Crate VC508

This is a mod I made to my VC508H (hardwood cab) but would work exactly the same for the flakeboard cab model.

I had swapped out the anemic 8" Jenson for the much better 8" Weber C8SS, and although this improved headroom, tone and bass, I'd always wanted to try a 10" speaker without going to an outboard cab. Well I did, and with great results ...

I removed the amp chassis (four side screws), popped the speaker grill, unscrewed and removed the speaker. I used a very old re-coned 10", 8 ohm, Oxford that I had pulled from my '64 Princeton (having replaced that with a Weber P10Q), centered it inside of the VC508's baffle board and screwed it in carefully using 6 screws (you won't be able to get screws into the bottom 3 speaker mount holes due to the cab's bottom support - not necessary).

The amp chassis will NOT go back in it's original position, but there are a few different ways to stick it in without too much fuss. I put the chassis back into the cab with the controls facing out towards the back and the tubes and transformers facing down, as far in as it could go while allowing the tube holder to remain a good 1/2" away from the speaker magnet. Now the control panel sticks out about 2-1/2" past the rear of the cab, so you need to be careful about transporting the amp. A metal cage, or wood cab extension could be fairly easily fashioned for protection if the amp was regularly transported. Not needed in my case.

I drilled 4 new holes either cab side, right into the sheet metal sides of the chassis and used 1-1/4" deep thread (like for sheet metal) round head brass screws to secure. I used 1/2" round head brass screws to plug up the old chassis mount holes on the cab sides for a neater look. I'd use black sheet metal screws on the flakeboard cab.

Popped on the speaker leads and plugged in - whoa! - Serious Tone. I also had swapped out the Groove Tubes for JJ/Telsa 12AX7/ECC83 and EL84 tubes. MUCH nicer. Give it a try!

SIMPLE CHEAP TUBE AMP !

SOUNDED LIKE CRAP UNTIL I CHANGED THE STOCK PREAMP TUBE TO A 12AX7(ECC83)
WIZ BANG!!!
GREAT TONE!!!! (could use a little more low end though but hey it's only 5 watts! )

GOOD QUESTION?? HAD IT ONE YEAR STILL KICKIN!

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I WOULD SAY THAT I HAVE OWNED MANY AMPS AND FOR THE MONEY OR EVEN TWICE THE MONEY THIS IS A GREAT AMP!!!
( IF YOU CHANGE THE PRE-AMP TUBE TO AN (ECC83--12AX7)-

Has what you need to have fun.

I'm using Fender strat sounds great for crunch and blues. Clean channel is good but you can't get much volume it is only 5 watts. This amp is great good rock tone keeps my wife off my back cause you get a good sound at low volume. I did change the tubes (i had grove tubes laying around) and i took the speaker wich is mounted in the front of the cab and i mounted in side the cab this to me did wonders for the sound it opened it up and gave it a little more bass and sustain i think this is somthing for people to try it only takes about 10 min to do and you can change it back anytime and it cost nothing.

To soon to tell.

Playing for 25 yrs have had all kinds of equipment right now just bought a single rectifiyer combo i like this one alot. also have 5150,marshall slash head, mesa DC5,Fender twin,blues jr (the blues jr sucks I must have gotten a shitty one,line 6 pod, AX2 (forget this line 6 stuff for playing out the sound just dies is dose not carry it's just dead,mesa Triaxis pre ,yada yada yada gold top 56 lespaul fender strat mexican and it sounds way better than my custom shop 54 strat what a waste of money also prs mcarty, parker fly yada yada yada

bought new 5/00, and very satisfied with amps tone switch.

Tried it with a strat, 335 and was once again vey pleased with the amp's cool tones, many combinations available. Good wide variety of blending, blues, tones.

They returned my call quickly, and were helpful.

na

Over 35 yrs experince with the music industry, and this amp is a great idea. I wish they had more features with speaker&headphone jack, but for the price -I am smiling. Sounds great with a strat, 335, or the used epiphone we've all had at one time or another=great little tube amp, and I have not done any mods at this time. Cool blues tones without the backache.

Very simple 5 watt valve amp, if you want a lot of crap on your amp go solid state.

Deluxe Nashville Telecaster, playing only blues, good sound very clean, but can be driven to "take that damn thing out to the garage!" levels,good blues overdrive. Best amp you will ever spend $170 on!

