katana reliability

Stillies

as  in my intro post, Im getting back into guitar playing after a few years.  guitar sorted thanks to mumsnet (srsly).  now I need something to make noise.  people here suggested the katana and all the yt vids sound good too so that's my plan.  or was my plan.  others have suggested that reliability can be a problem and then its a dead thing that's not worth fixing. 

who has  views on the reliability?

thanks fbers.

fretmeister

Mine’s fine. Had it 18 months or so. 

monquixote

The problem you will find is that data is not the plural of anecdote.

They are a massive seller so however good they are there will be a lot of dead ones about. There was a recent thread where one died and I think Boss fixed it out of warranty.

The only person likely to have an opinion worth hearing is @ICBM as he will probably have a vague idea of how many dead ones he sees in for repair.

All digital amps are pretty much toast once they fail so this will be the same story if you go for any modeller and most solid state amps. Even some valve amps if they are made in the wrong way.

I have one, but the way I look at it is that it's a cheap amp and you have to factor in that it has a shelf life like any other electronic appliance.

OilCityPickups

We bought a 2nd hand 50w Katana simply fo doing guitar shows. Our main concern was reliability, and as with most solid state equipment reliability is significantly better than valve gear. I'm told the finish on the cabinet is pretty easily marked, and indeed the whole cabinet is fairly lightly constructed ... but unless you plan on kicking the crap out of it with steel toecap Dr Martins it should hold up under normal use. Ours has had four months of pretty heavy usage ... as I personally prefer it to my all valve Laney LC30, and aside from cocking up the settings a few times (senior moments) it's done all we want. 

JayGee

OilCityPickups said:

We bought a 2nd hand 50w Katana simply fo doing guitar shows. Our main concern was reliability, and as with most solid state equipment reliability is significantly better than valve gear. I'm told the finish on the cabinet is pretty easily marked, and indeed the whole cabinet is fairly lightly constructed ... but unless you plan on kicking the crap out of it with steel toecap Dr Martins it should hold up under normal use. Ours has had four months of pretty heavy usage ... as I personally prefer it to my all valve Laney LC30, and aside from cocking up the settings a few times (senior moments) it's done all we want. 

He’s not wrong about the finish - mine hasn’t got any structural damage but the vinyl wrap looks scruffier than you’d really hope for on an amp which has mostly only seen rehearsals and home use. If you want to keep it looking nice spend a few quid with hot covers (or whoever)...

ecc83

I DO hope ICBM is going to chirp up and tell us that the two ID (60s?) in the rehearsal rooms he looks after are still banging away!

Last time I talk to Phil at B's service they still had not had any ID power amps fail so reliability CAN be good.

Mind you, I know IC is waiting on an ID front panel (that I think was damaged not just failed?) I do hope Blackstar have honoured their promise.

Dave.

p90fool

My old Katana is dead and was thrown in a skip, but I wouldn't say that means they're unreliable. 

The guy I sold it to is like an overgrown teenager with his gear so it probably had a hard life after me, and quite honestly they've sold so many tens of thousands of them in the last couple of years that the two  dead ones we collectively know about are pretty much irrelevant. 

OilCityPickups

Oh I must point out ... I got our Katana REALLY cheap ... so it's regarded as almost disposable. The last re-valve I did on my Laney cost more than the little Boss!

ICBM

monquixote said:

The only person likely to have an opinion worth hearing is @ICBM as he will probably have a vague idea of how many dead ones he sees in for repair.

None, so far. But I'm a relatively small repair business, so just on the law of averages I might not have even if they aren't perfectly reliable.

ecc83 said:

I DO hope ICBM is going to chirp up and tell us that the two ID (60s?) in the rehearsal rooms he looks after are still banging away!

Last time I talk to Phil at B's service they still had not had any ID power amps fail so reliability CAN be good.

Yes, I have also not seen or heard of even one single dead (proper) ID series. But two Cores so far, one of the little ones (I forget which model) and the big stereo ID Core 150 which may or may not have been damaged by plugging something unsuitable into it... it seems a very odd fault otherwise.

ecc83

"the big stereo ID Core 150 which may or may not have been damaged by plugging something unsuitable into it... it seems a very odd fault otherwise."

Hmm? With the huge growth of home recording  a lot of people have access to gear with 48V phantom power. Hard to protect a guitar amp input from that. 

Dave.

DLM

 

midlifecrisis

Ok, i bought a used (but not heavily) 2nd hand katana  100 combo off a fretboarder here. I gigged it pretty solidly for 19 months and dragged it out to rehearsals  regularly so was packed in and out of car about twice a week. after 19 months suddenly died at home, asked a couple of repairers , one took it apart and said he couldnt do anything, need to go back to boss/roland.
long story short i emailed roland asking advice. even though it was 2nd hand, out of warranty they offered to collect it, repair it and deliver it back all free of charge, so im a very happy customer and my next amp will probably be another katana. and btw it sounds great.

HAL9000

Another happy Katana 50 owner here. Had it about a yeat. Gets thrown in the car once or twice a week, been dropped a couple of times, but no issues whatsoever.

Stillies

you dont have to be away long for you to get a whole stack of replies!  thanks all.

looks like i still only have anecdotes rather than data @ monquixote but i dont see any dont-buy-the-katana warnings so it looks like the katana for me.   sorry neighbours. 

katanatime.

next week a post about which effects to buy.
  

clarkefan

OilCityPickups said:

We bought a 2nd hand 50w Katana simply fo doing guitar shows. Our main concern was reliability, and as with most solid state equipment reliability is significantly better than valve gear. I'm told the finish on the cabinet is pretty easily marked, and indeed the whole cabinet is fairly lightly constructed ... but unless you plan on kicking the crap out of it with steel toecap Dr Martins it should hold up under normal use. Ours has had four months of pretty heavy usage ... as I personally prefer it to my all valve Laney LC30, and aside from cocking up the settings a few times (senior moments) it's done all we want. 

I love this.  You must have had a lot of confidence in the sound quality of that amp, cos you were happy to have people test your pickups through it.  If the sound was lame you would have been risking a lot more than a player at home or in a pub.  It's a testament to the quality of the sound of the amp.

On a tangent, you also chose a brilliant name for your business

Marktigere1

clarkefan said:

OilCityPickups said:

We bought a 2nd hand 50w Katana simply fo doing guitar shows. Our main concern was reliability, and as with most solid state equipment reliability is significantly better than valve gear. I'm told the finish on the cabinet is pretty easily marked, and indeed the whole cabinet is fairly lightly constructed ... but unless you plan on kicking the crap out of it with steel toecap Dr Martins it should hold up under normal use. Ours has had four months of pretty heavy usage ... as I personally prefer it to my all valve Laney LC30, and aside from cocking up the settings a few times (senior moments) it's done all we want. 

I love this.  You must have had a lot of confidence in the sound quality of that amp, cos you were happy to have people test your pickups through it.  If the sound was lame you would have been risking a lot more than a player at home or in a pub.  It's a testament to the quality of the sound of the amp.

On a tangent, you also chose a brilliant name for your business

On another tangent, my son uses a Katana 100 and has gigged it (originals band) a lot over the last two years with no problems at all.

He used it with OilCity pickups as well (Scrapyard Dog Plus if interested)

He sounded great at gig volume.

Bluebeard

The Roland Cube amps that these replaced had a good reputation for reliability