blown. To be fair if you turn the gain way down you can get the rattle/fizz down to tolerable levels but then it's too low for a practice or gig. Looking at the specs on the amp it does show amp is rated at 150 watts mono @ 10% total harmonic distortion so this shouldn't be a surprise I guess.

If you play only high gain this shouldn't be a big problem but I bought this to run with a POD or other floor amp/effects modeler and I'd prefer to have a cleaner "clean" sound.

Also as mentioned in an earlier review, the stereo output is an issue. I plugged this into a Behringer 4x12 stereo cabinet and at low volume it cut out a lot. At higher volume settings you just get a clicking sound, no guitar sound. Mono output works great. Going into two separate speaker cabs eliminates the problem. Could be a grounding issue as mentioned earlier. The Behringer cab input jacks seem to be on a plastic mounting though so not sure if that is it.

The case is metal. Knobs are not recessed and could break off if you don't treat your stuff carefully. Only had this for a week so hard to say if it will hold up but mechanically it seems sturdy enough.

I called them on the stereo output issue. Very polite, but not as helpful as I'd hoped. The support rep said he'd never heard of this problem and it should work fine but if I couldn't get it to work feel free to call back and they'd get me an RMA to send it in for service.

Been playing 35 years or so and owned a fair amount of gear over the years. Guitar Center was selling these for $69.95 so it was an impulse buy. For the price this isn't a bad amp. If you need pristine clean, keep looking. For a knockaround backup amp to keep in the gig bag, this fits the bill.

Solid state rail switching tech. One of the best new techs in my opinion. Light, small, powerful, clean, low power consumption.
8 ohm minimum @ 150 watts in mono mode which can be a problem.
4 ohm minimum @ 75 watts in stereo mode which is still plenty of power

I like it. The effect in on the back bypasses the preamp and gives max headroom with no noticable distortion, great for pods and tonelabs. The preamp distortion is smooth and very usable. Real tube emulation is coming, folks! Put a tube screamer ahead of this baby and say it's not! The only problem is the eq. Not enough presence, kinda dark overall with a spanky strat. Not particularly unique.

I have hammered it, no prob so far. Aluminama case, solid constuction.
The knobs poke out, so I guess you could break one. Built like a brick restroom.

no experience. Crate has been around a long time.

Been playing out since 1980. Road hard put away wet. Own vox, fender, top hat, yamaha, mackie, peavey, jbl ect. For 100 bucks, everybody (everybody) should have one. You could use it on your T.V. for cryin out loud.

The Crate Power Block solid state amp head: single channel, 3 eq's
vol & gain. Effects loop, 4,8,16 ohm imputs, mono/stereo capabilities
jack imput for headphones. A very usable, versatile amp head for many types of music.

The amp goes from a soft,clean to a (slightly clippy) overdrive to a smooth distortion. I have only used with with a Schecter with EMGs
How it reacts to single coil or passive pus I don't know.
It has O noise!! I use it with a cabinet with 2 vintage Jensen speakers.I would give the sound quality rating a 10; but the slight clipping on the od I give it a 9 (maybe 9 1/2)The warmness of it is
great. I wish Crate would have put this in their GFX amps. I have a 120 with 3 channels. 2 of the channels are unusable. Maybe their evolution 5 is now 6 and is closing in on what we want.

Having the power block head even for backups is a smart tool to own.
I like the sound better than my tube amps. I wish it was a 2 channel
head.

All the features are well known by now.

I replaced my Carvin sx200 2x12 100 watt combo with this little amp. My Carvin had something wrong with the power section and now I just use it as a cab for my Crate Power Block. This amp sounds pretty good. It has a mature "burnished" tone. Warmer and less "clanky" than the Carvin. It helps tame that ice pick in the ear sound I sometimes get from my Strat or Tele ( with p90's) when using the bridge pickup. I have to adjust the bass control on the amp pretty low so I dont get some booming overtones. I like the sound, maybe humbucker users will feel different.

Time will tell

I grabbed one of these babys up for $99 at Musicians Friend. I almost bought one a few months ago for $199 but I held off. This is a super deal folks. Gets a 9 rating at $99. Gets an 8 at $199

This is a really compact, powerful, all-round instrument amp with plenty of tone control and enough versatility to be used for guitar, bass, keyboard, as a PA auxiliary, monitor amp... you name it. A great utility infielder. No effects, but everything else you need in an amp. Perfect companion to a POD

Nice distorion- with the tone controls, you can get a fair amount of amp flavors. I prefer it in the clean mode, where the distortion is more of a tube-like soft clipping.

In full overdrive mode it's pretty noisy; you wouldn't want to record with it. But for live sound it's fine.

No idea, but Crate gear has a good rep.

At the current blow-out price, every guitar and bass player should buy one as a backup and spare for their amp, or as a PA slave, or just a portable stereo they can use with an iPod and a pair of cabinets.

Just a quick comment - I had the same thing happen as the last review says when I rewired a mono 4x12 cabinet into stereo. I changed the metal plate holding the original input jacks to a plywood one and I was able to run the powerblock no problem. I seems that this amp can't run in stereo with a common ground or if there is a metal plate for the input jacks in stereo - possibly some kind of signal leak or ground situation that causes this amp to act as described. I drove myself nuts trying to figure this thing out until I eliminated all possibilities except that metal jack plate. Works and sounds wonderful since then.

Not as much volume as I expected (see reliability section!) from my LTD EC-1000 w/EMGs and a handmade 4x12 loaded with Eminence. Ran my Jekyll & Hyde, Shredmaster, H20, thru the main input, but I preferred the pedals tone without the preamp, using the Line input (AKA Send/Return) on the back. The preamp sounds nice on it's own, just not clean AND loud. Clean sounded good. Dirty sounded good. Clean won't get too loud, though thru the preamp. The Line input is very clean and sounded great with my pedals.

None of the front knobs function when you use the line inputs.

Although I'm sending mine back for another unit, I really like the sound. Not edgy like my other solid state. I was glad not to get the shrill "ice" sounds mentioned before. I would compare to vintage Marshall sound.

People have said this sounds "tube like." The best way I could explain it is slightly compressed (not distortion, just compression) with very smooth midrange with EQ settings at 12:00. Bass can be there if you crank it, but it's not overpowering.

Ouch. Yes, my PowerBlock delivered by FedEX this afternoon is being returned to Musician's Friend in the morning.

Everything was fine until I pegged the gain & the level, you know, because that's what you do when you get a new toy, right?

At that point the amp shuts off...turns on...off...on... with about a second pause in between (imagine a tremolo pedal set for a square wave). It continues this until I back the level to under 3:00. I grabbed my Washburn P2 with passive pickups and got the same problem. I tried with and without pedals, but anything past 3:00 started the power cycling problem. I even switched the "Bridge Mono" off and on with no fix.

I couldn't replicate this problem using the Line input on the back.

I have the Left output connected to two 8ohm Eminence 12" in parallel, and the Right output connected to the other two 8ohm Eminence 12" in parallel. The amp says 4ohm load for Left and/or Right, with a separate 8ohm mono output. I didn't get the problem when I connected EITHER left OR right, just when BOTH were connected.

I didn't try the 8ohm mono output.

I'm returning to Musician's Friend, so not sure about CRATE.