Crate Review: GT1200h

History: I' ve been playing for about 4 and a half years now. I play black chaotic metal ( band ) and alot of suthing melodic stuff to please the mind. I'm mostly into metal ( no bullshit like Nu metal or hardcore ) I mean good old metal. héhé

Purchase: I got this midget in a local music store in my hometown in Belgium. I was amazed that in costed only 450eur ( in promotion ) and it was the last one. I was on a tight budget and i decuded to give this amp a go. ( before purchasing it i did a very wide investiagion about this product, ofcourse ) I sugest everyone to do the same if you're interested in purchasing some gear!!!

What I Like About This Crate GT1200h: I love the fact that is't a solid state ( almost nothing that can go wrong ) and allso it's built very well. very hard and decent! I actualy expected it to be built like a chineese motorcycle, but i've allready got proven wrong. We do alot of transportation with the band and it gets kicked around alot, but no problems! The clean chanel is very good for a solid state! Surprisingly good! :) The spring reverb is allso a very nice sounding feature. BUT! For the distortion chanels are a little too weak for our music, i just bypass an external distortion pedal through it and voila, problem solved! The lead distortion is good enough for 80ies metal, but not black. Well still i love the sound! And this mad midget will blow the drummer away! It has enough power to gig with it in a concert room with +-250 300 people! No need to mic it up.

What I Do NOT Like About The Crate GT1200h: Of course there's a few disadvantages. Because this amp is cheap, there are a few things where some money was saved on. like: - Knobs are made of plastic ( but haven't fallen off yet ) - The footswitch is very light, but yet steady ( note sometimes the jack inputs on the footswitch get a little lose. Just tight it up, and you're ready to go ) - The cab is very compact! I mean this amp is TOO SMALL for 120Watt of power ( but it delivers it effortlessly!!! ) - There are no 2inputs for send/return effects, you need to obtain a special cable for that. But in general i still don't care about these minor issues!!! :)

Crate GT1200h Quality Rating: I love the way that the price/quality ratio is so good! This amp is built to survive an american invasion! Very well built ( exept cost saving materials like plastic ) The grid of the cab is allso very tough. And note the cab is surprisingly light! i've tested it with 100Watt rms cabs and i couldn't lift it off the ground. Another feature i love is the fact that this amp was built for punishement! I played 4.5 hours on it ( volume on 7 ) and the power transformer wasn't even hot in the end.

Review Summary: Ok here's the deal. If you're an all round musitian looking for good tone and a decent price/quality ration, this would definatly be a good choice! This amp is very versatile. ( but for my personal pleasure i still use a dist pedal héhé ) I'm not disapointd in crate. Me and my midget will still have allot of fun for many years!!! ( a good 4 because of the slight minor issues )

Rating of this Crate product: 4

This Crate GT1200h Guitar Amplifiers Review Submitted By: Leshyj ( Huldrefolk )

Review Date: 2006-03-10