I was at guitar center and I came across the new Crate Shockwave amp. It had a lot of gain and seemed pretty good. I am in the looking for a new amp and since I am returning my old amp to Guitar Center I will have a lot of store credit there. I tried other amps and none of them were as good as this one. Its a 350W solid state for $800. I'm thinking its a pretty good deal. I tried some other Marshalls and they really weren't that great. Has any one else tried this amp? Is there any other good amps you've tried at guitar center?

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This is the amp
http://www.crateamps.com/html/news_release.cfm?nid=23

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I use solid state amps myself and Crate at that. Yes, I can almost hear all of the tube guys burning up the key bourds to reply they're dislike, but Crate do make great S/S amps. You will never have to replace tubes of bias the damn thing. It will never get sick and never grow old like tube amps. I think that I will have to get one of those myself because 350 watts of juice compared to my 120 is fucking great! I only hope my cabs can handle it; I will check!

If you like it, then I say go for it! The sound will not change over time like tubes, because if a S/S amp dies it just fucking goes out and you know that it needs work. That doesn't happen very often either as long as you never go below the Ohm input of the amp. If you need a warm sound then use a tube pre amp in front of the amp.

The best thing I like about S/S amps is that they don't need power soaking like tubes to prevert signal drag; they are always in your face, no need to warm up 5 min., punchy, crunchy, and have an hard edge sound.

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Did I mention that Crate gives a 5 year warrenty

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not bad, the 350w could be useful for people that want to play loud because when 120w s.s. heads get to the point that they're loud enough, the distort in a bad way, 350w will give more headroom.
not a bad head if you dig the tone... i'd put a tube preamp or something in the fx loop though.

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Cool, I'm leaning towards this amp. And I'll probably be picking it up tommorow.
I'll let you know how it works out.

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Sweet, please do let everyone know about it.

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as far as solid state amps are concernd watts arent worth anything ..... the marshall solid state has 300w and sucks... the warheads have 300 watts and suck ... etc etc.there are tube amps with 60 watts that smoke most 300 watts solid states. im not a solid state hater cuz i like their sound ... but rather recommend going with a tube ... they got more punch and sound definition.

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if it was 350 watt DIN i'd be happy to buy it but now it happens to be 350 WATT R.M.S WHICH IS FALSE!

s.s. or tube....watts are always worth something, so don't kid yourself.

the mode 4 is 350w and it's a good amp imo. but for the money you could buy an all tube head with plenty of power and much better tone.
the warheads do suck, but some of the other 300w randall heads are wicked as hell.

yes most 60 watt tube amps will smoke a 300w s.s. amp as far as tone goes, but what good is that tone to people if they can't hear it?
volume,headroom,presence, and power are sometimes more important than tone.
but with my band....i'm the kind of guy that will play a 100w tube fullstack on ten and i still desire more volume and power. ear protection is a must in the life of me.

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I'm actualy picking it up tommorow now. I haven't played it with my own guitar yet so I'm not sure how it will sound then. And I played the Mode 4 and I really didn't like it very much, then again I didn't mess with it long enough to really get a tone I like out of it.
What I've discovered is that you have to pay a lot more to get a decent tube amp than to get a decent S.S. amp. Well duh, huh.

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Wow, you must be half deaf by now. That must be pretty loud I would imagine.

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what!?
earplugs save lives. seriously though, we play fucking loud, but the overall sound is fucking brilliant.

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Niiice \m/

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300 w rms in tubes or s/s are are the same amount its just that the tube sound tricks our ears so that it sounds bigger and more punchier.

this is true to a point, a 100w tube head will sound a bit louder than a 100w s.s. head, but alot of people think its tons louder....
i used to have a 160w s.s. crate g1600 xl head and my other guitarist had a 120w tube crate blue voodoo head... we both cranked em up at every practice...and although his amp sounded better on ten, the volume levels were pretty equal between us even though i had a bit more wattage.

speakers and cab design also have alot to do with volume.

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Yupp.

haha .. the mode four is one of the worst amps i have ever played no punch no sound definition nothing. this thing sucks so bad ... even my practise combo smokes 5 if them.

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the MF is the worst amp ever made.....

\m/

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tone def pussies.

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well the mode four isn't a super bad amp, its actually one of the better ss amps. hell you do pay for that too, for that kinda price I'de get something decent though


that shockwave head doesn't look half bad, if you like its tone, get it. if you don't look around for something else, that simple.

xDx, you turn up your 100w tube amp to full volume? what amp is that? because I can't turn up my poweramp at more then half its volume before I go apeshit. (and what cab are you using with it?)

well, currently i'm using a really clean 800w stereo PA poweramp because i'm saving for a mesa simulclass 2:90. but as you can imagine, with 800w, no poweramp distortion at all. i'm running it into one or two(depending on how i feel) vintage peavey 4x12 cabs with bass ports, each loaded with two vintage 30's and two g12t-75's in a criss cross pattern.
but with how loud i end up playing my other guitarist had his bv120h pushing a matching crate bv4x12 with v30's and he always had to turn it up to like 8-10 during practices and gigs to compete with me. but he just sold the bv for a 5150 which he is waiting to get in the mail, so right now he's running my bogne/hafler triple giant into one side of my power amp(400w) and i'm running my jmp1 and shit through the other side(400w).
freaking loud, but with my drummer, my singer, and our synth noisecore effects running through the PA... we have to get loud.

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I farted around with the MF350 and couldn't get a really good sound that I like out of it. This was around the time I bought my 5150 which I think sounds better than the JCM900 I tried out. I saw this amp and was about to try it out at GC this past weekend but didn't. I didn't know it was S.S. though. It looks like a tube amp.

I was really impressed with the GLX series and that new Line6 head.

My 5150any solid state amp though.

the line 6 hd147? i just saw cephalic carnage last night and one of them was using it on a mesa cab, nice tone for a line 6 imo. the other guy had a 5150 II and his shit was sweet sounding too.
i like the MF, alot of people on these forums probably just say they don't like them so they can look like "tubefreaks" i think it sounds good and it's loud as hell, the cleans don't breakup and the distortion is way usable unless you're a retard that can turn a couple knobs or you have bad tecnique when you play the guitar.
but the bottom line for me is that it just isnt worth what they're asking for it.

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Yeah Marshall kicks ass but too expensive for me. Thank god for Peavey

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