BT100 Review

The Crate BT100 features rugged Ozite covering, heavy-duty steel grille and road rugged handle. Plus, two channel operation for clean/distortion, sub-octave effect and built in chromatic tuner w/mute. 100 watts, Crate 15" speaker, headphone jack, CD input, limiter, XLR balanced line out. Includes footswitch. Built to rock!

Features:	8.3
Sound:	7.7
Reliability:	7
Impression:	7.7
Overall rating:	7.7
Users rating:	5.8
Comments:	13

overall: 9

Reviewed by: Shmef, on november 29, 2006

Purchased from: Guitar Center

Features: Ah, Crate. Amplifiers for the rest of us. I mean, don't get me wrong, I would take a Hartke in a heartbeat, but they tend to be ver expensive. What you get here is a lot of power and versitility from a not-so-expensive amp. The BT100 delivers 3 channels, clean, distorted, and octave. All are adjustable, and the octaviser can be adjusted to fit you're fancy. There is a foot switch that switches on and off the distortion and octive channels, both of which can be played simultaniously. It has a headphone jack, stereo line in, and an indepentant XLR output, which is perfect if you are plugging into a mixer or PA system. It is solid state, but takes a few seconds to turn on, which I later found is there so it keeps the circuts from overloading. I use it when playing with my friends, Who play a full kit and guitar. It delivers enough power, but is difficult to get to play at a really low volume. It generally has enough power, but seems to weaken under certain settings on the clean channel. // 9

Sound: The sound on this amp is very good, but can lack power under certain settings. The Noisegate fearture is nice, it keeps from any feedback, but when played through with a guitar, it tends to kill sustain. I know it is not a guitar amp, but it can be used such on clean and octive. The distortion works, just not for shredding and such. It is silent in all environments, and it delivers anything from low dull root note basslines to trebly slap. It is very flexible to different styles. I play an Ibanez GSR200 through it, with only stock pick-ups, and it still delivers. I tend to roll with any rock, mainly from the 60's and 70's, but some of the newer stuff(Flogging Molly, Raconteurs, Greenhornes, ect.) work. The distortion is not mind blistering, but is a decent amount. I perfer to have more of that 70's King Crimson fuzz to it. // 8

Reliability & Durability: It is very solid. The plywood makes it very light for it's size, but has yet to break on me. It delivers, all the parts are solid, and have never failed so far. The jacks ahve never come loose, the knobs are all in top-shape, the LED's all work, it is just a solid amp. // 10

Impression: I play a variety, from rock to funk to folk to avant garde, and it plays amazingly in all of them. If it were stolen, I would hunt the man down, kill him, and then buy another one for insurance. It beat the hell out of the Line 6 I was looking at, because it was much more powerful, and the knobs were not nearly as cheesey. It has served me well, and continues to do so. My favourite part about it is the flexiblity of the sound, but my least favourite would be when it lacks some power at certain points. // 9

Reviewed by: unregistered, on may 05, 2006

Purchased from: Guitar Center

Features: This amp is very versatile for any music you wish to play. It has a clean and distortion channel with an octave effect built in. This amp came with a footswitch to Switch from clean to distortion and to kick in the octave from the floor. This amp also came with a built in noise gate, which is good and bad depending on what I'm doing. The BT100 also has a balanced line out for additional speakers, effects loop, a mute Switch and a 15db cut of boost. This amp is 100watts of solid state power, and for being a solid state amp it has a very good clean channel. I use this amp for practicing and jamming and it holds its self well against two GLX212 120 watt guitar amps. I've never had any problemw ith the 100 watts keeping up with guitar amps. You could probably do small sized gigs witht his amp how it is and medium sized gigs if you had external speakers to go with it. // 10

Sound: I am using a Schecter CV-4 bass, with active duncan designed pickups (cheaper seymour duncans but still amde by Seymour Duncan)and with this bass and I couldnt be happier with the clean channel. I play mostly classic rock, some metal, and alittl blues here and there. I also do a lot of slap which is why I got the active pickups in my bass. The amp is obnly noisy when I have it on volumes above 7 and I have the single coil pickup in the neck position selected. Other then that the noise gate in the amp takes care of the extra noise fromt he pickups very well. If you are going to buy this amp, buy it for the clean channel. The clean channel is great, the most versatile amp I've had or played on yet. It gives you a very punch tone when needed for rock or metal, and a high output for slapping and a great funk when playing funk. If you are looking for an amp only for the distortion, do not buy this one. The distortion channel isnt good at all. The distortion channel isnt very versatile. To get a decent sound out of the distortion you have to mess all fo your clean channel sets up which makes it hard to switch back and forth. Also, no matter what you do there is always a liquidy sound to the distorion channel. No matter how you ajust the gain, shape, highs, mids, lows it will alwasy be there. So if you by this amp buy it for the great solid state clean tone it gives you. // 8

Reliability & Durability: This amp has worked great for me ever since I've gotten it. I've had it for about 6 months and I've never had a problem with ti breaking down. I would deffinitly use this amp without a back up in a gig. Since it is solid state it don't have to servicing anything on a regular basis. The shell is sold enough where you could probably through this down the stairs, or fall out of a car/truck and it would still be ready to play with no problem. // 10

