Carvin V3 Head

[spanishwordfor]

today i got a carvin magazine in the mail. i found the V3 and thought it was pretty sweet. i asked some of my friends but they didn't know anything about Carvin. i looked it up and everything i found was saying how they were better than marshall and mesa. never heard of these amps. i was wondering if it is any good, because the head is only $950. if anyone could give me any feedback on it id appreciate it. thanks.

-tom

[Guitarist]

I've seen those listed as well. That's a really good value and with midi or normal channel switching, which will cost you alot more from other European amp makers, you've got a killer rig. Their video on that is kind of cool. It does high gain majorly. For $1000 you might be able to get their silver tube stereo power amp $550 and a Zoom G7 or G9 $400 which woudn't dissapoint.
Your in great shape either way!

[Zoe_N_Iain]

Our local store is a Carvin dealer. I don't recall him having a V3 in at any point but he swears by the other Carvin stuff he sells, so I've no reason to suspect the V3 is any different.

[hasserl]

I'm pretty familiar with the Carvin amps. I've been inside many of them, and I own three Carvin amps with a couple of Carvin speaker cabs. Carvin builds good quality stuff, but in the typical pcb style construction like most everybody else. They do tend to be quite a bit cleaner construction than most others I've seen (Peavey, Fender, Marshall), but it's still pcb, with tube sockets and pots mounted to the pcb. That doesn't bother me so much, but it seems to bother a lot of people. But I don't think you can get anything different without spending more than twice as much. So, anyway, for that style construction I think Carvin build quality is as good as any, better than some.

But I am not a fan of the V3 amp, I just don't like the way it sounds. The Legacy amp sounds incredible, and in side by side comparison with teh V3 the Legacy is so far superior I wouldn't even consider the V3.

Also, despite what I wrote in my opening paragraph, Carvin has had some problems with the V3, mostly in the midi controls and the channel switching. There have been a couple of updates released and Carvin has been having customers send the amps in for the upgrades. So, it may be a good price for a three channel amp, but three channels of bad tone equal no good tone. And with the problems they've had with the midi and channel switching I'd just avoid them completely.

Now the Legacy on the other hand, two channels, both sound outstanding. I highly recommend it.