Crate VC508

Great cheap new tube amp. I would gladly pay a little more for a tube rectifier though! Features limited but functional- they all affect tone like they should.

I am 1st and foremost a harp player (blue) for many years. I can get a pretty good variety of tones from it.Does the overdrive thing pretty good, but w/a 8inch speaker & SMALL cab can sound a little boxy. Very nice w/guitar-especially if you like a fuzzy slightly british o/d tone. It can do zz top & ac/dc too. I had to replace the 12ax7 w/a 12at7 for more control over the gain. helped enormously for this. BEWARE of people who call this the holy grail (I've read 1 harp players reviews for several amps and he calls them all "his favorite amp"!? It aint the holy grail, but is a descent sounding and fairly versatile little amp. I give a 6 1/2 for harp & 7-7 1/2 for guitar for a round 7

Brand new, heavy and built bullet proof tough. I've not had it long enough to boast about the reliability. I'll let you know in 3-5 years!

Never dealt w/crate.

I've owned tons of vintage stuff (old alamo's, nationals, tweed champs, gibsons, silvertones, etc.) It would rank in the middle somewhere. Overall I enjoy its tone & portability, but if lost I would buy a old Kalamazoo or similar amp w/a 10". Very good for both harp & guitar, but not great for either. Snap 'em up at $80-$110.Much more than that and I would go vintage. Very usable amp, not the Holy Grail of tone - but a far,far cry from junk. A solid 6 1/2 - 7.

Simple single channel tube amp. Gain, volume, and tone knobs. Effects via Y-cable. 8" speaker.

I play anything from country to nu-metal (which has gotten old) and now I am going retro to get those 60's tones...

I can depend on it. Gigged with it, actually hooked up to a little mixer and used it as a PA with an acoustic/electric Martin guitar and an AXG790 mic! Amp has never broken down. Bought it without the little jewel thingy that covers the amp light.. never missed it.

Never had to contact customer support.

I've had this amp for over a year. I own a brownsville 15R which is also an 8" combo. I use a fernandez strat guitar and a fender fat strat. They sound awesome through this amp. To get the most out of this amp, I run it as my pre-amp into a Crate b200xl bass head, which is effects out routed through a dbx266xl compressor/exciter/noisegate, and a 24bit effects processor(behringer) into a 4 speaker cab (which is actually a bass cab).

The clean sound you get using the volume boost on the dbx266xl is AWESOME through the cab.... Switching over to 10 on the gain and 10 on the tone you get a monstor thick and smooth overdrive... which is quiet between picks when you use the noise gate function on the dbx266xl... setting the threshhold above the constant buzz so you don't hear it. Want nuclear rumble? Just turn up the low end on the exciter (kind of like the bbe sonic maximizer) and you get sonic destruction!

Anyways, as you can tell, this amp is a lot of fun. Get it for less than $100 and you've just ripped off a great value.

I bought this simple class A, 5 watt tuber in 2000 so that I could get back into playing intimately volume-wise without sacrificing tube tone and depth. The features are pretty straight forward; 3 controls (gain, tone, volume, an on/off toggle switch, input jack, line out jack and a lighted jewel bezel comprise the panel, solidly constructed cabinet with a thick perforated metal grill cover. and getting out the amp chassis is simple too for an occasional peek inside; the amp panel can be removed as well to get a look-see at the modern circuit board, the power tube is held in place with one large U clamp is easy to get to when the amp chassis is removed; the pre amp tube didn't need a clamp and is about 2" away from the power tube. The specially designed celestion speaker, adequate at best, had to be designed with a very small diameter light magnet, not because of front loading into the cabinet; clearance of the magnet from the tubes when all was in place inside of the crowded enclosure was the design issue. If the cabinet was made 1 inch taller...you'll understand, kind reader, as you continue to read on.

As it was, the sound was squawky, toy-like, and uninspiring, it rattled way too much at any volume and inspecting the amp revealed that little to no attention was given to this. The stock sovteks were replaced with an Electro-Harmonix 12AX7EH pre amp tube and a Groove Tube power tube El84 (really a JJ Tesla with Groove tube logo) a little better sound and less prone to feedbacking and micro-phonically popping uncontrollably since these are fantastic tubes; over-all there was a lot more to be desired. After about a year of not warming to it I finally took the plunge to cut up the cabinet a bit with a jig saw so that the amp chassis could be moved and remounted straight up, about a half inch and flush to the top and back of the cabinet in order that a larger clearance can be realized for a proven and great 8" speaker. Enter the Eminence 875 speaker with it's solid dB handling range and wide bass to treble Hz's. With these changes and thorough vibration proofing taken care of, I'm now getting a world class sound from this thing with my Gibson Landmark Nighthawk and a customized Yamaha AEX-1500 Jazz Hollowbody; both of these guitars have powerful alnico mini humbuckers and the AEX also has a piezo bridge pick up.
I also use a monster Jazz cable. For thick and clear jazz tones low gain is a needed setting, tone and volume adjustments are fun to fiddle with now since the speaker really delivers! Rock sounds are really good too and super over driven and heavy distortion effects are best used to help the lone EL84 along those lines. Bluesier rock is good with the gain at about 5 and depending on your axe, all of the controls have to be fiddled with. My customized Crate VC-508 receives a '9' for sound, the stock version really deserved no more than a '5', poor to adequate at best.

