Carvin X100B Amp
I was so happy with my DC150 that I considered, and eventually bought, a Carvin X100B 100 watt head to replace my poor old Peavey. For me this was a monster. 4 – 6L6 power tubes, and a host of 12AX7 preamp tubes. The clean sound was outstanding, and a huge jump up from the Peavey. The sound leaped out of the speakers. The Carvin had a footswitch for getting crunchy sounds, and it always did well for me. The one drawback with this amp was that it was too damn big! Too powerful, that is. In all the time I owned it I don’t recall ever turning the volume up past “3″ other than to just blow it out once in a while. That just doesn’t get to where the meaty good tube amp sounds are usually. The amp had a switch that cut the power to half and quarter, but that made the clean sound suffer significantly. In retrospect I probably should have bought the 50 watt version of the amp, but, well, you know, how would I have been able to play Madison Square Garden?!?
I used the amp through a variety of speaker cabs over the years, including a 2×12, a 4×12 and a pair of 4×12′s. I sold it when I thought my band days were pretty much over, and replaced it with a small Peavey Triumph 1×12 combo.