October 05, 2008

Crate V-18

These are very popular of late - many retailers have been dropping the prices a lot on the V18 amps. They are pretty good sounding, and would be a great buy for anyone wanting an 18 watt amp with EL84 tubes.

I tried the V33 a while ago, and I was frankly disappointed, due to the weak sounding gain channel. The V18 doesn't have a gain channel. It's a class A amp, and the one I tried had one 12 inch speaker.

The knobs are - gain, volume, treble, middle, bass and reverb. The reverb sounds okay at low settings - does the job just fine that way.

The amp doesn't have a lot of headroom, but for semi-dirty tones, it works fine. Many people report the speaker should be swapped and better tubes installed (I hear that a lot about new, cheap combos).

The Crate V18 is a great little blues and rock amp. I would highly recommend it for someone wanting a simple and decent sounding 18 watter. It's not as good sounding as my Heatseeker, but it's also way cheaper. $149.99!

Crate V Series V18-112 18W 1x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp

The Crate V18-112 combo features a single-channel 18W Class A design with gain and master volume controls, 3-band EQ, and spring reverb for awesome tone and versatility. Its dual cathode-biased EL84 output tubes pump their searing mojo into a single 12" speaker.The V18's Class A design delivers the hot guitar tones of early British valve amplifiers with smooth clean sounds and thick, meaty overdrive. Take a simple cathode-biased Class A tube circuit, add a tone stack and 12" speaker, and you've got a small recording/practice amp with some lead in its pencil. Tubes! Just the smell of those glass bottles blazing with fire gets amp aficionados to perk up and lose their cool. Giving our all for the evolution of all-tube tone, Crate's V Series combos and stacks produce the sweet cleans and earthy distortion that can only come from tubes. Roadworthy construction, modern features and genuine value are causing legendary players and novices alike to develop a thermionic love-Jones for the Crate V-Seriestube amplifiers.

By Robert Renman - www.dolphinstreet.com

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Posted by Robert Renman on October 05, 2008