CrateV18Article

Crate V18-112 Review

By: Kevin Wagner | October 4, 2008

Crate, now a division of Loud Technologies, Inc., has been making affordable amplifiers since the late '70s. The originals were small combo amps and were actually built into what looked like shipping crates, saving on manufacturing costs what most users beat the hell out of first. Since then, they've made hundreds of different low to mid-range quality amp, speaker, and combo models, following trends as they waxed and waned but generally producing decent-sounding amps at very reasonable prices for the budget-concious among us.

The little lovely we're going to look at today is a fine example. This is the model V18-112 [owner's manual - pdf]. 18 watts of power from a pair of EL-84 tubes feeding into a 12" speaker, driven by 3 12AX7 preamp tubes. It also has a real mechanical spring reverb chamber, such as it is.

Fig. 1 <click to enlarge>

The unit is a bit bigger than you might imagine, almost as big as a 2x12 combo at 24" wide x 18.75" high x 10.25" deep. Your first impression is good - It's a reasonably attractive unit. It's also not terribly heavy at just under 40 pounds, so it's easy to drag around. We'll see why later.

Fig. 2 <click to enlarge>

Controls are fairly typical for an amp of this style in this price range. From left to right, you have Gain, Level, Treble, Middle, Bass, and Reverb, a power indicator light, standby switch, and power switch. You can also see the vents in the top for the tubes, which are mounted horizontally to the ground, and the padded handle.

Fig. 3 <click to enlarge>

Naturally, being a tube amp, it's an open back cabinet. The 8 screws you see there are the cover for the chassis, not what holds it in. The chassis retainer screws are on the sides. You'll need to know that at some point, if you ever have to change the tubes. You really can't see them from the outside, or get a good grip on them. You'll want to pull the chassis to access them.

Fig. 4 <click to enlarge>

Corner detail... you can see the cabinet has a good covering that's been properly applied. The screws are mostly either countersunk or surrounded. I don't understand the corner protectors, though. The silver part you see is aluminum, while the black part is plastic, and the whole affair takes 6 screws to install. Traditional tri-corner protectors would have not only looked better, taken more abuse, and been easier to manufacture, they would have taken less time and effort to install.

Fig. 5 <click to enlarge>

This is the main case emblem. While attractive enough, this one, along with the "Crate" emblem below, are both injection-molded plastic that's just stabbed into the wood. Don't expect them to last long if you move the amp around much. You'll knock 'em off for sure.

Fig. 6 <click to enlarge>

Of course, few new toys remain assembled very long around here. It just seems wrong, somehow. Toys are always full of mysteries that need exploring.

Fig. 7 <click to enlarge>

First, we take out the chassis, where most of the mysteries live. I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but this thing is made out of some sort of plywood rather than particle board. One thing you can tell is that the covering is fairly well done.

Fig. 8 <click to enlarge>

A better shot, which exposes the pitiful reverb chamber. They could have left that out, and saved more than enough money to add an effects loop and use the reverb pot as a second gain adjust. Not really a second channel, but a way to switch between clean/dirty. And, of course, a footswitch jack to do that with. Still would have been ahead, and ended up with more utility out of the thing.

Fig. 9 <click to enlarge>

Depending how you look at it, this is the bottom or (cabinet) front of the amp chassis. Not much to see, other than the tubes and output transformer.

Fig. 10 <click to enlarge>

Top view (cabinet back side) of the chassis. Plenty of space in there. The PC board to the left is the power supply, and to the right is the amplifier.

Fig. 11 <click to enlarge>

Another view from the top of the chassis. This is just the amplifier circuit board. It's full of parts and stuff <grin>

Fig. 12 <click to enlarge>

A clearer view of the front of the chassis <cabinet top side>.

