Crate Review: GLX-30

History:

Purchase: I got the GLX-30 from Musician's Friend Online because I had just bought an electric guitar and needed to stop borrowing my friend's amp (he had a Crate too). I paid about $280 for it, and it was delivered within the estimated shipping time frame of 2-5 business days.

What I Like About This Crate GLX-30: This amp is pretty nice. I like a lot of the small features on this amp: The GLX-30 has a built in tuner on the top that is quite useful. It has a nice build and is very sturdy, and not too heavy. The controls are well placed and easy to work with. It has a clean channel and a solo channel and the necessary sound controls on each. On the clean channel there is "low", "mid", and "high". On the solo channel, there is "gain" and "shape". These controls are solid and have good a effect on the sound. Probably the best part is the effect pannel, with 16 effects. These effects are pretty awesome.

What I Do NOT Like About The Crate GLX-30: The GLX-30 can't handle being turned up real loud. So, you won't get too much volume out of this amp. The solo drive is pretty basic and the overdrive is not very smooth. The clean drive is also pretty basic, but it works out alright. The worst part about this amp is the price. The price is really high for the volume you get out of this amp.

Crate GLX-30 Quality Rating: Like I said, the quality is pretty good. It is solid and holds up well. The controls are laid out well, too. The only issue is the amount of volume you get out of this amp.

Review Summary: The GLX-30 is a good beginners amp, but is very pricey. If you want a louder one, look elsewhere. The effects are pretty sweet, but don't make up for this amp's inability to crank up the volume before loosing sound quality.

Rating of this Crate product: 3

This Crate GLX-30 Guitar Amplifiers Review Submitted By: Sam Sherlock

Review Date: 2003-07-30