Reliabilty is a solid 10 and I found out just how sturdy the construction was when I customized my cab. As it was stock and now customized, start-up never failed once in the 2 years I've owned it.
I would like to have an even more enhanced back up version just for the sake of having one if it were possible.

Crate is good peeps if you an get them on the phone; it was a good experiencing dealing with them.

I understand that I bought this small amp well under its set price tag when a number of them were available through the digibid auction site so I wasn't preparing myself to be completely bowled over in either direction. By virtue of its solid and reliable construction and sound amp chassis, I kept it regardless of the disappointing speaker. The guitars I play have demanding pick ups and I knew with a good speaker in place of the stockie, I would get the truth out of it, whether or not out this 5 watter can have the quality of a good small combo essentially since it is tube driven has to be a potental factor an owner has to take seriously. You might be similarly pressed and/or inspired to do something with yours and it is highly recommend with the Eminence 875 8"! You do not need a 10" speaker in this thing and the conversion is pretty easy and neat looking; if you can disassemble things, drill and jig-saw a bit to refit the chassis as I described it before, you can have a great sounding little btute to play with that will be worthy of attention and respect too.

I bought mine about 3 1/2 years ago. Heavy use. Pretty simole. class A - 2 tubes - 8" speaker. Plenty of power for practice with band.

12 year old EC Strat with 40 year old pickups replacement <<< Carl Martin compressor ( yippeeee ) <<<< TS-10 <<<<< EQ pedal <<<<<< tape echo <<<<< amp. Styles - rockabilly, pop-rock, 60's rock, r+b, etc. I use it with volume full up then gai used to set level. I keep it clean and use the TS-10 for distortion. Wonderful class A compressed tone. It SCREAMS with the TS - 10.

mine is all beat up - lots of using - no breaking.

donno

I've played guitar for a thousand years ( or maybe 35 ) I own EVERYTHING and hope to buy more. I would love to hear this with a 10 or 12 inch speaker. In fact I went out and got a Gibson 6 watt Goldtone and that about nails it but this Crate is less tame. It's just plain cool.

I've had this amp for about three years. Please stand back as I climb onto my soapbox. YOU ARE HELPING NOBODY WHEN YOU POST A REVIEW OF A PRODUCT YOU HAVE BOUGHT IN THE LAST TWO WEEKS. YOU CANNOT HAVE ANY IDEA OF WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

I play blues/rock style stuff.

I bought the amp new. Volume, tone, and gain controls are all you've got. Five tube-powered watts. One channel. It really doesn't sound as if these limited features would be very versatile, but they are if you know what you're doing.

The amp doesn't have any heavy preferences between single coil and humbuckers to me. It does have the rattle everybody gripes about. If you are looking for pristine clean, go somewhere else. To me, the best tones come from the gain being about halfway up. Just like any other tube amp, the best tones are achieved at volumes over 1/3 of the volume knob's range. If you are a decent player, you'll be able to get a lot out of this thing. It takes some experimenting, but I think that good players will really appreciate this amp. If you haven't been playing very long, this amp will be a source of frustration. Some tools of the guitar trade can sound wonderful only after you've gotten some experience. The high gain tones are not bad, but most people who play with that much gain will be looking for a bass-heavy tone that you can't get from a small amp. I really like the tones for what I do, though.

It's solid. I've never had to have it serviced. I will say that I've done business with the St. Louis Music company and they are pretty darn good at taking care of you.

Read reliability section

I'd want to replace it if it were lost. Nothing in it's price range compares. Even the fender pro junior that everybody is so in love with. Sorry fender--I love you guys anyway.

nothing special

this amp is big bang for the $ sound wise except for 2 things: 1.- the rattles are in the chassis. i built my own cab (i'm a cabinetmaker) and replaced the speaker and it still rattles. 2.- real tube distotion on the pedal board = hiss city, stick to digital.

no problems over 2 yrs.

been playing 30 yrs, blues &70"s rock. hate the rattle love the tone, just don't put another ax7 in front of it. i replaced the speaker w/1-12 for my taste 2-10's would give it more bark

My 508 was made in 2001 and will do anything but thrash(after mods mentioned elsewhere).Nice and simple.I wish it had pre-out and speaker cab jack,but that's all trivial on an amp of this variety.Could also use a 3-way EQ;but after the mods mentioned by others,the single tone knob is extremely versatile and all positions have a useful tone.

I use strat style guitars and a Washburn N-4,which all sound great on this little monster!It's very quiet for a tube amp.The distortion will almost make it to a Metallica type crunch.

I'm sure I've voided the waranty,but who cares when the trade off is this wonderfull tone and singing sustain?

Crate is very helpful.

It sounds unrealistic,but this amp went from pretty descent(before mods)to awesome(after mods).It sounds like a boutique amp and I know what the hell I'm talkin' about(been at it for almost 20 years.

