Breathing new life into this old tube amp, the Palomino V16 from Crate

[@Troybuilt79]

Fun fact! These amps, the original vintage club series, the V series and several other great designs like the ampeg D.I. were designed by my good friend and mentor, Obeid Khan, when he worked for St. Louis music. He now designs all the amps for magnatone. Including the new magnatone slash M80. He could create great sounding products on a tight budget.

[@edwardgrassel872]

@troybuilt79 I love Obeid. I would kill for one of his Reason Amps like a Bambino Grande or an SM50. I love ALL of this designs. You know what makes him great, is he knows how to play, and he knows what tone is.

[@secretagent4610]

The vintage club sounded otherworldly!

[@curtiseverett1671]

hey, I have a question, I can't get to the caps on my club 30 because they are radials and they sit flush.... is it safe to pull the chassis and flip it over to test the caps?

[@mattf6361]

I have two of these amps. Used to be my main gigging amp. They always made me sound good, and blew other guitar players minds. I could see players walk up front from the back of the room staring at the amp and my one boost pedal, wondering what the heck was going on. I put 25 Watt Greenbacks in them, and have about $400 in the pair. I never felt like I needed a Vox, or Matchless after these things. Whoever designed them has my respect.

Señor Brian! I committed the ultimate Pedal Sin. I sold my Wampler Pantheon pedal. I miss it so much! I'll buy one soon! Thank you for the great guitar related gear! You ROCK! Have a great Christmas and let's have an awesome, successful and blessed 2024!

[@jeffsurtees847]

I had a Vintage Club 30 in the 90s and played a million gigs with it. Great amp!

[@curtiseverett1671]

I have two of them right now, and I am going to re-cap and re-tube......one of them sounds great, and the other one sounds blah, they are both blonde.....they are my favorites

[@mikelermanmusic]

Dang I was really hoping to see the caps get replaced! I've had this same amp since 2009-2010 and finally just sent it into a tech for capacitor replacement. Put a Greenback in mine and replaced the reverb tank. I know it's cheap but it's the best practice amp ever! Blows away every Blues Jr I've ever heard

[@NikolausBrocke]

This is such a great amp. It is an awesome amp for clean sounds and even better for crunch tones. As we can hear in your demo. I am looking on Ebay for this amp for a year now. Btw I saw a concert of ZZ Top many years ago where they played palomino amp.

[@Terry_Dale]

I had one of these for many years and it was awesome. Runs VERY hot, put a fan in mine and loved it.

[@SeanKerns]

I had a V16 for about 15 years, should never have sold it. One of the best grab and go amps I ever had. I swapped the 70/80 for a Celestion G12H30, and it was the best upgrade ever. Took the woofiness away.

[@darrellminx5459]

Always enjoy Brian for a fresh look on things. Thank you.

[@jedimindfrak82]

Wow, one of those was my main app for YEARS! An American made V16. I modded it for less gain, changed up the tube compliment and swapped speakers. They're great. Awesome Vox-y tone. I think I bought it for $100.

[@chadwickhurlburt6529]

I also love the Crate Palomino amps. These things were designed by Obeid Khan. He's the guy who is doing all of the new Magnatone amps. Those amps rocks. The Crate Palomino amps are the biggest hidden treasures in the amp world. They are tone monsters with US made quality and a genius engineer behind them. It blows my mind that these amps are available for peanuts in the used market. Class A tube amplification is amazing.

[@BrandonMarsella]

This was my first tube amp and was my only amp for many many years. It traveled with me to college, across the country on my first job. It has a special place in my heart as well. I actually recently went through the exact same pot cleaning process. 🎸🎸🎸

[@mikestillwagon5675]

I bought a V32 head and cab based on your demo of the head with WGS speakers in the cab. I liked it so much that I picked up a V32 combo too.

[@alexledford4747]

I just found one of these (used) in a Guitar Center the other night and was BLOWN AWAY by how good it sounded! I compared it to a (used) Blues Junior sitting next to it for over double the price, and realized they've got the EXACT same control layout, even down to where the boost/fat switch is located!

[@NateTheMeh]

Scored a modded V32 for $200 bucks a few years back and rocked it for a while, sounded as good as any $1000 fender tube amp and the drive channel was AMAZING for cleans and dirty stuff. Great great amp, but I traded it for a 2000 Fender Thinline reissue that was too amazing to pass up. Great stuff!

[@alexwoolridge94aw]

Love the technical videos Brian.

[@ericleary5075]

I loved the Palamino V32. Best sounding combo! It just had issues like overheating! But damn it sounded great!!!!

[@jordanwoerndle2986]

These sound great b/c they were designed by Obeid Khan. He has built some fantastic amps in his career (including Maganatone, currently) He plays in a local cover band for fun. I like to go just to hear the phenomenal he gets out of a small 1x12 cab powered by some frankenstein circuit for sure.