Impression: This amp is just about perfect for the style of music I play. The only thing I regret about this amp is the distortion chennel. I dont use distortion alot but when I do I wish it was better, but I'll just go out and get a cheap Boss distortion pedal if it bothers me enough. I've been playing for about 2 years now and my gear includes a Schecter CV-4 bass, BP80 multi effects pedal, and the BT100 amp. I am very happy with the set up I have now, except I wish I had a better effects processer, and this amp just completed my setup until I'm ready for a halfstack or a tube amp. If this amp were stolen I probably would buy it again or just upgrade to a tube amp. I compared this amp to a couple of beringer amps, and a 160 watt workingmans amp. The berginger amps I played on for 2 minutes a relized why there price was so low. The workingmans amp had a great sound to it just as good or better the the BT100 but it was out of my price range. The BT100 is deffinitly the best amp you could get for $350. // 9

overall: 4.8

Reviewed by: Tanman_88, on february 18, 2006

Purchased from: Mothers Music

Features: My Crate was built in 2002. It is very versatile, and has a very flexible tone. I play alot of classic rock, and a lot of blues, and it gets the deep, hefty tone I look for. It has 2.5 channels. Clean, distorted, and on both, you can have the "octave" effect. The distorted channel is far too dirty for the music I play, and I can't seem to clean it up with any tweeking. It comes with a foot switch, that I never use. It's my gig amp, and I have no back up, I also jam with it. It has more than enough power to get the noise out there! // 6

Sound: I use a Barracuda Bass, it's a crapy attempt at a Fender J. Because my bass is a bad bass, I can't get a decent tone out of the amp for things like slapping, but the the amp is definitley good for funk, blues, rock, or anything. It's really nice when it works. The distortion is far too nasty to do any real music with. // 7

Reliability & Durability: It's far too heavy. 100lbs I believe. I absolutely swear against any purchasing of this amp, as it has caused me nothing but trouble (God bless warranty). I'm extremely careful with it, and the damn thing breaks down like every week, and then I'm stuck in the bind, as an unreliable bassist. I definitley need a backup. As for structural durability, I think you could probably set a car on top of it, and it would hold it up. However, functionally, the amp is humungously unreliable. Do not buy. // 1

Impression: I've been playing for 5 years now. I've been through 3 Bass amps, and this is the worst one yet. My first was my TNT100 by Peavey. The sound was horrible, but it never died until ironically, it blew on the song "TNT" with that hard E. I also own a Peavey practice amp, which is an awesome little amp. The Crate however, is a cumbersome piece of crap, with incredible sound. It reminds me of my old girlfriend. Great to play with, heavy, but very unreliable. Sounds great, runs like crap. I wish it had wheels, and a small motor to drive itself places. // 5

Comments

[Tanman_88]

The people at crate told me that they undersized some resistor, or fuse.. it had a 0.1 size fuse... and it should've had an 8.0.....because the idiots at crate dont know how to build amps. Fortunatley, mine has the 8.0 fuse....Im pretty sure it wasnt a fuse though... a resistor or something.. i forget... now the amp is better.

[guardo alfonzo]

This piece of crap also has a tendancy to overheat. If you play for over a two hour time period, it has a tendancy to just shut off until it cools down. I bought this because it was cheap....I will never make that mistake again.

[BassSurfer]

great first review

[hewhoisbass]

Man!I thought I was the only one with this problem. My amp blew for the second time now recently. This crate is a big piece of crap. I like its sound quality, but its damn embarrasing when the thing dies on me in the middle of a jam.

[rob_bass_man]

and i were thinking about buying that, thank **** i looked on here! don't want a piece of shit do i?

[cusic]

So These Amps get owned when played too long? thats not good.

[ashdownbass180]

thanx i was gonna buy 1

[BassManX]

its a good amp, delivers nice tone but does anyonne have the same problem with it that i do where the input acts up either making the distortion chanal super loud with and actual distortion on it, and if by some mirical you get that working, the tunner stops lighting up, whats the deal? probly just a dodgy one

[BassManX]

oh perhaps theres somthing wrong with the noise gate

[Ali-b912]

oh dear. and here i was thinking i found value. they still last a while. my school has late 80's crates that produce a shitty distorted and clipped sound every day.

[thebigdee2000]

Aside from weighing a ton and the useless distortion channel this is an excellent amp. I've played small to medium sized gigs and it's held up as far as volume and quality of sound. I also play in a 1400 seat church and it's filled the room nicely with the volume knob set around "4". In my opinion it's a great at $250. I would recommend this amp to anyone needing a 100 watt combo!

[thebigdee2000]

thebigdee2000 wrote:

Aside from weighing a ton and the useless distortion channel this is an excellent amp. I've played small to medium sized gigs and it's held up as far as volume and quality of sound. I also play in a 1400 seat church and it's filled the room nicely with the volume knob set around "4". In my opinion it's a great amp at $250. I would recommend this amp to anyone needing a 100 watt combo!

[Mattie-MFR]

i bought this amp after my 15th birthday im now nearly 18 and this amp is just what i want. The only thing i found annoying with it is it is so heavy to take from gig to gig, apart from that its a superb amp. The distortion channel isnt that bad although i dont use it much. I am selling my crate BT100 amp now though for the reason that it weights to much to carry around as our local venue in Nottingham,England (venue name: ?Junktion 7) is upstairs. I'm thinking about buying a behringer head and cab... any good??
but yehh this amp apart from being heavy as f**k is amazing. check out my band www.myspace.com/madeforradiouk