Got the new Kustom KB200 Head in today! Purchased from
www.wwbw.com for $219 + $18 taxes.
ok so I got it delivered, was boxed in a very thick cardboard box with foam blocks at all corners of the head.. manual & warranty card included.
Unboxed it had that familiar wood and glue smell..
Nicely covered cabinet in the standard leather like covering, has very nice heavy chrome plated corners with a black grill front surrounded by silver piping.
Head control have the classic knobs and is laid out in a clean no nonsense fashion, just the way I like it.
Came with an 8 foot power cord! that is nice.. every amp I've ever had the past 20 years barely had 4 feet of power cord..
Clean rear panel has (2) speaker outs (4 ohm min) send / return, Balanced XLR out with volume control, and a fround lift switch.
Took the head apart and noticed a large toroidal transformer, mated to a preamp board and power amp board that is heavily finned to keep it cool.. also has a large fan just centimeters from the heatsink.. I'll imagine she will run very very cool.
Everything has the ROHS seal so.. I looked it up and ROHS stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances - so I guess that the amp is made with materials that are deemed chemical and bio hazardous free..?
Everything, all solder joints, wiring.. all looked very professional and well done..
OK so now is the test.. I hook the head up to my old peavey 2x15 PA sub cabinet from 1982.. I just recently acquired this cabinet for $40 on craiglist in Saint Louis here.. Drivers were shot and horn no longer worked so I removed the horn and sealed that section off.. replaced the drivers with Eminence commonwealth 15's.. The bass Kustom head mated to the 2x15 cabinet fires up, no thumps, no noise.. fan is running but very quiet.. I set all controls to middle including gain and volume.. I turn the volume up on my bass.. and wow.. this head is pushing the 2x15 cabinet nice already..
Turned the gain up to about 6 and 7.. found a sweet spot on 7.. messed with EQ.. found slap tones.. found rock tones.. found R&B tones.. This little 200 watt amp can pretty much do all you'll need it to do..
If you turn the volume up and use your gain as the main volume you have clean tones forever.. put the gain to 6-7 and volume as high as you want.. get very sweet growl but not distorted, just a nice sweet growl.. turn the gain all the way up and use volume as a volume and you can get a slight distorted tone.. not too bad.. when I did this.. i noticed the clip light would come on.. I contacted a buddy of mine that goes to the namm show all the time ( he has connections ) He looked into it and called me back and said that it was normal and I have nothing to worry about.. clipping light just lets you know that you are venturing out the cleanest tone into a distorted tone..
here is some pics.. I'll keep you all updated if anything else arises but.. can a person actually fall in love with amp? maybe.. I sure like this one.
So...any idea whether this amp (namely the rack version) is actually the same old Kustom Deep End DE 200 head (
