Whatever happened to the Katanas? *edit* now NAD

Duppy03

You should definitely check out the Vox AV’s as the AC15 and AC30 tones are where it excels, I like the Marshall Plexi and JCM settings too.

I know what your saying about Vox’s line of products, never really paid attention any of the Valvetronix stuff etc, but the AV line caught my eye as it’s all analogue and not digital modelling.

I get overwhelmed with anything beyond 9 knobs, digital displays and patches etc

munckee

Depends on your circumstances, I only play at home and have a champ but too loud for playing at night so I have a THR5 which sounds great at low volumes, and at medium volumes and doesn't take up much room which was a must for me.  Plus my THR is "allowed" to be on display in the lounge as missus munckee likes the way it looks.  If you knew how much she detests all the rest of my guitar stuff that's a huge tick in the box for me!

HAL9000

I tried a Katana 50W in Andertons earlier today. I have to confess that I wasn't really expecting great things given the number of posts suggesting that it doesn't cut through the mix, and that you need to connect it to the PC to get the best from it. Actually there's very little here to complain about, even more so when you consider that it only cost about £175. 

I ended up buying it and taking it to my local jam night just a few hours later. I didn't need  to take it above the 25W setting and it was plenty loud enough. Admittedly there weren't too many people there tonight, and the drummer was fairly polite; I can certainly see that there will evenings when the 50W setting will be required. Also, although I still need to tweak the knobs to get closer to the sound I want, it was easy enough (and intuitive enough) to be able to get decent sounds straight out of the box. I know I'm in the honeymoon period but first impressions are really very good.

Alnico

Picking up my old Katana 50 next Friday.

For the money it's great and I'm going to try a different speaker in it to see if I can alter how it sounds at louder volumes.

Is there a way of modifying it to have speaker out?

guitargeek62

Alnico said:

Picking up my old Katana 50 next Friday.

For the money it's great and I'm going to try a different speaker in it to see if I can alter how it sounds at louder volumes.

Is there a way of modifying it to have speaker out?

Easiest way would be to wire jacks in-between the existing speaker and amp, then use that as needed and hook it up to the same impedance cab.

Voxman

guitargeek62 said:

Alnico said:

Picking up my old Katana 50 next Friday.

For the money it's great and I'm going to try a different speaker in it to see if I can alter how it sounds at louder volumes.

Is there a way of modifying it to have speaker out?

Easiest way would be to wire jacks in-between the existing speaker and amp, then use that as needed and hook it up to the same impedance cab.

@Alnico ;  ...I posted this before but here's the guitargeek vid showing you how to do it!

Modellista

Alnico said:

Picking up my old Katana 50 next Friday.

For the money it's great and I'm going to try a different speaker in it to see if I can alter how it sounds at louder volumes.

Is there a way of modifying it to have speaker out?

The existing speaker has weird connections - one tiny thin connector - which means it isn't easy to replace the speaker without butchering the existing cable or using some sort of adapter. 

I only discovered this after faffing around pulling the thing apart and installing a new speaker of course.  

TBH I'd leave it alone. 

Alnico

Thanks guys.
I got the amp last weekend.

Won't be able to do any work yet but I'll look the video, thanks @Voxman and yes I'll take what you said on consideration @modellista .

A new speaker will probably happen first but I bet this amp sounds amazing through a 4x12.

As and when I can do this I'll post an update on what happens.

andyoz

I still use mine loads....Katana Head.

Musicman20

I still use mine all the time - K100 Combo. Fantastic piece of gear.

bloodandtears

+1 Katana Head here.. using a Line 6 HD500x as a midi controller too ;-)

LuttiS

bloodandtears said:

+1 Katana Head here.. using a Line 6 HD500x as a midi controller too ;-)

Is that new? Seem to remember you being a little dubious about the Katana in Huddersfield? Am i making that up?

Also, does it work well with HD500x?

Nikko

Still using my 50 exclusively. Love it.

andyoz

I noticed the Katana head is down to circa £285...sure it was about £50 more when I bought mine.

