# Played a Crate Stealth and HOLY SH%^!!



## matt-in-mn (Jan 26, 2012)

So I have been in search of a amp to fit the 80's/hard rock band I am in and my drummer works for a concert backline comapany and has been talking about this Crate stealth that they had to get for slaughter when they did a tour with them not long ago, I was thinking WHATEVER!! He brought it last night to practice and I was blown away!! Its 50 watts, cuts like a bitch and sounds AWESOME!! I have to find one!! I didnt get to try the Gain 2 setting cause he forgot the foot switch but holy cow was it awesome for tha genre of music.. He was telling me it is the ONLY amp Blando will use and they wouldnt use T&E CONCERT SERVICES if they wouldnt get a Stealth.. If anyone knows where I can get one please PM Me...


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## suffo20 (Jan 26, 2012)

Those amps were designed by Lee Jackson and you can find them on ebay all the time!


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## synrgy (Jan 26, 2012)

I've played through a few Crates over the years. All of them have been excellent, and are largely responsible for my appreciation of solid state amps generally speaking.


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## Chris Migdalski (Jan 26, 2012)

matt-in-mn said:


> So I have been in search of a amp to fit the 80's/hard rock band I am in and my drummer works for a concert backline comapany and has been talking about this Crate stealth that they had to get for slaughter when they did a tour with them not long ago, I was thinking WHATEVER!! He brought it last night to practice and I was blown away!! Its 50 watts, cuts like a bitch and sounds AWESOME!! I have to find one!! I didnt get to try the Gain 2 setting cause he forgot the foot switch but holy cow was it awesome for tha genre of music.. He was telling me it is the ONLY amp Blando will use and they wouldnt use T&E CONCERT SERVICES if they wouldnt get a Stealth.. If anyone knows where I can get one please PM Me...



I just sold 2 and have 1 left...I have to rebuild it


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## Quitty (Jan 26, 2012)

Weird... I've only ever heard bad things about them. Specifically, their cheapo tube amps.


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## Chris Migdalski (Jan 26, 2012)

Quitty said:


> Weird... I've only ever heard bad things about them. Specifically, their cheapo tube amps.



I would have to disagree sir


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## Quitty (Jan 26, 2012)

Chris Migdalski said:


> I would have to disagree sir



Enlighten me - they're affordable and readily available - i'd love to get one, even for running a distortion pedal through the clean channel.


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## Randy (Jan 27, 2012)

Quitty said:


> Weird... I've only ever heard bad things about them. Specifically, their cheapo tube amps.



You're probably thinking of their SS models and the Blue Voodoos, which are famously fizzy. I owned a Crate Stealth 100watt and it fucking pwned. Great grind, articulate, saturated well and it was one of the quietest amps I've encountered. Lee Jackson and Crate weren't fucking around when they made those things. Think dimed JCM800.

This is not the kinda amp you buy to run a distortion pedal through.

I remember selling mine for $250 but it looks like the market is finally catching onto them so I'd expect to pay closer to $300 USD for the 100W and $250 for the 50W.

The only reason I sold it was because I was young and just embarrassed by the fact it said "Crate" on the front of it, and wanted something that would get more respect. Huge mistake.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Jan 27, 2012)

Judging by the Ampeg/Crate "relations", I take it the Crate Stealths = Ampeg VL's?


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## HighGain510 (Jan 27, 2012)

I had one of these a LONG time ago, it was decent, did the Marshall deal pretty well on a budget but still not my first choice in amps.


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## Randy (Jan 27, 2012)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Judging by the Ampeg/Crate "relations", I take it the Crate Stealths = Ampeg VL's?



Correct.

EDIT: Oh, forgot. The other reason I got rid of it was the lack of a standby switch.


