I was really blown away by how good a stock Crate Palomino V32 sounded the other day. This is a small 1 x 12 30 watt Class A all tube combo. Don't know if it was the specific combo of the player / guitar / amp that i heard at the time, but it was truly outstanding.
I've never been impressed with any of the other Crate guitar stuff i've ever heard, but this really sounded great. Phenomenal "creaminess" with great saturation, warmth and overtones. All of that without sounding "blurred" or "run together" when doing a combo of power chords and fast picking. Many amps fall apart when doing this. The fact that it comes at such a reasonable price ( $600 on the street ) compared to "boutique" amps can only be considered more icing on the cake.
The guitar player in the band that's been practicing in my basement just got his Triple Rec back from Voodoo after modifications. We're still playing with it, but from what we can gather, this amp is VERY touchy about tubes after VooDoo gets done with it. All of his tubes are band new cryo'd Sovtek's, but according to VooDoo, he's got to use Ruby's throughout the entire amp for best results. Needless to say, that means dumping more money into this head, which he's leery to do. The fact that he just retubed the whole thing prior to modifications really doesn't make him happy :( Sean
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