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kustom b 200 amp & 2x15 kustom cab info

thanos k

thanos k

Oct 30, 2017
160
320
42
Rhodes Island - Greece
#1
a friend of mine and a bandmate (guitar player) tried for many years to sell this rig. for sure is nothing fancy, dated, bulky you name it. his price wasn't right either (he used to sell it for 600 $)

today's gear especially for bass is compact, light, full of features and powerfull. but he gave me a call with an honest offer for 300 ... for me it's a shame to pass cause i love bass gear in general and in my area we don't have the opportunity for a lot of vintage gear...

went to his house and gave it a try... the head needs some kind of service even though its working (there's some slight distortion in the notes, maybe a bad commponent or something) and sometimes it stops making a sound for a while (probably is the on off switch)

the cab is very nice, but very heavy (it's a 2x15 with tolex maybe mid 70's). the speakers are jensen.

i would like to ask if somebody knows for sure the ohms of the cabinet and the head. cause i would like to give the head a try with other cabs i already have and the cab with other heads etc

of course any other tip or info is very welcome
 
#2
I own two late 60's Kustom tuck and roll K200 heads, though they currently are in storage so I haven't used them for a while. I also used to own three of the matching tuck and roll 2x15 cabs, but those have been gone for quite a while.

For troubleshooting the head, I would start with the input jacks and speaker jacks as those are wear items and are inexpensive to replace, if needed. The potentiometers also may be dirty from sitting so run all of the controls back and forth with the amp off a few times, perhaps trying a tiny amount of contact cleaner directly applied to the wiper inside the pot if they are persistently noisy. As you suggested, the power switch may also have dirty or corroded contacts and require cleaning/replacement. Otherwise, it may require some more in-depth troubleshooting from an amp tech to find components that have drifted in value over time. Also, I see you are in Greece so your power system is different from North America, but I converted both of mine from two-prong ungrounded cords to three-prong grounded power cords by attaching the ground wire to the amp's chassis internally for safety. I highly recommend this for your own safety.

As for the cab, typically the Jensen speaker cabs were intended to be used for guitar with the CTS loaded cabs being the standard offering for bass. At least for the tuck and roll amps, they also were available with JBL or Altec drivers. One of my 2x15 cabs had the Jensens and the other two had the CTS bass drivers. The Jensens were definitely voiced more for guitar with lighter cones, but your cab is from a different production era if it's tolex so I can't confirm or deny that it's a guitar cab. The Jensen loaded cab still was ported, too, so ports aren't the determining factor for application, either; I doubt there was much science with TS parameters for the port tuning if the same cabs were offered with at least four or five different drivers!
 
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#3
thank you for your input @voided3 , i haven't seen the spreakers. the seller says he can't remember, but said they must be jensens. the cab has tolex and the "kustom" logo is different. it's a big "K" single letter. there're a lot of screws on the back of the cab and as soon as i take it home i'll open the back to check the speakers
 
#8
thanos k said:
a friend of mine and a bandmate (guitar player) tried for many years to sell this rig. for sure is nothing fancy, dated, bulky you name it. his price wasn't right either (he used to sell it for 600 $)

today's gear especially for bass is compact, light, full of features and powerfull. but he gave me a call with an honest offer for 300 ... for me it's a shame to pass cause i love bass gear in general and in my area we don't have the opportunity for a lot of vintage gear...

went to his house and gave it a try... the head needs some kind of service even though its working (there's some slight distortion in the notes, maybe a bad commponent or something) and sometimes it stops making a sound for a while (probably is the on off switch)

the cab is very nice, but very heavy (it's a 2x15 with tolex maybe mid 70's). the speakers are jensen.

i would like to ask if somebody knows for sure the ohms of the cabinet and the head. cause i would like to give the head a try with other cabs i already have and the cab with other heads etc

of course any other tip or info is very welcome
Click to expand...

Here's a website you should find useful: Welcome to VintageKustom.Com!

I have gone through the webboard and I believe the amps were originally rated down to 2.6 ohms, but it is recommend to treat them as 4 ohms minimum as they do not have sufficient heat sinks. I found comments that the 200 series will provide about 100W of clean power at 4 ohms.

Good Luck and Injoy!

Schematics for can be found under "Technical."
 
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#9
this sounds like the later kustom amps
its not a tuck n roll.

Im not a expert on the history of the amps,
kustom might have already been sold at this point.

its a 2x15 so it should cover a drummer pretty decent.

far as what is in there, pictures will tell.
for the most part id assume it is a 4 ohm cabinet, usually 2 x 8ohm speakers.

far as volume cutout, can be as simple as old pots that have been sitting awhile. just need to be cleaned.
otherwise it could be loose or connections going bad.
this would be a more 80s type head with typical board mounted pots and jacks most likely.
so it could be as simple as touching them up with new solder.
or like yo said , if switch feels funny or just old with alot of on off arching , then yeah easy fix for new switch

its really a guessing game. long as your seller is somewhat honest and knows the head had no issues before it sat for a zillion years.
it could just need the pots cleaned or jacks cleaned.
 
