Went for a new speaker and came home w...!

[longbow]

Ok so I am going to upgrade the speaker in my V18. So I go to the Sound Source here and no help really. I mean that in the most customer oriented sense of the word. A big fat 0 these jamokes get for customer service! Its like the dudes are afraid to wail there **** at ya, ya know. So leave there pissed.

End up at the world famous HOG. That is minutes down the street from my house. I figured as long as I am there I may as well look at amps along with the speakers. So I have in my head the Roland 60 Blues Cube. Well that they don't have but they had a 30 in stock but it is pretty beat but again a more than reasonable price and it sounded actually pretty damn good. About as good as any s.s. amp I have heard to date.

Well considering the speaker upgrade and talking with the sales guy and he asked what kind of amp etc. I tell him, and he says, hey ya want to see something. Sure I say. He leads me over to a bunch of other Peavey speakers and stuff and there behind all this stuff is a brand new floor model Crate Club 50. Even has the original paper work and the foot switch is still velcroed up. The tolex is pretty dirty looking but the thing was never purchased, never gigged and stuck back here til he found it a few months ago and he would play it on his lunch hours. So he demo's it for me, I demo it for me and before you know it, I am driving home, and getting a Squire DFS, and my V18 and a hundred bucks.

So yea baby what I am saying is that I scored this amp, got rid of guitar I never played, and the V18 that was going to cost me probably almost that much for a Celestion speaker upgrade.

Now if you want to talk about tone and power, clean and dirty, an absolutely wonderful reverb and over drive this is the amp. I am pretty much exhilerated with it. thanks

[HighTower]

Sounds like you got yourself a great deal! I parted with my V-18 too. Not because I didn't like it, but after I got the Deluxe it wasn't getting any playtime, so I figured someone else could put it to use.

[rangercaster]

the Crate Vintage Club Series are good solid Made In Usa amps ... nice score !!!

[Singin' Dave]

Originally Posted by rangercaster

the Crate Vintage Club Series are good solid Made In Usa amps ... nice score !!!

+1! I had a VC30 that wailed! Was a loud heavy sucker but I liked it for those dive bkier bar type gigs where anything could happen to your gear. Eventually sold it when I found some old Traynors for cheap, but cool amps. I did find that a lower gain tube in the driver slots helped me get a bit more usable headroom.

Just a note though - the "St Louis Music" Crate VC50s can typically be found ~$300-350 used ( I sold my VC30 w/ celestion for $250 last year), but they are worth every penny IMO. Enjoy!

[longbow]

350 is what they were asking for it. So I think it is a fair price I paid. But trouble in paradise my friends. On channel one the volume will cut in and out and then boom the base as it comes back on, so I will have to call them today and see whats up. Seems to only do that on channel 1. What is cool in the manual is they give you several pre thought out styles of music to try on it. Just follow the pics to set the knobs type of thing. So I am looking at channel 1 blues settings and lo and behold the setting I had set for myself and what I thought sounded pretty decent for the sound I wanted was very nearly what the diagram showed. Not exactly but pretty close.

I am going to replace the tubes in it today and maybe get some contact cleaner and compressed air and clean the switches and blow out every thing. The amp has set for years with no real playing time until the last month or so. I don't even know if the speaker is broken in or not. I haven't tried my LP though it either and will do that today as I haven't got much planned. thanks