NAD!!

Spent a bit of time A/B'ing both the EVH III mini and the Carvin set at 50w (since the EVH is a 50w amp).

I think I like the clean channel better in the Carvin, even though you can't get it to break up. It just sounds a bit better. Quieter too, with my Reverend Stu D Baker and it's p90s. Not much hum at all. The EVH hums quite a bit with the p90s. The EVH wins if you are going for a slight bit of break-up/gain, but the Carvin has reverb, which the EVH doesn't.

The high gain channel on both amps, I'm undecided…the EVH has a much more modern sound to it (6L6's) while the Carvin sounds more '80-ish (EL34's).

The Carvin has just a bit of fizziness to it if you crank the gain all the way to 10, with the extra gain switch toggled on. Also, if you crank the bass tone control all the way to 10 (if you are scooping your mids, for example) there is a bit of unwanted boominess. Back both of those knobs to around 8.5 or so and you are good to go. The Carvin's gain channel without the high gain switch toggled sounds really good even at 10 on the gain knob. And it's way easy to back down and get a good mild light rock tone.

The EVH sounds pretty good no matter where any of the knobs are set. It is a bright-sounding amp, so I usually have the presence mostly off, the treble knob set low and the bass knob set higher. You can crank the gain all the way to 10 and no fizz, but it sounds best with the gain at about 4 or 5 (out of 10), and that is plenty of gain even for the most brootal metal. The Carvin has to have the gain knob pretty well cranked to get into that territory, and is a darker amp. I think the tone knobs on the Carvin are much more interactive.


They are just very different sounding amps. I'll probably keep them both. If I was doing a gig and playing '80s rock & metal, AC/DC, Bryan Adams, Dio, Dokken, etc. I'd grab the Carvin. More modern metal/downtuned/7 & 8 string stuff, definitely the EVH. I know the EVH sounds great with pedals thru the clean channel, for pedal users. We had Baimun's pedal board thru it at the last Pragestock I went to. Not sure about the Carvin, as I don't own a bunch of pedals :embarrassed:
 
One quick question:

The Carvin has a master volume, as well as a volume for each channel. (My old '80s X100B just had channel volumes, no master)

What's the best way of setting it to help open up the power tubes? Crank the master and control the volume(s) with the two channel volumes? Crank both channel volumes and control the overall with the master? Or does it really make a difference one way or another?

I've been using it in the house with the master on around 3, and both channel volumes on around 3. Much louder and I would start getting into neighbor-bothering territory :embarrassed:
 
One quick question:

The Carvin has a master volume, as well as a volume for each channel. (My old '80s X100B just had channel volumes, no master)

What's the best way of setting it to help open up the power tubes? Crank the master and control the volume(s) with the two channel volumes?

Yes. The channel volumes are located where the Volume is on non-MV amps. THis is a case where want a cascading effect, each stage adds more voltage until it's slamming out of control into the PI and power tubes.

Crank both channel volumes and control the overall with the master?

No, this would overdrive the preamp but choke off the voltage before driving the power tubes, I will *assume* Carvin is using a pre-PI MV.

Ultimately, big high wattage multi-channel amps like these (and Mesa Mk series and Soldano SLO, etc.) were never designed for Plexi-like cranked power tube OD. The power amps were designed to accurately amplify the preamp tones. But that doesn't mean you can't push them anyway. There are always attenuators.
 
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