This amp is as simple as it gets.I'm going to add a 3-way tone control soon.It gets by pretty well on the single tone control,but I've already made enough progress with mods(explained later)to believe this little monster is worthy of the effort.

I use a Washburn N1,Yamaha Pacifica,and an Ibanez Voyager.This is just what I've been looking for;gets great tone and is small enough to push hard without deffening everyone on the block!I play Blues,Vintage Rock,and Metal and this little amp does it all.It has negligible hum.The tone was a little "growly" sounding at first,so I replaced the tubes with an oldSylvania"6BQ5",and GE"12AX7".I also replaced the "TL072"IC with a "4558P" and put a "470K" resistor input in place of the input resistor(which acording to my meter was almost 2MEG and was the cause of the "growly" distortion).It's a different animal now!Want vintage tone?this baby has it in spades;and if I wanna play some serious distortion I use a pedal,that's what they make 'em for.The factory setup fell a little short of "Metal Drive" anyway.I've also done all of the other worthwile mods I read on here (including a 12"Celestion") and this amp has improved by leaps and bounds!It sounds kinda' like a Vox "AC15" with top boost and a "TS-9".I have plenty of amps that have a good metal crunch or descent Vintage tube tone,but this has "LUSH" tone and I only see it improving even more with a 3-way tone!

I dont think the printed circuitboard was a good idea for a tube amp,but it's been done sucessfully before.It seems well thought-out and built though.

Yhey have been helpful before.I know they have a lot of info on the net.

I've been playing for 15 years and tinkering with electronics for two or three years as a goof.I have a few other Crate amps(Gx40c,GX15,GX208),a Peavey(bandit 112),and an old Fender(Champ).If it were stolen,I'd hunt them down and slowly kill them!It has undescribable tone with all of the mods and even had me briefly considering modding my champ.LOL!I hate that it isn't all tube(but you wouldn't know it by listening).Gobs'a vintage"violin-like sustain" and tone.

One switch to turn it on, gain, tone, volume knobs. As simple as it gets. 5 class A all-tube watts.

Using an Ibanez JS100, Danelectro U2, and American Standard Strat. It's easy to get a nice, thick blues tone. A little tougher to get sweet clean sounds. Probably due to the Celestion speaker. Nice for Tom Petty crunch. I'm not too into the metal thing, but I don't think it would do that well for it--with a name like "Vintage Club", you'd be foolish to expect it to. It's nice for the classic stuff, though.

Built like a 50's era tank. I've had it for a year and have played it at amp-cooking volumes without any problems.

5 year warranty. I've dealt with crate on another amp (a well-meaning lead singer plugged the line out from my little gx15 into the speaker out of a powered monitor--sparks and smoke ensued and crate fixed it without even asking what happened)

I got this thing when the local music store was wanting to get rid of it very badly. It needs a different speaker. Maybe I'll get around to it someday, but not too soon. It's not like this is a gigging amp. It would make killer recordings and does a good job jamming around the house. It gets into the sweet zone at lower volumes and makes the other guys sound bad because they've got to run their 5150 at around 1/2 and are STILL TOO LOUD TO PLAY IN MY WIFE'S HOUSE.

I'd buy another one at this price. It'll be a steal for anybody who can pick up a decent used one.

This is a practice amp, and as such it does OK with its single channel, gain, tone and volume controls only. It'd be nice if it had a "Standby" switch, but that's no big deal.

I haven't yet solved the buzzing/rattling problem with mine. I've thought it was coming from around the speaker and grille, but tightening the screws has only produced limited and temporary improvement. It's limited in that the distortion kicks in too early and too fast as the gain's turned up, rapidly turning into a very harsh metal tone. I've read that it uses an op amp input stage, and I wonder if that's the stage the gain knob adjusts. It sounds solid-statish at higher levels. Using an overdrive pedal with it just makes the harsh clipping start sooner. I don't understand why Crate thought it needed a solid state input stage; it seems to me that a single 12AX7 preamp and an EL84 output stage should be able to amp a guitar to 5 watts without it. But back to the sound, aside from the buzzing it makes nice clean tones and soft pleasant distortion in the lower ranges of the gain. I wouldn't turn that knob past 11:00 o' clock for anything, though! The gain control is often misunderstood; straight up it's in a neutral, midrange-predominant position. Turning it left or right doesn't simultaneously increase and decrease the bass and treble, but rather it emphasizes the bass to the left and the treble to the right. I keep it way over to the left, rarely past 9:00 o' clock, as it sounds harsh and solid-statish to me when the treble comes up. I'm disappointed in this. But it's acceptable when adjusted as I've said. No better than the little Squier Champ 15 next to it in my basement, though.

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It's a decent little practice amp. Doesn't have as much "tube tone" as I thought it would. I'm not going to sell it, but if something happened to it I'd save up my money for a better tube amp. Too bad, because the concept of a little, low-powered, affordable tube amp with great tone is just what I'm after! I don't think there's anything comparable around, and Crate's discontinued this one now. There are a slew of cheap solid state practice amps out there that sound as good for less money, though they lack the "tube mystique."