Jump to content
Heritage Owners Club

Two New Amps... day Carvin V3 and VOX AC 15 Custom


HANGAR18

Recommended Posts

Posted

I recently acquired two amplifiers so I'm combining them in this post.

First off, for someone like myself who had Marshall blinders on, I must mention mars-hall who wrote a glowing review of his new Carvin Legacy and how that review turned my head in the direction of Carvin, a brand I had barely ever even heard of, long enough for me to closely examine their offerings.

I began researching the brand and listening to every video demo I could find and then decided that the Carvin V3 was the right amp for me to try next. Then, Millennium Maestro, the enabler of the year, sold me his V3. And here it is...

carvin01.jpg

Every amp and every cabinet I started out this year with is gone.
So I may as well show you everything else I now have in my living room.
livingroom2012.jpg

The Marshall 1960A 4x12 cabinet is well used but it is new to me.
The brand new Marshall M412B cabinet is also plugged in to the Carvin amp but I have them spaced out to get a more full sound when I play. The Carvin V3 is a 100 watt all tube, 3 channel amp but I have it set to the 50 watt option and play it at about #2 or #3 on the dial because I don't have the words to describe how unbelievably loud this thing is. This is my first tube amp so all I know about it is that there are 4 big tubes and at least 6 little tubes.

voxac151c.jpg

The next amp I bought is brand new. There are 2 big tubes and 2 little tubes.
I figured that it might be good to take a break from the face melting distortion once in a while.
The Carvin can certainly play clean tones but I don't really need 100 watts to do that.

AC15C1: 15 Watts Single 12" Celestion G12M Greenback Speaker
http://www.voxamps.com/custom/ac15/

Posted

Merry Christmas to you Hangar18! Those appear to be a couple of fun amps. Your 150 / 157 will go very nicely with the Carvin. You'll need a good 137 or other P90 equipped guitar to really appreciate that Vox. You must have been a good boy this year!

Posted

Merry Christmas to you Hangar18! Those appear to be a couple of fun amps. Your 150 / 157 will go very nicely with the Carvin. You'll need a good 137 or other P90 equipped guitar to really appreciate that Vox. You must have been a good boy this year!

 

Merry Christmas to you too! This is probably going to be a dumb question but my black H157 has a push/pull pot installed by the previous owner. I never use it but I assume it splits both pickups in half. Would that be the same thing as a P90 or should I get a guitar with actual P90s in order to experience what you are describing?

Posted

Coil splitting is more reminiscent of single coils ala Strat. P90s, while being single coils, have a distinct sound of their own. See if you can borrow a 137 or meet up with an HOC member to try with the Vox.

Posted

Never tried anything by Carvin, but I've never heard a complaint either. I love the AC line. The tones are killer!

 

The thing that did it for me was this one moment when I was listening to one of the V3 demos and the idea occurred to me that the tone sounds exactly how guitar tones sound on a record/album/CD/whatever. Let's say that you go to a studio to record an album. You can set up your guitar and amp and everything exactly how you want them to sound, but a recording engineer is just going to tweak and polish everything up so it sounds really good on the recording. That's how these amps sound to me, just like I was playing on an album. Very polished and nice.

Posted

Vox = :thumbsup: Had the AC15CC1 with a Blue Dog for a while. Great amp! It really does the chimey cleans - to natural OD very well. All with the turn of a volume knob.

Posted

congrats on both acquisitions!! Gotaa say though that AC-15 is right in my wheelhouse!! Enjoy!!

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...