Thoughts on Carvin Redline series

[trower]

Anybody own one of these heads/combo's. There are a couple of these locally for sale cheap and I'm in the market for an inexpensive bass amp.

[mike barth]

The old saw "you get what you pay for" is given life with those. Lots of useless knobs for tweaking a just okay tone. A decent beginner rig I suppose. I could'nt get any thing to sound good with it Seems like every GC has one... btw . lowball like hell.

[trower]

Thanks Mike, true..seems to be a few of these around. Carvin speakers decent?

[Antero]

Originally Posted by trower

Thanks Mike, true..seems to be a few of these around. Carvin speakers decent?

Yes.

[BassHog]

There is nothing wrong with the redline series..they seem be be feature packed and quite reliable...but... I hate the way they sound. I spent the better part of an hour trying to get a decent tone out of one that was a factory sample that carvin sent to my buddies studio for him to check out. It was loud...but the tone just wasn't there for me.

[Antero]

Living near the Hollywood store, I can say that the BRX series sounds a lot more badass than the Redline.

[trower]

Originally Posted by BassHog

There is nothing wrong with the redline series..they seem be be feature packed and quite reliable...but... I hate the way they sound. I spent the better part of an hour trying to get a decent tone out of one that was a factory sample that carvin sent to my buddies studio for him to check out. It was loud...but the tone just wasn't there for me.

Yea, that's what I'm hearing..can anyone explain what's missing? Bottom? clarity?...

[BassHog]

I guess I would have to say it lacked warmth. It had clarity but sounded sterile. It's hard to put my finger on but I just didn't like it. I feel the same way about Hartke amps. I'm a tube amp guy so that may be why I hated it.

[kbphx]

Originally Posted by mike barth

The old saw "you get what you pay for" is given life with those. Lots of useless knobs for tweaking a just okay tone. A decent beginner rig I suppose. I could'nt get any thing to sound good with it Seems like every GC has one... btw . lowball like hell.

One of our local GC's had a used one (head/cab setup) that was priced HIGHER than Carvin's own direct pricing. A friend of mine wanted to buy it, and needed it "right now" rather than waiting for shipping from Carvin. GC wouldn't even match Carvin's direct price for a new one. :NUTS