the sound of the crate flex wave 120 is above what crate has had in the past, i rank it up there with the randalls, peaveys (not 5150 or jsx) and equal to the marshall solid state heads. the quality of the sound in the clean channel is shimmering and solid its a good quality clean channel, the 2nd channel is not so good and reminds me of the old crate gt 60 head which is why i got rid of it years ago, now the 3rd channel is full out war when it comes to shredding, if you need more drive and gain then nothing will make you happy short of an ice pick to your ear. the sound is not only expressive on the clean and 3rd channel but it helps articulate single note runs superbly. the head achives the sound in both the clean 1st channel and the dirty 3rd channel that im trying to get. my musical style ranges from classical to jazz to rock to metal, anything that inspires me to play. yes on this head some sounds are better than others but thats my paticular ear not others. by itself the head sounds good. ive only used this head with a marshall 4x12 angled cab with celestian speakers and it stands on its own. live vs recording i wouldnt know. in diff settings ive tried all around my home and with a few tweaks it sounds fine it adapts quite nice. with this head im using a marshall 4x12 cabinet loaded with celestian 50 watt speakers and a crybaby wah wah. to make this product sound better i would get rid of a few of the effects in the head starting with the phaser and flanger, keep the chorus but give it a lil more shimmer. the reverb is outstanding. and the delay needs to be beefed up, on full its a slight repeat so i plan on running the effects off and keeping the reverb on all the time. ill pick up a boss digital delay pedal and have a bit more delay.

yes the head came with a good foot pedal to switch channels even though the only real good channels are the clean and nasty. the middle channel is less desired in my case but others may disagree. as far as missing accessories crate needs give a y connector with this head im running a wah thru the front because no one here has a stereo to mono 3 way plug for the effects processor so ill have to order the crate 3 way cable.the least use features are the phase and flange effects. features i wish it had would be a better middle channel a roland jazz chorus middle channel would be cool.

i took it out of the box, read the manual, plugged it in and started to play. i fiddled with the d.s.p and and all the controls and had a good sound in prob 10 minutes. the effects loop 3 way cord pissed me off though.the manual was clear it explained enough, if you need anymore explination you should get a pignose amp. very playable.

i ordered the new head from zz sounds ( by the way zzounds kicks serious ass with there quick shiipng and low prices)the quality is great the fit and finish is way above what crate was yrs ago. reliable? so far so good. i would use this on the road if i had to but im a play at home musician.

the crate flexwave 120 is a good solid state head for a good price. i would highly recomend it to beginners and intermediate players. im sure that a few experts would use this but they can afford the old marshall heads and the mesa boogies. but for us workin stiffs this is a excellent value in guitar heads.

i havent had to deal with crate yet. but zzounds is the best

sex appeal? did i buy a porno star or a guitar head? ok ill look at it and think sexy.... allright it looks sexy , and it looks like the old hiwatt heads from 1980. wow i think it looks sexy sitting on my marshall cabinet. whats really sexy is that cool pedal that lights up the whole frickin room when u hit the crunch 3rd channel, yahhhoooo...

hobbyist

anything that inspires

been playing piano and guitarfor a combined 13 years (piano 8- guitar 5)

Progressive metal eg. Avenged Sevenfold, all that remains, metallica. bullet for my valenting.

the sound is pretty awesome, and the quality of sound great at any volume. one of the most unique sounding amps ive ever played. very nice for all types of rock

the footswitch is nice and easy to switch the channels, probably the most useful thing. the guitar tuner built in is cool too.

its pretty easy to get a great sound from this amp. i had to learn which channels each button on the footswitch used, which only took a minute.

made very well, solidly built. looks nice sounds nice

this amp is worth every penny, one of the best amps i have ever played!

havent had to deal with the company

looks pretty slick.

musician

metal, rock, punk

It allmost sounds like a tube amp. I have owned vintage fender and marshall amps over the years. It will make a good beginer half-stack. I would never take it on the road. The onboard effects. turn on and off all on their own.

It came with a footswitch, but no paperwork what so ever. I like the option of having three channels to choose from. The effects are useless. Maybe six months from now I might have found a use for them, but not right now.

I was easy to get a ok, quality sound from it. But I use it to back up another half-stack. On its own it would be lacking.

The quality of contruction seems very good.

it's worth what I paid, I will more than likley give it to a student at a later date.

I have had no contact with them as of yet.

I will only use it to back-up other amps. never on its own.

34 years in all capacities.

classical, rock

Inconsistant I would set the level and start a song and all the sudden my band or myself couldn't hear my guitar. Then id switch to the gain or high gain channels and it was so quite that it felt like I was a mile away instead of in the same room as everybody else.

It had a nice foot switch which was included but it didn't help the head work any better. And there is a cool built in tuner that is hard to read and always on. Had to but an additional tuner just to be practical and not have to unplug to tune at shows.

It is darn near impossible to get great sound out of the product. I play it through a marshal 1960A cab and tried both 4 and 8 ohmns and it was terrible. The instruction booklet was two pages of computer paper folded in half. Kinda only said what the features where like dsp. Which I hate I couldn't get the reverb, flanger or chorus effects to turn off. So I got this horrible digital effects that made my guitar sound choppy and new wavish and that saddens me. To even attempt to use the product it would be best to get a pedal and only use the clean channel 100% of the time.

It came to me in great condition bought the blemished one and I never could find the blemished looked good to me. The style is nice very modern look. Id never take this on the road cause id always end up borrowing other bands heads just to play. It seemed strong and well built but too hard to use to be practical. Maybe good for a studio where you have hours to tweek the knobs till some magic happens.

I don't think it was worth what I paid. And I don't think id buy other crate products unless they had really good reviews and I tried them out first.

Zzounds support is good. Crate support is good but they where unable to fix my sound issues or inability to turn off the dsp. So I set back as a defective head.

I did want it it looks really beautiful and well designed from the picture. But in real life it is more just a big paper weight.

singer 5 years guitarist 1 year

rock, punk, metal, hardcore,ragtime, folk, blues