Controversy! I'm going to say something nice about a Crate amp

NegativeEase

NegativeEase

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Friend brought over 90s Crate Club 50 today -which is an Ampeg designed amp I'm sure based on pretty much everything about it
-it might be the world heaviest combo amp lol (not really -but damn -no wheels -sadists!)
-it has 2 channels, Reverb, medium rock gain with 3 x10 Crate labeled speakers (Looks like they are rebadged Eminence OEM speakers)
-it's got a lot of Marshall/British flavor and a hell of a mid range punchy tone -and some really deep low bass.

2 downsides
  • -it lacks mid lows -it's sort of scooped in the spot 400hz to 800hz spot (due to the 10s arrangement and cabinet tuning I guess ) so it doesn't have any buttery mid lows, but does have bottom end that kicks in somewhere below 300 hz again. a little not standard if you ask me -usually guitar scoops are more in the mid mids.
  • also the treble is a bit harsh -but it's Marshall voiced so you back that treble down and you are all good.
anyways, these amps are 200-400 all day online. -It's quite a cool cheap amp for that price.
 
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Demanic said:
I remember back in the 80's Crate was what we figured that we could afford and we saved for them. Peavey was the next step up. Nobody that I knew could afford a Marshall, even the combos.

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Yeah, me too -Crate were the go to teenage garage amp if you bought new, if you bought used it was usually Peavey.

Nobody I knew bought a Marshall until post high school.
 
I had a Crate GT80 DSP back in the day that had genuine Telefunken tubes in the pre section (the tubes I still have, amp long gone). It sounded pretty good, even better when I used my Randall RG80 Celestion cab as an extension cab.
 
I played a few Crate amps over the years that weren't as terrible as their stigma might have suggested. Most of these were SS combos. Their tube heads and combos weren't anything I ever liked, and generally deserved the reputation.
 
Mincer said:
I played a few Crate amps over the years that weren't as terrible as their stigma might have suggested. Most of these were SS combos. Their tube heads and combos weren't anything I ever liked, and generally deserved the reputation.
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I think their negative stigma goes all the way back to their original conception of being an amp built out in wooden crates - I mean -how would they escape this rep?

Crates played a valuable place in most everyones lives -they were the feature rich affordable amp a kid could buy new back in the 80s and 90s -they were important -even the lesser ones.
 
image.jpg
 
^^^^^^^ My father-in-law has that exact Crate amp pictured above! In the early 2000's I bought a Crate Blue Voodoo 120. I picked it over the Marshall Valvestate that was offered at the same price. Two reasons, the BV 120 sounded better, and the BV was ALL Tube! The BV 120 got me through many years of playing and recording before I sold it. I DO NOT miss it though. My first Crate amp was a GT-212 combo amp. Loud as hell, sounded like ass, and showed me that tubes were king. I was happy when that thing left my life. In later years I played through several of the club series Crate models. They actually were pretty impressive. All tube, and sounded pretty darn good for the price. Still would not be caught dead with one though. They just weren't as reliable and they had a " sound " to them.
 
NegativeEase said:
Yeah, me too -Crate were the go to teenage garage amp if you bought new, if you bought used it was usually Peavey.

Nobody I knew bought a Marshall until post high school.
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When I was in my senior year of HS I bought a late 60's 100 watt Fender Bassman with the Fender 2x15 cab so my buddy could play bass through it. I was running an 80 watt Ross 1x12 combo at the time.
I think that I paid a hundred bucks for it.

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NegativeEase said:
Yeah, me too -Crate were the go to teenage garage amp if you bought new, if you bought used it was usually Peavey.

Nobody I knew bought a Marshall until post high school.
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Exactly. The year after high school I upgraded from a Peavey classic-chorus 212 to the first Marshall valve-state head and a 1960a cab.
 
I had a 2x8 crate with celestion speakers I sold recently. It had true spring reverb and chorus, it was actually decent sounding amp and quite loud too.


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I’m in the same boat as every else here. My first amp was a G10 (G12?) combo amp that was horrible. But I didn’t know any better so….
Then I got the G212 which was better but I still remember the speakers farting out from the low end.
And lastly I bought a 100 or maybe 120w half stack. That I thought was pretty cool at the time.
I don’t miss any of those amps. Lol
 
Ewizard said:
^^^^^^^ My father-in-law has that exact Crate amp pictured above! In the early 2000's I bought a Crate Blue Voodoo 120. I picked it over the Marshall Valvestate that was offered at the same price. Two reasons, the BV 120 sounded better, and the BV was ALL Tube! The BV 120 got me through many years of playing and recording before I sold it. I DO NOT miss it though. My first Crate amp was a GT-212 combo amp. Loud as hell, sounded like ass, and showed me that tubes were king. I was happy when that thing left my life. In later years I played through several of the club series Crate models. They actually were pretty impressive. All tube, and sounded pretty darn good for the price. Still would not be caught dead with one though. They just weren't as reliable and they had a " sound " to them.
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In general, I believe Blue Voodoo is considered their best amp, and it was designed by the Ampeg design team (the parent company SLM had Ampeg team design the tube amps)
 
Also, I would say -some of Crates reputation comes from their users usually being teenagers not really knowing how to dial in a guitar and amp gain and EQ and also gassing their pre amp in with a DS-1 or SD-1 on 11 blowing up the circuit -oh yeah, and the guitar is likely out of tune and the pickups probably sucked ballz

I played with a guy in his 40s recently who used a Crate 1x12 SS from the 90s that sounded great -not sure which model. But he knew what he was doing.
 
The Club series amps were solid. The Vintage Club series in the 2000's were good amps too. I had GX-15 practice amp that would never die. The worst is the Blue Voodoo. I had a 120 head. It was piss poor quality. The power tube sockets were PCB mounted and the design was so bad that the heat melted the board and I lost half the power. Got it fixed twice under warranty and after the last repair, I sold it and bought a Marshall that I had kept for 20 years. Yeah, the BV sounded great when it worked right but even then, it couldn't keep up with a Marshall head. Not even a 50 watter. A friend in college had a GX-200XL head (may not be the right model number) and matching 4x12 cabs. That thing was surprisingly powerful and sounded decent. The overdrive channel had a nice crunch to it. I think he still has it.
 
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My bass player had a wooden Crate amp. Yes, it could survive being thrown down stairs, but it was 3x heavier for its size than it should be. I remember it being tuddy and bassy- perfect for our Sabbath covers at the time.
 
First rockstar experience was playing through an acquaintance's 4x12 Crate cab at one of our dorm shows. I have a 2x12 Crate combo amp now, sounds great at home and in rehearsals. Played many a rehearsal through my bandmate's Crate combo bass amp.

Crate = Nickelback? Jk
 
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