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#10
thanos k said:
haha ok i will as soon as i take it home... for now i'm trying to find the courage to cary and load the bass cab from his 3rd floor appartement to my car ...
Click to expand...

If im thinking it is the large 2x15 later kustom cabs with 2 large ports to one side. then yeah that thing is a monster.

ive moved big cabs and 810s for years so its not to bad, but stairs offer a new twist. on the ground not too bad.

a dolly will help, you just plop plop plop down each step with one guy and can tilt back and control it with the dolly.

otherwise its 2 guys, one guy at the bottom to lift out the bottom and go down each step.
same thing guy on top is tilting it back. so its a very small lift or slide at the bottom. just clearing one edge over each step. not really a lift. more a easy slide down each step.
 
#11
BogeyBass said:
this sounds like the later kustom amps
its not a tuck n roll.
Click to expand...
thank you for your input!

the bass amp is a tuck & roll kustom k200 b1 from 1969

the cab is a later model probably from the kustom iii series. sorry for not posting pictures yet, i know it's confusing and i apologise.


Wasnex said:
Here's a website you should find useful: Welcome to VintageKustom.Com!
Click to expand...

it was really helpfull thank you! i found there all the schematics for my tech to work on this amp!!!

voided3 said:
Also, I see you are in Greece so your power system is different from North America, but I converted both of mine from two-prong ungrounded cords to three-prong grounded power cords by attaching the ground wire to the amp's chassis internally for safety. I highly recommend this for your own safety.
Click to expand...

i asked my tech about this issue cause i'm worried too about this. he said that since i use an outboard converter for 110v to 220v (nothing works here at 110v) there's no problem with ground and i shouldn't worry. the device is "in the air" isolated and when plugged to the power outlet the amp is grounded (i can't explain this in depth cause i'm not an electrician). he said i could have problem if i was playing this device at a country with 110 v system
 
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#12
thanos k said:
thank you for your input!

the bass amp is a tuck & roll kustom k200 b1 from 1969

the cab is a later model probably from the kustom iii series. sorry for not posting pictures yet, i know it's confusing and i apologise.
Click to expand...

oh that is a easy fix.
schematics are easy to find
and pretty simple straight forward amp
pretty much built like tanks and pretty rugged

it might need a "tune up" but its still working.
alot of " newer" amps have already died
these old guys keep on going

here the old 110 volt 2 prongs would have a switchable capacitor to ground it properly. before there was no large and small plugs, so if the plug got flipped or if ground was not referenced to the neutral. it could rattle your teeth going for backups on a microphone. then you know to switch the ground over to the correct side. and then be good.

not sure how it works out there for the 220, long as its referenced to neutral your good.
most guys out here will freak out if they heard you only had a 2 prong cord.
course they cant seem to wrap their heads around the fact its only 2 wires.
we have 220/240 drops but they tie to half the transformer for 110
 
#15
So this is the cab!!! Just came in. I had great luck cleaning the grill cloth. Not the same luck though with the black tolex, but it smells at least better now
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#16
I had to remove a lot of screws (27 !!!) To have a look inside... can't understand much though... i can only see that the speakers are 8 ohms each. I guess that makes a 4 ohm cabinet. I also see a 45w2402 stamp. I guess that means this is a 90watt cab???
 

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#17
45w2402 is more than likely a cone number stamp and not indication of wattage

2857709 is more likely a indication of the model number.
I believe 285 is a EI number for Rola speakers

038-0102-00 could be a Kustom part number
there is a wiring pdf that dates 1971 for kustom cabinets for that part number.
i have no idea if 71 is the date more than likely Rola might have a dating system stamped on that driver.
maybe 77 that is just a guess.

likewise a guess on the wattage could be higher thermally around 150 to 200 watts
and a likely guess would be its a fairly normal 30 to 50 ounce magnet with 2 to 3mm of xmax
so maybe actual 10% distortion be around 60 to 70 watts per driver.

all guesses really probably assume 100 to 150 watt cab being a 2x15.
should be fun for a tube head or 100 to 200 watt solid state

you can basically run any cab with any head power rating. common sense comes into play.
when you reach distortion that is about it. and within reason this cab should be fun and reach moderate band levels
 
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#18
thanos k said:
I had to remove a lot of screws (27 !!!) To have a look inside... can't understand much though... i can only see that the speakers are 8 ohms each. I guess that makes a 4 ohm cabinet. I also see a 45w2402 stamp. I guess that means this is a 90watt cab???
Click to expand...

Here's a guide to the EIA speaker codes: Invalid Link Removed

Looks to be a set of Rola (Celestion) speakers from the 9th week of 1977.
 
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