Bulletproof, if you know how to treat tubes with a little respect it will not let you down.

wish it had a headphone jack, get an older one if you can, as I think the newer models don't have the celestion that I got. Also I have not experienced the rattle from the cab that others have, just bad luck or a bad bump on their part ? You can get a bigger amp for the money but there is nothing like driving a valve into distortion.

Input and first gain stage is a simple Tube-Screamer-like Op-Amp circuit(this accounts for the hair-trigger gain which sounds fuzzy :( when fully opened up).

This is coupled to a 1/2 12AX7 gain stage with a single tone and volume circuit straight into the FX-loop.

From there (bypassed) it goes into the second 1/2 12AX7 gain stage

This is driving the single EL84 in class A through a single-ended output transformer with only one (8 Ohm) tap.

So basically all those guys that use it to run into a larger amp are going through a very expensive Tube Screamer. Nothing but an Op-Amp.
(and a single tube gain stage -admitted). Sounds good for solid-state, mind you - but that's exactly what it is.

A real pity they didn't put a second 12AX7 in there for two additional tube gain stages and left out the Op-Amp. Would have made a world of differnce in sound and feel and a minimal increase in production cost. If I don't sell it that's what I'm gonna do.

Basically I feel a bit cheated because this amp sells as an all-tube amp. This is simply NOT TRUE.

I tried this guy in a music store after a succession of small about 20W solid state Marshalls, Soltons etc... Next to them it sounded awesome. So full and warm. I had discovered tube sound. I bought it on the spot for approx. 269 US$ (Europe is expensive).
Of course next to a real tube amp (I played it next to a Boogie .50 cal.) it sounds small, rattly and solid-state. (And that's what it is --- greetings to St. Louis)

It is so simple that it should be all right. At high volumes it rattles though but it seems that this is a known bug which can easily be self fixed.

Terrible!
There is no way to contact Crate/St. Louis Music from Europe except write them an old snail-mail letter. They have no customer support for Europe, no e_mail address on their web site and only a 1-800 Number which cannot be dialled from abroad. A good way to say "F*CK YOU customer!". (I would settle for a mailto: on their website - but no. <shrug>)

I have been playing Stratocasters for 20 years. First I went through tube radios (that was not exactly the sound I wanted) and then (because of cost mainly I never considered tubes) through solid-state crap. This baby amp was fabulous next to it's all-solid.state brethren but doesn't play in the all-tube league. I wouldn't buy it again.
The good thing is it got me interested in tube amps and by now I am building my own design 50 Watts ALL-TUBE.

The line out feature and tone control are my personal favorites. I would strongly advise harp players to swap the preamp tube for a 12AU7 as others on the web have recommended. For harp it gives much smoother and easier to control distortion. It's a 10 minute operation for the technically impaired (me)and the only tool needed is a phillips screwdriver.

I'm a harpster and for my taste this is the best sounding low volume amp that I've tried. Admittedly, there are many vintage models I haven't had the opportunity to play but we're talking about chump change here compared to the "good" stuff. For the money you can't go wrong with this amp and a dynamic shaker mic. Screwing around with the gain, tone & volume combinations gives alot of tone variations. The Dan Echo pedal I played with at the store will probably be my next purchase to add some reverb when not playing it through another amp. When run through my Vibrolux Reverb it maintains that outrageous tube distortion at conversation volume levels with the reverb- real cool. As mentioned earlier, you're not going to play out without running through the PA or another amp.It does have a slight hum that I didn't notice in the store but showed up when I got it home. I haven't heard a guitar played through it.

I've only had it two weeks but that hum isn't a good sign, although it could be a minor problem.

I was told by the dealer that a local repair guy does Crate warranty work. The 5 year transferable warranty sounds good but we'll see when I take it in to get the hum checked out.

I've been playing harp for 20 years and this is the affordable tone I've been searching for. Too soon to give it an overall rating just because reliablity is unknown at this point but I'd buy another one if it lasts for a while.

1998 Model. Hey for a $200 there isn't much needed to make me happy.
It has volume, a very limited tone (a weakness in my view) and a master volume. The tone is kinda like an inside-out, outside-in thing. It swings between boosting mids or boosting bass/treble.

This thing competes well with a basher of a drummer. They say it's "A-class" and it's a sweetie. No club gigs though unless there's no stage volume to compete with it. Sounds great recorded. I use a AT4050.

Tubes: Single 12AX7, single EL84.

