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Heritage Owners Club

RIP, Carvin Audio and Amplifiers


PunkKitty

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4 minutes ago, notbillgelder said:

Wow, I did not see that coming.:wacko:

I did, quite some time ago. They just started dropping one model after another in both the PA amps as well as speakers. if you look at their website now it's a mere skeleton of what it used to be, guitar amps included.

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No more Carvin guitars. No more Carvin Amps. Probably no more resale value either. No regrets on my amps and guitars. Great walnut LB70 bass and nice hog CT3. 

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The guitars moved to Keisel some time back but they don't include the amps.    

I've got Carvin PA speakers and looked at the Nomad and Belair amps before I bought the Classic 30 years ago.  

 I wonder what Steve Vai will do.    He has his signature line with Carvin.    I guess he can go the EVH route and have his own brand.

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From their Facebook page:

To all our amazing Carvin Audio fans and friends,

It is with a heavy heart that we announce that the Carvin Audio factory will be closing its doors after over 70 years. 
We are thankful for the many years we've had in this business and the support you all have given us.

We'd like to thank all of you for your devotion to our gear and championing us live, in the studio, and on social media. We hope to see our gear live on in your musical lives for many years to come!

Shortly, we will be making an announcement about our liquidation sale.

Thank you all!

The Carvin Audio Team

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Very sad to see this happen as I've been using Carvin gear for about 20 years now including 7-8 guitars, 3 guitar amps, 5 PA amps, 4 PA speaker cabs, and various other stands, accessories, etc. Only had one PA amp fail and that was after 15-16 years of 24/7 'always on' operation. Can't say I didn't see it coming though because they've been seriously cutting back on products for a couple years now. At first I thought it was to make way for new models, but that obviously was not the case. October 9th a sad day indeed.

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At the very last minute I took one more Carvin shot............all the amps are gone, so I started to look into the VLD1.......and long story short I bought one. When it arrives I will have three pedal type pre-amps, two tube and one SS, but all analog and I'm planning to build a pre-amp only pedal-board, using a Pedaltrain base, and depending on the size of this newest pedal the configuration is still up in the air.

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It's more complicated than that. The majority of Carvin's business was Live Sound. Guitar and bass amplifiers were just the part we're most familiar with. The huge amount of live sound equipment flooding in from outside the USA is just something that could no longer be competed with.

Look at how many amplifiers companies have all or part of their lines now made outside of their home country: Marshall, Ampeg, Peavey, Fender, etc etc etc.

I noticed that they take great care to not say that carvin is closing.. .just that their factory is closing.

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I listened to Jeff Kiesel's FB webcast this morning. His uncle, who ran the audio side, wants to retire. No one else in the family wants to take the business on. Jeff wants Kiesel to concentrate on guitars. He does not want to run an audio business too. Several of the Carvin employees are going to Kiesel Guitars. 

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If that's true, which I don't doubt, I would guess this was decided years ago when Kiesel guitars spun off. They wanted to get known separately from the audio side, so that when Carvin audio closed, it wouldn't affect them at all.

Still, it's kinda sad that no one wanted to keep it going. Though, running a business, especially in this climate, and trying to keep it USA made is VERY tough.

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1 hour ago, tbonesullivan said:

If that's true, which I don't doubt, I would guess this was decided years ago when Kiesel guitars spun off. They wanted to get known separately from the audio side, so that when Carvin audio closed, it wouldn't affect them at all.

Still, it's kinda sad that no one wanted to keep it going. Though, running a business, especially in this climate, and trying to keep it USA made is VERY tough.

I think the Amp market is saturated. Seems like there's new brands and models coming out all the time. 

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That VLD1 looks like a cool product, I have been waiting for a deal for this direct to mixer capable preamp for recording, I have used their in ears for years and a lot of other electronics... Hard to believe with soooooo many people I know using their products that they can't capitalize on their own niche.

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