Great thread.
So did anyone A/B the Carvin against the Rocktron? I've done a ton of research and it's down to those two for me. I will probably order them tomorrow and A/B them myself, but in the meantime curious if others have done so.
I concur with what everyone has said about the Powerblock - clearly it thins out the sound, making it brittle and (if you use metal distortion as I do) harsh and unpleasant. I used it at one gig and that was it, I swore to never subject an audience to it again. Not even good enough for rehearsals; it's a toy. I'm running it into a Mesa 4x12 at 8 ohms bridged mono.
So to the people wondering if you just weren't setting things right on your pre, that's surely neither here nor there: no matter what you feed the Powerblock, it will thin out your sound and ruin it, as it hands off to the speaker. You can't overcome deficiencies in the power amp by tweaking the pre amp. I tried for weeks, in rehearsal, to make the powerblock sound good. Now it's a doorstop. But it's too light to even be THAT.
Thanks very much everyone, this was an extremely helpful thread and put the cap on my research.
In case it's helpful to anyone else considering their options, here's some notes I took as I looked for a power amp over the weeks. I was mostly interested in weight, cost, wattage, and output jacks. I want to be able to throw this thing into a backpack and stop lugging around my triple rec in it's frickin ATA case. I ruled out all double space units and all amps above about $500. I was open minded and considered bass amps, PA amps, and even gave fair consideration to the Bose Personal Asshole System/PAS/L1 :roll: . I'm not a fan of emoticons but Bose deserves the eye roll. This list is basically in order of best options at top, worst options at bottom - that's "worst" for my needs, which are to power a 4x12 for gigs in NY clubs and on the road as a metal guitarist in the band King Hell.
BTW NONE of the big music stores keep single rackspace amps in stock. I'm concluding that these items have low profit margins and the stores don't wanna touch 'em. I described what I'm looking for to a nice Guitar Center employee and he proved that even the nice ones are jackasses as he immediately tried to sell me a $1000 double space Crown with three million watts.
Carvin DCM200L
4 lbs!
$279
200 watts at 8ohms bridged
1/4 outs! (and bananas)
http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/s ... ct=DCM200L
Rocktron Velocity 300
18 lbs
$369.00
300 watts at 8 Ohms
1/4 outs!
Guitar sound, guitar outputs, guitar ohm options (4,8,16)
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Rocktron-Ve ... 1500881.gc
SWR Amplite
3 lbs!
$550
400 Watts into 4 ohm
No 1/4 outs
What would it be at 8 ohms bridged?
Behringer EuroPower EPQ1000 Stereo Power Amplifier
10 lbs
290W/Channel @ 8 Ohms
No 1/4 outs
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... Power.html
Samson Servo SA201A Professional Power Amplifier
15 lbs
200 watts at 8 ohms
No 1/4 outs
http://www.samash.com/p/SA201A%20Profes ... _-49957513
ART SLA-2 - 2-Channel Rackmount Power Amplifier
20 lbs
200W Per Channel at 8 Ohms
No 1/4 outs
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/2 ... Power.html
American Audio VLP-300 Power Amplifier
25 lbs
$179.99
300W RMS @ 8 Ohms
No 1/4 outs
http://www.guitarcenter.com/American-Au ... 1155802.gc
Bose Packlite
$400
4 lbs!
Bass boost. It's a bass amp.
Phil Jones Cub/Super Cub
Cool amps, but they come with crappy 5 inch speakers! Meant for acoustic guitars and jazz.
Pyle Mini
Very small, but no wattages above 100
Stewart Audio Sub Compacts and Half Rack Space amps
Very small, but low wattages