[@lyleanderson5407]

Great subject and information on maintenance. I have the V32 2 x12 version and noticed it gets hot on the top. A quick remedy for my issue was to add a small fan in the back. Debating on selling the item since I never use it. Thanks for sharing!

[@RobBoostrom]

I have a Crate Vintage 20. It's fantastic for pedals, gets a great overdrive tone, and it's ridiculously loud for a little amp with a 10" speaker.

[@JimFeeley]

Huh. I remember the Crate CR1 (and successors) from when I was a kid, I dug the wood-crate look, but sure didn't dig the sound. I moved away from guitar before this line came out. So great to hear that they made some good amps down the line. Thanks for bringing it to our (or at least my) attention. And cool that yours is rolling well!

[@earle4370]

I had a Vintage Club 50 with the 15 inch speaker that I loved. The volume pot was always weird... 2 was almost off and 3 was TURN THAT THING DOWN! Second story is having an old Silvertone with the 6x10 cabinet when I was a kid that kind of worked. Even though the amp had been off and unplugged for at least an hour, I reached to wiggle a tube or something and got the shock of my life! Right up to the funny bone. There was a good lesson in "if you don't know what you're doing....".

[@ShouldHaveBeen]

I had a vintage club which was given to me. It sounded nice. Lots'o'tubes. I cleaned the pots and recapped it. The downside and the reason I sold it was that is was monstrously heavy. I'll stick with my Hot Rod Deluxe and my Airline 62-9013A (which I rigged a reverb tank to with a presonus headphone amp and ibanez GE1502 for driving it.)

[@engelsjn]

Great video! I have a v32 that I bought brand new from guitar center. Still love that amp today 👍. It’s one of the early US made ones

[@CrucibleGuitars]

The Palomino was a revision of the Vintage Club series. I worked with a Crate dealer who is a friend of mine at that point. I actually had a VC-15 as my first tube amp that I got from. It was a cool amp, but my taste runs more Marshally.

[@jeffseven2194]

My go to amp for small gigs is still my Crate V32 head and Marshall 2X12 cabinet

[@bricemauney1839]

I HAVE A V 50 ITS AWESOME

[@deanchenry]

I have the V30T in my amp collection. It absolutely kicks ass. Tons of meaty tone.

[@LoganFillmore]

Great vid Brian! Pedals are great, but you need something that sounds good to play them through. Since you have extensive PCB experience, you can help people to fix stuff that isn't point to point or handwired on turrets or eyelet boards.

[@victorbeebe8372]

Aloha and Mahalo for great info!

[@yoyodunno]

I love the palomino, I have two v8's one at my parents house and one at my place. Have had a tough time finding a better growly tone they have. Trying to find a modern replacement, but wasn't as happy with the vox ac10

[@mikesalmo]

In my high school concert band class, I played percussion and we sat around a lot. There was an electric bass amp that had crapped out and I did minor circuit stuff, so I thought I’d check out what was wrong. I did not discharge the capacitors and I did touch something stupid. I don’t remember what happened, but apparently there was a decently loud sound of either me being electrocuted or hitting the floor. I woke up and the entire band was turned around in their chairs looking at me like I was dead. I guess I could have been. I had a headache and my ears rang for like a week. I didn’t even get any superpowers. It sucked. I work on amps and other high voltage things from time to time now, but I’m obsessive about safety. Lesson learned.

[@thatasianguitarguy]

I had the palomino as well and honestly could not tell the difference between it and the DR Z Maz series. It's kind of insane

[@Twominutedevotions]

I’m sitting here watching this this morning and the question that’s coming to mind is how hard would it be to mount that amplifier chassis in a head case, build a simple reactive load for it, and then build in an impulse response loader, creating a small silent recording amp for cheap that still sounds incredible for recording projects and silent stage use?

[@the-creech4790]

Any chance you can stop by and take care of my old Fender amps for me when your not to busy? 😀 Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you and your family!

[@elaztec.aztecca]

How come I only saw two tubes under there and was that 3 empty sockets without the tubes in them as well?

[@MothmanCold]

Back into me Challenging all the powers that be!

[@DjTroublemaker]

I have the 2x12 v32 version. Great amp

[@curtiseverett1671]

I can't get to the caps on my club 30 because they are radials and they sit flush.... is it safe to pull the chassis and flip it over to test the caps?

[@randyrhyne4903]

Now the demand for these amps are gonna surpass the Ge Tummy and Bad Monkey combined 😂😂😂👊. BW is on a roll in December

[@automofo71]

Where do clip the jumper cables to?

