Victory kraken Mk2

sgosden

https://www.victoryamps.com/product/vx-the-kraken-mkii-compact-head/

head and lunchbox versions 
new clean channel 
various other tonal additions 

the deep dive is long  

digitalscream

Haven't watched the video yet, but...does it still have the annoying bass cut in Gain II mode which made it unusable for so many folk?

Fortheloveofguitar

Hopefully they’ve adjusted the mids on it. 

The Kraken is so mid heavy it’s an absolute joke. Even one of the guys at Victory agreed that it’s overkill. . 

Fortheloveofguitar

digitalscream said:

Haven't watched the video yet, but...does it still have the annoying bass cut in Gain II mode which made it unusable for so many folk?

Looking like they haven’t amended that issue. 

digitalscream

Fortheloveofguitar said:

digitalscream said:

Haven't watched the video yet, but...does it still have the annoying bass cut in Gain II mode which made it unusable for so many folk?

Looking like they haven’t amended that issue. 

So annoying. They made it switchable on the big one, so why not here? It'd be much more useful than a presence shift.

Flotsam

Looks mighty tempting to me...

timmypix

I did always wish my Kraken had a presence knob, so that's cool at least. But if they've not really tweaked Ch2, I always found that too dry and too gainy - didn't have the thump or body of the 5150 it's supposedly emulating.

Flotsam

Well, having seen the price, I’m massively un-tempted. £1400 for a lunchbox amp is drifting into silly Friedman territory - without the import tariff excuse. Shame.

digitalscream

Flotsam said:

Well, having seen the price, I’m massively un-tempted. £1400 for a lunchbox amp is drifting into silly Friedman territory - without the import tariff excuse. Shame.

Oh, wow. At £899 (the original Kraken price, as far as I recall), they were a reasonable proposition. At 55% more than that...I expect a product that doesn't require me to compromise.

Fortheloveofguitar

Flotsam said:

Well, having seen the price, I’m massively un-tempted. £1400 for a lunchbox amp is drifting into silly Friedman territory - without the import tariff excuse. Shame.

Ridiculous money!

Flotsam

Fortheloveofguitar said:

Flotsam said:

Well, having seen the price, I’m massively un-tempted. £1400 for a lunchbox amp is drifting into silly Friedman territory - without the import tariff excuse. Shame.

Ridiculous money!

I’m relieved that you guys agree on this. I don’t think Victory are any different from many other manufacturers on rampant price increases but it is disappointing, nonetheless. I know inflation has been bad but not that bad. Clearly, many other factors in play here.

HT986M2

The asking price is pretty out there.  Have they been taking tips from Fender?  

People throw shade on Friedman, but most of their lunchbox amps at the £1600 price point are hand-wired.  Victory are all PCB-based from what I've ready.  Which is cheeky because, as previously mentioned, Friedman have the import tax excuse.

Stevepage

£1400?! Not even remotely tempted. If I’m going for a lunchbox amp I’ll go for the Prs MT15. Maybe not a lot of wattage but if you’re going to mic the cab at gigs you don’t need much more than that.

makes me wonder if I should prepare for a heart attack when the prices of Mesa’s will be announced, when they eventually arrive on our shores again.

MARVlN

HT986M2 said:

The asking price is pretty out there.  Have they been taking tips from Fender?  

People throw shade on Friedman, but most of their lunchbox amps at the £1600 price point are hand-wired.  Victory are all PCB-based from what I've ready.  Which is cheeky because, as previously mentioned, Friedman have the import tax excuse.

Don't be fooled by 'hand-wired' in a lot of marketing copy. It's easy to assume that means old school turretboard style construction, but in marketing that's generally referred to as 'point to point'. Handwired simply means that there is some offboard wiring.

Not that PCBs are a problem, if well designed they can have advantages over turretboard, but don't go thinking that there's a basic difference just because of marketing.

See this video of a Friedman Runt 50 as an example - it's a nice amp, but it's PCB, and the offboard wiring is all done using pushfit connectors onto the PCB itself.

This is a video from the same chap that features a Victory briefly (the timestamp for this video should take you there). Very similar construction and wiring. Whether it's as good an amp in terms of construction is another matter - PCB or not doesn't automatically mean good or bad, cheap or expensive.

Deijavoo

If this Kraken 2 had silent dummy load recording I would have found my perfect stereo amp. Currently JEL20 is still frontrunner.

digitalscream

MARVlN said:

Whether it's as good an amp in terms of construction is another matter - PCB or not doesn't automatically mean good or bad, cheap or expensive.

Well, indeed. I don't think anybody's ever felt they were missing out because Soldano amps use PCBs.

Flotsam

Stevepage said:

£1400?! Not even remotely tempted. If I’m going for a lunchbox amp I’ll go for the Prs MT15. Maybe not a lot of wattage but if you’re going to mic the cab at gigs you don’t need much more than that.

makes me wonder if I should prepare for a heart attack when the prices of Mesa’s will be announced, when they eventually arrive on our shores again.

I already have a PRS MT15. It sounds absolutely fantastic to me, especially for the money. It’s also extremely loud. But it has a very different voicing to the Kraken’s Gain II to my ears and it doesn’t do anything other than crystal clean or massive gain (or massive gain with a cherry on top). The Kraken has a more Marshall low-mid gain mode (Gain I) which appeals to me. But at £1400 I’d rather just get a Marshall, have a nice holiday (or two) and live with switching amps around!

Musicman20

I wonder what the USA market is like on these?

Seems a lot of money for a lunchbox style amp.

I imagine we will see huge discounts in 6-9 months. Eventually Rabea will be with Mesa, Orange or Marshall…

Jonathanthomas83

Musicman20 said:

Eventually Rabea will be with Mesa, Orange or Marshall…

Hmm, I'm not sure I can see him with any of those. Orange would be the one given his "mids" boner. But Mesa and Marshall would be a weird switch for him, IMO. I actually think he's at the perfect amp company, tbh.

nero1701

Flotsam said:

Stevepage said:

£1400?! Not even remotely tempted. If I’m going for a lunchbox amp I’ll go for the Prs MT15. Maybe not a lot of wattage but if you’re going to mic the cab at gigs you don’t need much more than that.

makes me wonder if I should prepare for a heart attack when the prices of Mesa’s will be announced, when they eventually arrive on our shores again.

I already have a PRS MT15. It sounds absolutely fantastic to me, especially for the money. It’s also extremely loud. But it has a very different voicing to the Kraken’s Gain II to my ears and it doesn’t do anything other than crystal clean or massive gain (or massive gain with a cherry on top). The Kraken has a more Marshall low-mid gain mode (Gain I) which appeals to me. But at £1400 I’d rather just get a Marshall, have a nice holiday (or two) and live with switching amps around!

It's a lot of money for an own brand. It's like the sainsburys cornflakes of the amp world.

Tat2dstesh

I really really wanted to like Victory amps for me, small portable lunch box design for gigging more than 15 watts to be heard easily over a loud drummer on stage etc (yes I know the Orange Dual Terror is 30watts), High gain and clean tones But I just couldn't get a sound I loved. The Kraken was like people said WAY too much mids and over the top for me, the Jack/countess mk1 I bought was nice, really thick sounding and decent cleans but every time I got a sound I liked I ended up not liking it after playing my Orange Rocker 30 which just sounded way better. The original Sheriff was just a marshall and for the once I wanted which was not the lunch box I already had a Orange Rocker 30 which sounded better.