I'm a "plug-n-play" type - I use an electric/acoustic 12-string (Carvin's AE185-12), Hamer USA Archtop with Seymore Duncans, a couple of Strat copies by Carvin.

I do very straightforward pop (ELO, Badfinger, Beatles, a lot of J-Pop).

Use it regularly - Never a problem. I'm careful with my gear and wouldn't want to bump this painted wood cabinet.

Never needed assistance.

I know how much the parts cost, I wish they'd discounted it more.

I think $125 would've been more fair.

You've heard the features from everyone else. An effect like Chorus or reverb would be cool, but it is a very small inexpensive amp.

I have to admit, I don't think it burns, but I was extremely surprised on how much range the tone knob had. Very cool. Too bad they don't have a another of those parametric type knobs. Tone would be endless then. I play everything from Classical guitar to full on Pantera type tone. Those I rate this amp high, I have to admit, I can't get either a good clean tone or a Pantera CHUG-CHUG tone. It breaks up too fast for clean (though I plan on trying different tubes)& and it just can't quite get the full on metal sound I need for what I do. It get's good ROCK tone. Right in the middle. And when I say good rock tone, I should point out that most amps can't get that. Have you every heard a Marshall get great tone straight into the amp? I'm talking abour Metal tone. I know a lot will argue, but I've been a guitar tech for a long time and I say, don't be fooled. Those amps were tweaked by someone. NOBODY GET'S GREAT METAL TONE WITHOUT A TECH. Because of that, think this amp is pretty cool. Also, everyones talking about using it as a preamp or slave. Has anyone tried it as a power amp? Take a normal guitar cord and plug it into a preamp. Plug the other end into the line out, but only half way in. Some tube snobs argue preamp tubes are junk and that Power tubes is where the TONE is. This will bypass the preamp section and just use the power tube section. Results? If your not keen with the tone & gain knob, but have a good preamp, you have just entered the world of MONSTER TONE with only 5 watts. I have a Marshall 1X12 cab. I unplugged the speaker and used the Marshall 12" speaker. If you want to use this amp in pieces, this will give you the 10 in tone.

Haven't had it long enough to say.

Haven't had it long enough

The amp itself is cool. I enjoy the fact that I can change the preamp tubes and power tube with out messing with the bias. It's self-biasing. Awesome! Too many tones to list when you change the tubes. If you use this amp as a slave, it's pretty cool too. I did that out of a yamaha solid state 100 and it riped. If you use it as a power amp, that's pretty cool too. My idea of tone is metal tone (Accept's Wolf Hoffman), so please take that for thought. Blues, Jazz, and etc. I'd have to say you could probably get a cool blues tone too (depending on your wants). Jazz and clean sounds will need different tubes. It breaks up at about 3.

Gain, tone, volume, line out. (1) 12ax7 in the pre-amp section and
(1) EL84 running the power amp. Solid state rectifier. No reverb, no
channel switching. Oh yeah, the tone knob actually adjusts THE TONE!!!!! I've been playing my whole life and this is the first amp I've
ever owned that has a tone knob that actually works. Very cool.

I am using a Jackson JRS2 Pro with a DiMarzio Super 3 in the bridge position (no neck pickup) and let me tell you, this little mutha puts out some of this most insanely satisfying Class A overdrive you will ever hear in your whole life! So good, in fact, that I had the guys at Weber
Vst (www.webervst.com) build me one of their Blue Dog 12" speakers
with an optional 50 ounce ceramic magnet (to make it super efficient,
only 5 watts ya' know) and now .......(oh ya, had to build a cab for the speaker) have plenty of power to keep up with the Marshall combo and ex-heavy metal drummer on jam night. On the downside, this amp offers VERY LITTLE in the way of clean headroom. I guess a tube change would rectify the situation but since I play mostly hard/classic ROCK!!!!, I guess I'll never know!!!. Additionally, playing at these gain and volume levels may require that you have your pickups professionally potted (waxed) as squealing may become a problem.

I've had the amp for about six months now and it seems to be fine. Owned Crate in the past (solid state) with no problems. I always use it without a backup.

I think someone in the previous reviews mentioned that Crate has a transferable 5 year warranty. Haven't has to call them yet.

If this little monster was stolen, I'd run out tomorrow and buy another one.

I know a lot of people out there are running the line out into a larger combo amp and believe me, it does sound good!! But, nothing beats the sound you get with this amp by running it through a high quality, super efficient 12"......just plain nuts!!!!!!! Good luck!!!!