Carvin V3

I have been studying this amp for some time now and im loving the tone, the options and the overall styling. I have watched video's of people playing all kinds of different styles of music with it. Does anyone have any real world experience with one of these? Id love to hear from someone who has actually played one... At 499 at GC im very close to pulling the trigger its either a JF ultra lead a JF SLOD-100 and a JF superclean or the V3... help please i play mostly metal but i play some clean stuff and some mellower 80's rock too..
-mp-

Never played one..but they do look great..and Carvin is a good company from what I hear. I visited their showroom years ago...really nice.
GtrGeorge

Update:
I was at a GC 2 days ago and they had a V3 Carvin head in their showroom..at 699 used. Some guy was playig thru it and I had a chance to listen a bit and play it,as well.
Sadly I couldnt figure it out in the 5 minutes I had..but I can tell you its worth 699. It has 3 channels that seem to be good and versatile..maybe a tad non-descript...nothing screams MESA BOOGIE or FENDER CLEAN..but its all good sounds, to my ear. The clean is very clean. the dirt is very dirty...i asume the 3rd channel can get the crunch that lies in btetween
just a 5 minute review, but as an owner of an rm22, an rm4 and an rt 2/50 amongst other things...I can say there is no shame in owning and using a Carvin V3 professionally.

GtrGeorge

GtrGeorge! said:

The clean is very clean. the dirt is very dirty...i asume the 3rd channel can get the crunch that lies in btetween

Click to expand...

I believe the V3 has identical 2nd and 3rd channels (or I'm mistaken with the V3m - being the exact same amp with different output section)

It's a cool amp..the two od channels are the same...has good cleans.....doesnt really sound like any amp on the market,does it's own thing...can be very room filling with the use of the pwer amp controls.....

I'm a big fan of Carvin gear, and live close to the Hollywood store so I've gone through quite a bit of their stuff.

My personal opinion- The V3 is a versatile amp, but suffers from "Solo guitar syndrome". what I mean by that, is it seems to excel at tones that sound good when jamming alone, but in a group or mix, tend to sound thin, fizzy, and indistinct.

It's a quality amp for the price, no doubt, but for a serious gig, or especially recording, I would look elsewhere. In my opinion, the newer Legacy eats it up, especially with a boost in front. Much more rich and defined. If you're looking for a good price to value ratio from them, the new smaller size legacy models are hard to beat.