Fig. 13 <click to enlarge>

Some better detail. As you saw in previous PC board shots, the board obviously has a solder mask on it, so you know these things are being automatically stuffed and run through a wave soldering machine. Saves a ton of time, which is money, but some close inspection of some of the joints on this board show that the wave soldering process could stand some adjustment. We're clearly not getting flow all the way through.

Fig. 14 <click to enlarge>

The output transformer. Pretty simple, and exposes some of where they save money on parts. No bell covers or anything. To be fair, the transformer isn't exposed, so it doesn't need to be as mechanically robust as it could be.

Fig. 15 <click to enlarge>

You can see all 5 tube sockets here. It's not obvious in the picture, but that's not a particularly thick PC board. Past experience has shown that scrimping here leads to burned up PC boards, but since this board has a vertical orientation as installed, it may not get as hot as some I've seen.

Fig. 16 <click to enlarge>

This is how they save weight (and more importantly, money) in this amp. Like a personal computer, it uses a switching power supply rather than the brute force units that traditional tube amps use. Switchers are incredibly efficient, and while they have more complex circuitry, they're dramatically less expensive to manufacture. In this case, it's also likely to be saving a good 30 pounds.

Fig. 17 <click to enlarge>

Top view of the power supply board. While that transformer in the center is most prominent, it's only about an inch tall. Probably doesn't weigh a whole pound.

Fig. 18 <click to enlarge>

The two naked bottles you see back there are the Sovtek EL-84 power tubes, from Russia, with love. The cans you see in the foreground are a couple of the 12AX7 preamp tubes (also Sovteks) with EMI shields installed.

So, that's what it all looks like. What does it sound like? It's hard to put into print, but I'll try. IT ROMPS! It's incredible how loud this thing will get! You could do small clubs with this amp very easily. Even if you're playing rock, you should be able to get over the drums. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this is a 50 watt amp, although my old 50 watt JCM900 would kick its ass. Of course, that thing would kick anything's ass, but still.

You can get some very nice overdriven tones out of it by cranking the gain and keeping the level down. And by overdriven, I mean it'll clean your teeth if you want it to. Very chunky and full, with nice harmonics that'll squeak if your guitar can do it. Nice lows and mids, with enough high end to have some definition. Just the opposite will get you very silky clean tones that any jazz player would love. Turning both up will tear your head off. I didn't spend much time there. I like living here <grin>

The tone controls are actually useful. They don't seem to affect the gain so much as the character, which is just how you want them to work.

The reverb is a total waste. It's gotta be the worst reverb I've ever heard, bar none. At very low levels, it's almost acceptable if you've never heard a good reverb, or don't know what reverb is or what it's supposed to sound like. As I mentioned earlier, they could have saved a lot of money by not having that circuit and hardware at all, or spent the same money adding some missing things.

What would I add? Well, there's a dual triode 12AX7 getting wasted for reverb right now. I'd have made that a second channel instead, and added a footswitch for it so you could switch between bitch and sing. Throw the reverb tank out - it's useless - and put an effects loop in its place. Outboard reverbs are a dime dozen these days, even for good ones. Neither of those changes would cost them anything, and might even save money while making the amp more useful. As it is now, if you want to go from rhythm to lead you've got to go fiddle with the settings. That's NFG in a live situation.

As for live use, I'm not sure what kind of life expectancy it would have there. There are definitely some corners cut that could be too sharp. The cabinet is well-built cosmetically, but in my experience, live performance equipment has to be robust to the point where you could rebuild a tractor engine on it and then break it in without any ill effect on the amp. I'm not impressed with the circuit boards, either. They're thin, which doesn't bode well for the connections, and while they took the trouble to add some silicone to the more vibration-prone areas, that's just turd-polishing. Shouldn't even need that if the wires/cables and connection points were heavy enough.

But, for a practice amp, you'd be hard-pressed to beat the thing sonically. I mean, it can be done, but for $150? At that price point, you really can't fault this amp. If you want a versatile amp to play with, you might want to pick one of these things up before you can't. It's a lot of amplifier for the money.