[@paulj0557tonehead]

Love my v16, I did ( easy) *The definitive Crate V1512, Palomino V16 Cleanup Mod for less than a buck* ( it takes it out of "Stuck in top boost 'Lead' mode'). There are freaking 6 stages of tube halves. So the mod just gives you a crunch rhythm by removing a stage, as top boost on a 15 watt amp is way overkill. I use the Russian 6P14P crossover EL84's that have the Vibration Proof code since the amp is a powerful vibration beast. CODES BELOE: The 5th element is optional. It consists of a dash ("-") followed by a single character or a combination of characters and denotes special characteristics (if any) of the tube: V (Russian: В) - Increased reliability and mechanical ruggedness (such as low susceptibility to noise and microphonics). R (Russian: Р) - Even better than V. Ye (Russian: Е) - Extended service life. D (Russian: Д) - Exceptionally long service life. I (Russian: И) - Optimised for "pulsed" (i.e. switching) mode of operation. K (Russian: К) - Vibration-resistant

[@Reverie2590]

Might be a dumb question, but where do the capacitors recharge from if you don't have it plugged in? 4:20

[@wampler_pedals]

Electrolytic capacitors in tube amps can seemingly “recharge” after being discharged due to a phenomenon often referred to as dielectric absorption, also known as “soakage” or “battery effect.” This is a property inherent to many dielectric materials, including those used in electrolytic capacitors.

[@walterkersting9922]

A word to the wise about the death cap: they found my uncle‘s skeleton in his basement with his bony finger in an old amplifier, touching the death cap. Apparently, all of his meat and organs had decayed and disappeared, leaving only the skeleton, why he was working on an amplifier with no clothes I have no idea, but that’s how skeletons are, they are always naked. The power was off because he hadn’t paid his bill in three years, but when they turned the power back on his skeleton got electrocuted all over again. So yeah, watch out for that death cap.

[@DBroce]

Was the fire extinguisher a subliminal message?

[@wampler_pedals]

😄 No, I have to have one by law, since this is my workspace.

[@jasondorsey7110]

​@@wampler_pedalsThey do get pretty hot though, but in all fairness so do voxes

[@karmaandkerosene_music]

I bought one new back in the day - and kept it for about a day. It made these wierd high pitched noises. Went right back to GC.

[@crazywisdom2]

What is the dimensions, and weight of that amp ? thank you great vid !!~

[@johnpandolfino8663]

Got a V32.....not a bad amp ....

[@Pedro-iu3oo]

Is it ok short-circuiting capacitors? Or has your alligator cable a resistor in between?

[@Pedro-iu3oo]

I also cleaned some potentiometer with isopropil alcohol and after lubbed with singer oil. Don't even know if it is ok, didn't have any issue so far.

[@mark5150ty]

If cleaning the pot doesn't fix the scratchy noise it doesn't mean that you need to replace the potentiometer. You may have DC voltage leaking onto the wiper from a faulty component. Leaky DC voltage will cause the same scratching noise in your potentiometers.

[@wampler_pedals]

Yep, that can be a cause too, though IME that's been fairly rare.

[@whoisthenext1]

Hi, Brian. Are them well done construction amps ?

[@what1864]

the crate vintage club 2x12 50 is like a vox on steroids , have one and love it , also have a v5 and a blackheart little giant made by crate , all great amps for little money ..

[@jasondorsey7110]

I have the v58 and v1512, fantastic tones for what I paid, though I did change the speaker in the v1512 to a g12 heritage and wired the v58 with an ext speaker jack

[@eddiegeorge4047]

Got a modded V18 myself from a gc blowout due to a wrong resistor

[@I.M.Guitar-Nerd]

There is a minty Palamino V8 at my local music store and they are asking for pocket change for it.

[@jasondorsey7110]

Do it

[@jasonlee8497]

Oh dear ……I had one of those. It sounded good at medium volume….

[@JimFeeley]

Speaking of discharging tube-amp capacitors, perhaps this video from the tube-amp repair guy at Psionic Audio will be of interest: (One Way to) Safely and Easily Discharge the Caps on Most Fender Tube Amps | READ THE DESCRIPTION! kzbin.info/www/bejne/jH3aZpylaJaCacU

[@fallenshallrise]

A public service announcement to people who buy Peavey or Crate or Carvin or Traynor or whatever amps because you like the tone but you're embarrassed that it doesn't say Marshall on the front at least screw the logo badge you've removed back onto the cabinet on the inside or the back instead of throwing it in a box or a drawer somewhere to be lost forever.

[@LoveOneAnotherHeSaid]

Good things just work, because the engineering was already correct.

[@robertrosendale5519]

Faderlube in pots

[@therealkevinmcnally]

First! Love Wampler!

[@Earlvis]

Those amps sound so harsh. I have a V32 and don’t care for it.

[@darwinsaye]

It’s okay, but it’s no CR-1. 😄

[@garyeggleton1142]

LMAO.....im a dork ....classic