So, my trusty Crate Powerblock hasn't been so trusty of late (not always turning on, etc), and I decided it was time to upgrade.
...or downgrade in this case, if you want to get technical. I haven't gigged in years, and with the Kemper I can run through the PA if I ever do, so having a 150w power amp with no volume control wasn't doing me any good. It worked well until recently, but for my office and occasional jams it was overkill.
Enter this little guy:
[Blocked Image: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.…4/20140208_144749_HDR.jpg]
So, you know how in every thread about power amps, ever, people tend to say that you need at least 100w for a gig, blah blah blah?
Screw them.
With the volume where it is in the picture, I can't turn my Kemper up past -20db before things start vibrating their way off of shelves - and there's still a bunch of headroom on both the amp and the KPA. Even without a PA to run through, I think this thing would do pretty well for itself in a live situation.
Oh, and it's ridiculously tiny. The power supply is actually the same size as the amp.
And there's this sexy beast:
[Blocked Image: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.…4/20140208_144823_HDR.jpg]
I've recommended Xitone in a number of threads, but I think it just doesn't have the name-recognition yet that companies like Matrix and Atomic do, so it tends to get overshadowed. Regardless, I can't praise this cab enough - as I've said elsewhere, it sounds very close to what's coming out of my desk monitors, and as we saw above it has no trouble getting loud as fuck.
On top of that, I have to give Mick a billion points for customer service. The woofer in mine appeared to have been damaged in transit, or something, as I was getting a weird crackly buzz as soon as I sent any low frequencies through it at a decent volume. After a brief (and very prompt) email exchange to troubleshoot, Mick ordered me a new woofer from Parts Express and a week later I was in business.
So yeah, I'm happy.