[giantslayer]

Originally Posted by Hoodster

"All of them according to him are very nearly the same."

This is most definitely NOT the case. On The Gear Page There are posts by the original designer of the V-Series that go into way more technical detail than I understand, but the biggest change was when then shipped production to Asia they redesigned the V18 and V33 to NOT include a power tranny, replacing it with a switch.

From Crate's press release on HC:

"One enhancement common to all of the new models is a power-switching power supply, which presents two unique and distinct advantages. First, a voltage switch on each amplifier's back panel now allows the guitarist to play virtually anywhere in the world without having to invest in expensive and bulky voltage transformers. The second benefit is a drastic reduction in overall amplifier weight--up to 20 percent."

Despite this marketing hype most folks seem to think having a traditional power transformer is preferable.

Here's the Crate guy's quote:

"The new V18, V33 have switching power supplies. In my testing of these products, the supply had very minimal "sag" or voltage drop under load, like 10 volts drop from idle to full bore. This would make for a tighter cleaner amp, but not neccesarily what sounds good. The Output transformer on these amps was designed by the Chinese engineers, to me it looked overspec as well...lots of headroom, again, maybe not what sounds good. The amp sounded more clean, but perhaps with no "vibe". The circuit was pretty much retained and used from the V32, V16, etc....but the powersupply and OT were different. These components make a big change in the sound so thats why I would recommend the older V16, V32, or even older yet, the first generation cream colored VC3112, etc....Those transformers have typical linear supply characteristics, ie, sag under load that is good sounding. If you don't have a rectifier tube, some Vdrop can be built into the power x....the outputs on the original, cream and black VC units were made in Chicago with papaer formers and insulation based upon a tweed style winding layer technique...94-268-01 was the part number. A little higher primary impedance, around 5K i think....makes it a bit softer. Most of the Palomino stuff had chassis that were subcontracted to an asian supplier so they have all asian components, but we were using most of them anyway so not much difference...the OT being the main diff. I did change the board to a double sided design on the Asian chass assys to have more reliable solder connections across the board. "

Just in case anyone forgot, people here are mostly talking about the V50, not the V16 or 33.