PremierGuitar Review of the Carvin V3M

Not to hijack the thread, but why is there so much loathing for Carvin gear? I don't get it... they have been in business for a long time. They must know SOMETHING about making stuff people will buy. Help a brother out!
 
PunkKitty said:
I've been looking at that amp since it came out. I like the specs.
Click to expand...

Hopefully it sounds a whole lot better in person than those awful clips

parrotheada1a said:
Not to hijack the thread, but why is there so much loathing for Carvin gear? I don't get it... they have been in business for a long time. They must know SOMETHING about making stuff people will buy. Help a brother out!
Click to expand...

Beats me...I have a Carvin 2X12 cab and it's great. Some aspects of their guitars are a little funky looking but every one I've played has been nice.
 
Crappy clips. I mean, who uses BOTH pickups for gain, usually?

Here's a much, much better video.




I hadn't noticed this thread before today, and just got my new Carvin catalogue today. This amp intrigues me, since I'm in the market to get a nice smallish combo that will do at least a classic metal sound (at least get me to Iced Earth territory) but still do other tones as well

This Carvin V3m sounds pretty good in this guy's hands, imo.

Call me interested :embarrassed:
 
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parrotheada1a said:
Not to hijack the thread, but why is there so much loathing for Carvin gear? I don't get it... they have been in business for a long time. They must know SOMETHING about making stuff people will buy. Help a brother out!
Click to expand...

I don't know anything about them other than they tried to pull one over on one of Mark's students. Mark is not a fan. They look nice in pictures but that's as close to one as I've ever been.
 
parrotheada1a said:
Not to hijack the thread, but why is there so much loathing for Carvin gear? I don't get it... they have been in business for a long time. They must know SOMETHING about making stuff people will buy. Help a brother out!
Click to expand...

To expand on it, I think it's a combination of things:
-They are direct only, not cheap enough to persuade the casually curious customer to purchase.
-Little if any "pro" exposure to the general public
-IMO, the aesthetic of many of their instruments is just a little off; too much gold hardware/bling/quilt on some models, too sharp in some areas, to rounded off in others & they have had some wonky headstocks and some kooky electronics. To me, sometimes they seem to be chasing that last fad after it's dead.
-Weak resale (...and I can say that most of the Carvin gear I've seen played out was older used stuff in the hands of poor high school kid bands just starting out.)

OTOH, I have a Carvin cab that I love and every single used Carvin guitar I've played in a shop has been a killer guitar.
 
reverend1 said:
I don't know anything about them other than they tried to pull one over on one of Mark's students. Mark is not a fan.
Click to expand...

What was that story, again? Mark? (or a link?)


I used to post on the Carvin Museum forums a bit, and I saw stories of very loyal customers getting BuFu'ed by Carvin sales people that weren't their couple of 'regulars' (usually someone new), but most stories were of Carvin sales people bending over backwards to try and help the customer, fwiw.

My guess is that it wouldn't be much different if some of the other larger companies (Gibson, Fender, etc.) were to deal directly with the customer too. Probably would be alot of cool 'they helped me out' type stuff, and a few 'I got screwed' stories.



I own 2 Carvin guitars, one speaker cab, and used to own a Carvin XB-100 head. They all worked as advertised when I received them, and I've never had to deal with customer support (other than the ordering) idn_smilie
 
The second demo sounded much better (the amp setup wasn't pathetic - c'mon both pickups for mega gain is hardly ever used, due to the nasal sound you get). I used to have a couple of Carvin amps (X60B head, and an X60A combo), that were OK, but like those amps the V3 is nice to me, but not enough to make me say wow! v
 
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