crate V Series V18-112 18W 1x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp

When you first hear this amp, it sounds ok. You can get some decent tones out of it, but it breaks up really early, and it sounds very bass heavy and pretty muddy. This mod fixes all of that. For the amount of money spent on this amp overall, I am now extremely pleased with it. 150 initially for the amp, plus 6.25 in parts for resistors and capacitors, plus 4 hours or so of work, and BAM!!! I now have an amp that sounds like a 1000 dollar clean amp. It is really incredible what this mod does for the tone. I have been playing through this amp with a Damage Control Solid Metal dual tube distortion pedal and an Ibanez sz720fm with dave mustaine live wire pickups. Before, the clean was ok and the distortion could not distort enough. After this mod, the clean is incredible. I can turn the gain and the volume up to 11 and its still clean. The pedal distorts perfectly now as well. I can get pretty much any distortion tone I am looking for, and I can just clickity click on my pedal and BAM metal distortion, which can be perfectly tamed down using only the volume knob on the guitar. I cannot say enough good things about this mod, and I am now very very happy with my tone. The only thing that I have owned that I have liked better was my beloved Carvin MTS. Carvin makes some solid stuff btw.

No problems yet, but I have heard horror stories. I have had this for almost a year now, but only modded it about 8 weeks ago.

Before the mod, I forget what I gave this amp, probably a 6. After the mod, it gets a solid 9. There are some other pieces of gear that I like way more than this, so I cannot give it a 10. But hey, a 30% improvement for 6.25 is not bad at all. Again, I must thank Steve a buttload for this mod. Really incredible how much this changes the tone of the amp. Also, check out his other mods...I have heard really great things about them. If this were stolen, I would probably pickup another Carvin MTS or a V3. I think this amp is worth what I paid, but they sell for more than that now on ebay. I would sure be pissed about losing a brand new M12 speaker though, since they no longer make them. I picked this up on a whim from samash, just checking out gear. I saw a 100% tube combo for 150, and could not pass it up. I really wanted a small practice amp to keep in my living room. Since I fried my MTS, it has become my main playing amp. I highly recommend getting one of these if you have the chance and doing Steves mod on it. With this amp and the solid metal, you are looking at 350 for a solid, awesome sounding metal rig. Change out the speaker and tubes, plus the cost of the mod, the whole thing cost me about 500 dollars and I could not be happier with it. Steve, thanks again!!!