Amps in between 5 lbs and 80 lbs

[dkelley]

I love Carvin but there is a reason the audio side went out of business for a while.

What reason?

I've never experienced anything but awesome from any of their amps. I've bought only used amps and speakers from craigslist, lots of carvin stuff over the years due to nice low used prices, and they have always worked flawlessly. I've opened them up (I always do with my gear - I prefer first hand information), and always been very pleased with the builds.

If it's sound quality, well sure, for guitar amps and such there is a unique tone for many manufacturer's designs... and I totally can understand Carvin being a bad match for some guitarists/bassists looking for certain tones - just like with any other brand. Their PA stuff was amazing, but then I only owned a pretty high end pair of mains from them and a power amp - so they ought to have been great, and they were.

But then, behringer makes some pretty amazing sounding stuff too LoL...

Anyhow, I'm honestly just trying to learn the reason behind your statement. I don't disbelieve you - I just have only my personal experience with their products.

 

[DJ Bebop]

What reason?

I've never experienced anything but awesome from any of their amps. I've bought only used amps and speakers from craigslist, lots of carvin stuff over the years due to nice low used prices, and they have always worked flawlessly. I've opened them up (I always do with my gear - I prefer first hand information), and always been very pleased with the builds.

If it's sound quality, well sure, for guitar amps and such there is a unique tone for many manufacturer's designs... and I totally can understand Carvin being a bad match for some guitarists/bassists looking for certain tones - just like with any other brand. Their PA stuff was amazing, but then I only owned a pretty high end pair of mains from them and a power amp - so they ought to have been great, and they were.

But then, behringer makes some pretty amazing sounding stuff too LoL...

Anyhow, I'm honestly just trying to learn the reason behind your statement. I don't disbelieve you - I just have only my personal experience with their products.

Carvin split apart years ago.

Half the family that did the instruments, guitars, and basses, left under the Kiesel
family name: Kiesel Guitars - Custom Guitars and Basses Made in the USA

The other half, the audio half, kept the company name, Carvin. Went out of business for a while, probably to reform: Carvin Audio Announces Closure After 70 Years in Business.

And came back as Carvin Audio: Carvin Amps and Audio- Gear For Musicians and Sound Professionals
As you can see a shell of what they were, IMHO

 

[dkelley]

Carvin split apart years ago.

Half the family that did the instruments, guitars, and basses, left under the Kiesel
family name: Kiesel Guitars - Custom Guitars and Basses Made in the USA

The other half, the audio half, kept the company name, Carvin. Went out of business for a while, probably to reform: Carvin Audio Announces Closure After 70 Years in Business.

And came back as Carvin Audio: Carvin Amps and Audio- Gear For Musicians and Sound Professionals
As you can see a shell of what they were, IMHO

Once again, I'm aware of that

That doesn't answer my question - it's what happened, but not why it happened.

It was only like half a decade ago, more or less... as I get older, that doesn't sound like a long time LoL, but I guess it really is.

The well respected instrument line-up stayed the same (with additional new stuff as always).

The, I thought, well respected amps and pro audio gear disappeared completely, even though the carvin brand continues.

Carvin now makes (or rebrands?) rather unimpressive looking audio gadgets, which to me is a huge insult to the Carvin brand's amazing history.

So.... again... What reason did "the audio side go out of business for a while?" (quote from the other post you made)

That's what I want to learn. Not the fact that they stopped making pro audio gear and renamed their (unchanged, other than some new entries) guitars/basses to the parent Kiesel brand.

Not trying to sound snarky LoL, but just trying to make my question clear.

 

[DJ Bebop]

You could contact them directly as anything I would say would be pure speculation.

My guess, my speculation would be, the in house audio was not as profitable and their failure rates were getting out of hand. It became a burden on the whole company. The guitar guys split the scene to save themselves.

Again I loved Carvin. I have a BB bass that's my #2. I had three bass amps, two failed. One power amp still kicking. A mixing board that failed, sent it back. They said they looked it over and it was fine, sent it back and it looked like they didn't even unbox it as it was packed in the same packing material I packed it in. They would have had to cut it open, they didn't.
Of course, it still didn't work, it was as it was when I sent it.
Oh, and they charged me for the privilege.

 

[Balog]

A note on the “I bought a bunch of stuff from Brand X and never had a problem, they must be reliable!” line of argumentation.

A %10 failure rate (to pull a number out of thin air) would be unacceptable for a manufacturer. All the warranty claims and bad press etc would be devastating. But even that high failure rate just means you have a %90 of getting a good one. And the used pool would be even more likely to be safe, as (assuming you test and the seller isn’t able to hide failures) you’re virtually guaranteed to get one of the 90 out of 100 that’s good.

Experience at the consumer level is always (even in the relatively unlikely event you bought 10 or 20 brand new copies of the same amp) such a small and limited sample size as to be unreliable for making judgements.

 

[9mmMike]

The old GBE series are nice but older now. The nice thing is that we still have excellent support for the older Genz stuff. You can get a used GBE in whatever flavor you want and have agedhorse go through it and end up with a reliable, rackable cab. I say this without actually checking to see that he supports these though. I have had two Shuttle 6.2's refreshed by agedhorse and they are excellent. "like new". I have a couple GBE750's and I love the sound. Just a little heavy for me now and not as portable (for me) as my Shuttles. I do have a Mesa 800+ that I would like to work into my sound but I am not set on a cab yet.