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## Quitty (Jan 27, 2012)

Randy said:


> You're probably thinking of their SS models and the Blue Voodoos, which are famously fizzy. I owned a Crate Stealth 100watt and it fucking pwned. Great grind, articulate, saturated well and it was one of the quietest amps I've encountered. Lee Jackson and Crate weren't fucking around when they made those things. Think dimed JCM800.
> 
> This is not the kinda amp you buy to run a distortion pedal through.
> 
> ...



I heard about the V's - V50, V33 and V100 - about them allegedly being very, very un-tube-like (god knows what that really means) and fizzy.

just tell me i'm wrong... I'll be buying.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Jan 27, 2012)

Quitty said:


> I heard about the V's - V50, V33 and V100 - about them allegedly being very, very un-tube-like (god knows what that really means) and fizzy.
> 
> just tell me i'm wrong... I'll be buying.



Lets just say that the late 80's, 90's, and early 2000's Crates were the best, except for the Blue Voodoos. 
If, like stated above, the Stealth's sound anything like the Ampeg VL's, then they're a beast of an amp.

The V series were dribble, and is a part of the "modern" Crate everyone has known to hate.


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## synrgy (Jan 27, 2012)

I once got rid of an Excalibur 120H so I could help fund the purchase of a JCM 900. That was about 14-15 years ago, and to this day I still regret it.


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## HighGain510 (Jan 27, 2012)

Randy said:


> EDIT: Oh, forgot. The other reason I got rid of it was the lack of a standby switch.



Haha dude that confused the shit out of me when I first bought it... I was like "hmmmm if this is a tube amp, where is the standby switch?!?!"


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## suffo20 (Jan 27, 2012)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Judging by the Ampeg/Crate "relations", I take it the Crate Stealths = Ampeg VL's?



YES!! I would say that the VL series by Ampeg ( Also designed by Lee Jackson) had a almost the same tone! I had the 50 watt vl series head and it smoked!!! I kick myself in the butt for selling it! Of course I was young and stupid at that time!


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Jan 27, 2012)

suffo20 said:


> YES!! I would say that the VL series by Ampeg ( Also designed by Lee Jackson) had a almost the same tone! I had the 50 watt vl series head and it smoked!!! I kick myself in the butt for selling it! Of course I was young and stupid at that time!



I was really thinking about getting one awhile back, because I wanted to get a Marshall-esque amp withou the Marshall-esque prices. 




Then I lost my job.


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## Randy (Jan 27, 2012)

synrgy said:


> I once got rid of an Excalibur 120H so I could help fund the purchase of a JCM 900. That was about 14-15 years ago, and to this day I still regret it.



The guitar player in my old hair metal band had an Excalibur. They got a really bad rap but I'm convinced a lot of that has to do with the Crate cabinets. Most of those inexpensive SS head were sold as a half-stack with the matching cabinet and that cabinet sounded like garbage. My guitar player bought a VHT cab, ran the Excalibur through it and it sounded like totally different amp.



HighGain510 said:


> Haha dude that confused the shit out of me when I first bought it... I was like "hmmmm if this is a tube amp, where is the standby switch?!?!"



I've gotta wonder if that has something to do with the whole "Stealth" thing. It looked identical to the REALLY cheap SS heads they had, plus the lack of a standby switch and no way of seeing the tubes from the front of the amp. If that's the case... not the wisest marketing move. 

I pondered putting in a standby switch. From what I read online, apparently it'd be mostly for aesthetics because they designed the amp so that it didn't need a standby switch... something about warming the tubes up progressively, even with signal running through them. Not sure on the validity of that 100% but yeah, that's what the rap was.


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## Randy (Jan 27, 2012)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> I was really thinking about getting one awhile back, because I wanted to get a Marshall-esque amp withou the Marshall-esque prices.



A/B'd, it sounds a LOT better than the JCM2000's (DSL, TSL) and still better than a JCM900. Next to a real-deal JCM800, it's still a little close but I think that might be where the Marshall has the advantage. However, after reading a lot about tone stacks and specifically Lee Jackson mods, I think that has more to do with the tweaks than it does with the build quality. The Crate/VL still has more gain at lower volume.