Even more of a bargain as you get to experiment with any nice cabinets you already have.  I use it into either a Marshall 425A 4 x 12" or a 1974x 1 x 12" fitted with a 65w Creamback thingy.

andyoz

bloodandtears said:

+1 Katana Head here.. using a Line 6 HD500x as a midi controller too ;-)

What does all that mean...I know feck all about midi.

guitargeek62

Well I’m off to try them out against some of the THR type amps this weekend, will see what feels most appropriate for my needs but I’m leaning towards something desktop-like at the moment

bloodandtears

LuttiS said:

bloodandtears said:

+1 Katana Head here.. using a Line 6 HD500x as a midi controller too ;-)

Is that new? Seem to remember you being a little dubious about the Katana in Huddersfield? Am i making that up?

Also, does it work well with HD500x?

Selfishly one of the reasons for me going to Huddersfield was to try out @modellista Katana... only to find the head was in the recording room too...  I came away thinking it maybe needed something a bit more of something.....the answer was time to tinker with sounds through familiarity.

It works reasonably well with the HD500X indeed.

andyoz said:

bloodandtears said:

+1 Katana Head here.. using a Line 6 HD500x as a midi controller too ;-)

What does all that mean...I know feck all about midi.

I can change the Katana channels via assigned footpedals on the HD500X, all 9 "channels" on the head are accessible.

I use patches in the HD500X that have no amp model yet include a Wah and Volume pedal in the chain, I also use a dummy fx blocks (e.g. Noise Gate set fully open) to allow FS1-4 to access the 3 fx blocks and fx loop in the Kat.

Audio Signal flow:  Guitar -> HD500X -> Kat.

Midi Signal flow:  HD500X -> Kat.

This setup also allows me to use other HD500X features such as looper and tuner. I could even use inbuilt HD500X fx that would work infront of the Kat Channel if I chose to.

zepp76

I'm absolutely loving my Katana 50, I bought it to replace my home practice amp that went kaput. It really does shine in the quiet practice side of things and it's also very good when wound up a little when the situation allows it. The best £200 I've spent on guitar equipment. Check out this video from YouTube, it's long but he really squeezes some great tones out of that amp!

guitargeek62

I finally tried these out against the competition on Saturday (thanks owed to the helpful gents at Andertons). To my ears they sound considerably better than the competition - Fender Mustang GT series, Marshall Code, Blackstar Core:ID, Vox* VTX.

Back to back the Katana 100 sounds "better" than the 50 imo, a little less boxy, slightly clearer. I don't know how much of that is down to the cabinet, the speaker, or the presence control, but it was noticeable across different guitars in both of them and seemed closer to my preference. I suspect if I'd tried the 50w first then I'd have been happy enough with that and not tried the 100w, but...!

Anyway, the channels are great - impressive range of sounds and gain in each one, and the feature-set is superb. I can definitely see what the fuss is about now. Looking forward to joing the club properly as soon as a used one comes up at the right price!

*That said, the Vox Adio is oddly good, but has no footswitch option!

olafgarten

guitargeek62 said:

I finally tried these out against the competition on Saturday (thanks owed to the helpful gents at Andertons). To my ears they sound considerably better than the competition - Fender Mustang GT series, Marshall Code, Blackstar Core:ID, Vox* VTX.

Back to back the Katana 100 sounds "better" than the 50 imo, a little less boxy, slightly clearer. I don't know how much of that is down to the cabinet, the speaker, or the presence control, but it was noticeable across different guitars in both of them and seemed closer to my preference. I suspect if I'd tried the 50w first then I'd have been happy enough with that and not tried the 100w, but...!

Anyway, the channels are great - impressive range of sounds and gain in each one, and the feature-set is superb. I can definitely see what the fuss is about now. Looking forward to joing the club properly as soon as a used one comes up at the right price!

*That said, the Vox Adio is oddly good, but has no footswitch option!

This is basically what I found, I think the speaker in the Katana 100 is better than the one in the 50, because even with the presence full it sounded better with the same settings. 

The ADIO is also good but it's more like a THR, not really a proper amp, but one that uses a full range speaker.