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## Randy (Jan 27, 2012)

Forgive the silly video and less-than-stellar riffs, but this should give you an idea how much saturation these things get if you dime it.:



...I preferred rolling the gain back a little and maybe a TS infront with minimal boost for more articulate notes.

EDIT: No, that's not me.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (Jan 27, 2012)

Randy said:


>





Man, if Crate marketed this over the Blue Voodoo (and maybe even made a 150 and 300 watt one so Friedman would use them ), their reputation would of been a whole lot better, IMO.


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## Shask (Jan 27, 2012)

I know these use several small power tubes instead of the bigger ones. This makes them have less low end than a lot of modern amps. I think that turns off many people.

Well that, and the Crate name


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## Randy (Jan 27, 2012)

Shask said:


> I know these use several small power tubes instead of the bigger ones.



Not sure what you mean. Mine used 4 EL34s


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## Chris Migdalski (Jan 27, 2012)

Randy said:


> Not sure what you mean. Mine used 4 EL34s


The stealth does have the option for 5881's not sure how they would sound with them installed???all the 100 stealths' I've worked on for people use EL34's where as the 50 watt version uses EL84's


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## Chris Migdalski (Jan 27, 2012)

Shask said:


> I know these use several small power tubes instead of the bigger ones. This makes them have less low end than a lot of modern amps. I think that turns off many people.
> 
> Well that, and the Crate name






the stealth has a very crispy ear piercing high's distortion channel... usually have lows knob to 10, mids knob set between at 0 and 2 and the high knob no more than 3 or 4.....


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## Shask (Jan 27, 2012)

Randy said:


> Not sure what you mean. Mine used 4 EL34s


I thought they all used 6V6's. Are you sure the El34's were not modded in at some point?


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## Shask (Jan 27, 2012)

Shask said:


> I thought they all used 6V6's. Are you sure the El34's were not modded in at some point?


http://www.crateamps.com/pdf/manuals/GT100H_OM.pdf

Nope, the manual says 4xEL34 or 6550.

Weird, I have always read that these had 6V6's... maybe the 50W model?


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## Joseph Goodman (Jan 27, 2012)

There were two models of the Stealth:

Gt-50 - 50 watts, 6v6 power tubes

Gt-100 - 100 watts, selectable EL-34 or 6550, uses the same power amp as the Ampeg Vl-1002 (according to Lee Jackson's website)


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## Chris Migdalski (Jan 28, 2012)

Chris Migdalski said:


> The stealth does have the option for 5881's not sure how they would sound with them installed???all the 100 stealths' I've worked on for people use EL34's where as the 50 watt version uses EL84's




I want to apologize for the ^above statement...while on was onstage last night it actually crossed my mind that I has misinformed you all the wrong information...anyway, the 100 watt stealth uses EL34's and is 6550 compatible and the 50 watt uses 6V6 tubes...again sorry


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## MrGignac (Jan 31, 2012)

man, i have a blue voodoo 120 that i dont use anymore, but back in the day, when I ran a BBE sonic maximizer thru the FX loop and my good ol Boss Metal Zone, i got a really killer metal tone. Crate made some bad low end stuff, but the higher models had some balls to em.


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## 7slinger (Jan 31, 2012)

crate stealth was the first half stack I got to play through when I was a kid, over at my brother's house, with his metal friends...

I have no recollection how it sounded, just remember bustin out slayer and sepultura riffs for older guys and they thought it was pretty cool, and in turn I felt like a metal god


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## neoclassical (Feb 1, 2012)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Judging by the Ampeg/Crate "relations", I take it the Crate Stealths = Ampeg VL's?



Lee Jackson only ever built one circuit. The stealth is a stripped down, cheaper part version of insert Lee Jackson amp here, but this time without the bells and whistles of pull boosts, 5 ways switches etc...


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