Am I mental for considering ditching my jcm800 and going full boss katana ?!!

Reverend

I use a tiny vix g2 at home and it sounds great i  its own. However no amp comes close to an 800 for live use

Sync

@riffpowers Boss Katana or Fender Mustang GTX100 if you need an Amp with ease and flexibility. My money goes on GTX100 not least due to the included pedal. I, through amps or pa can't tell a difference between a Fender Tone Master Pro pedal and the GTX100. 

If you're gigging or recording then it's pretty much line out and emulation anyway. 

A powered FRFR cabinet and suitable pedal also a great option esp as several cabinet options exist from main brands so looks like a guitar amp not pa speaker. 

I like a nice JCM800, wish I still had my gigging one from the 90s even if for display purposes. 

Need to temper expectations here though: What you can't do is get that standalone unsupported (ie no PA) stack/combo JCM800 (inc/esp a 2203) sound at gigging volumes with a standalone unsupported Katana or GTX100 etc. 

At home small room volumes however, you can get a nicer sound from the Katana / GTX100. 

Once you start line-out'ing / PA then it makes no difference. 

fretmeister

Reverend said:

I use a tiny vix g2 at home and it sounds great i  its own. However no amp comes close to an 800 for live use

Have you ever tried a Jubilee instead of an 800?

I’m tempted to try one as being a bit more controllable.

BillDL

ICBM said:

BillDL said:

I like my Katana 50 MkII, but I prefer the sound and simplicity of my Peavey Bandit Transtube 1x12 and the Studio Pro 1x12. They are both heavy amps though.

Admittedly I’ve put a neodymium speaker in mine, but I wouldn’t have described the Studio Pro as a heavy amp even before. It’s an easy one-hand lift and I can walk quite a long way with it.

I would guess you are a bit younger and probably somewhat fitter than me 

Yes, I was really referring to the difference between a Katana and a Peavey, both being solid state amps rather than the expected extra weight of a full valve combo.  The Bandit is particularly heavy and cumbersome, but as you say the Studio Pro is more manageable.

riffpowers

I think I’m starting to think that I was being mental and I’ll keep using both setups for what I got them for !!

riffpowers

fretmeister said:

Reverend said:

I use a tiny vix g2 at home and it sounds great i  its own. However no amp comes close to an 800 for live use

Have you ever tried a Jubilee instead of an 800?

I’m tempted to try one as being a bit more controllable.

They’re great .

Voxman

If you sell the JCM800 you'll regret it. Buy something else by all means but keep the JCM800.

Having played a Katana I wasn't impressed to say the least, and even my old tech Blue Valvetronix amps sound infinitely better. Although I've not yet played a Line 6 Catalyst, I've not seen a bad review nor any bad customer feedback and by all reports it sounds really good and knocks even the top of the range Waza Katana into a cocked hat. 

So I definitely recommend you try one, preferably side by side with a Katana, to see which sounds and feels best to you. 

TTBZ

How about one of these for home playing? Sounds great in all the demos!



Or maybe a DSL1? Has a half watt switch too and they sound surprisingly great through a decent cab. 

snowblind

Stick with the Marshall.  Although I'm more of a HiWatt guy than a Marshall fan I have never heard a good sound come out of a Boss Katana when I've been in the room with one. Recorded they can sound ok but personally when hearing first-hand they sounds like a wasp in a sock. The one time I thought one sounded ok (demo in a shop) I subsequently found out the guitar signal was twinned into a Supro hidden behind some Fender amps. Anything to get a sale I guess.

Yorkie

ICBM said:

BillDL said:

I like my Katana 50 MkII, but I prefer the sound and simplicity of my Peavey Bandit Transtube 1x12 and the Studio Pro 1x12. They are both heavy amps though.

Admittedly I’ve put a neodymium speaker in mine, but I wouldn’t have described the Studio Pro as a heavy amp even before. It’s an easy one-hand lift and I can walk quite a long way with it.

Well, I did take the Bandit upstairs and downstairs a few times back when I still had it and light, it’s not. But at least it was lighter than the DSL40 with the Creamback — I have taken it with me today and realised that my muscles are still stuck in the digital age. 

NelsonP

Yes

grungebob

The Katana is a very feature packed amp it’s just a shame it has this weird mid range squash/muffle that I could never dial out. 

I had a Vox VT40X that was infinitely better but it’s one flaw was lowering the guitar volume didn’t clean up the gain channels it just made them quieter.  If they fixed that the Vox VT40x would be all I need. 

soma1975

Another vote for yes you would be mental. 

Lestratcaster

I would say yes as well. I didn't own a JCM800 but the JCM2000 that I stupidy sold. It was a great amp head for all rock tones. The only softener was I did get a 6505+ with the money I got from the sale.

I don't really like the Katana for high gain tones either. Cleans are ok and some crunch but that's about it.

Dr_Necessiter

Keep the Marshall and get an amp-in-a-box with decent clean tones as a pedal platform? There’s a Hiwatt soundalike out from Foxgear that I thought sounded interesting: https://www.foxgeardistribution.com/product/100w-series/

Littlejonny

ICBM said:

Danny1969 said:

I had the Artist in for a firmware upgrade and some EQ tweaking. I can honestly say I thought it was one of the worse amps I have ever played through. it has a kind of synthetic cloak to the sound that you can't seem to get rid off no matter what you do. 

A decent solidstate amp and a few pedals is a far better and still cheap way to go. IMHO 

It’s odd… some people hear this, and some don’t.

I think they sound terrible too, although the Mk2 is less so than the Mk1, which I found unusably grating. (And the 100W less awful than the 50, although I haven’t tried the Artist.)

So add me to the ‘yes’ column.

I recently tried one for the first time in PMT, having read about them for years. i didn’t get on with it at all (it was a 50) the clean was ok, but all the overdrives had a honky midrange that couldn’t be dialled out. Nothing like a JCM800 in my opinion. It sounded like something for playing types of music that I never play, ie. Metal and modern rock. I think even the clean has some of that honky mid.

John Nathan Cordy (is he on here?) of YouTube fame really likes the head, but he runs it through a decent cab with his choice of speaker I believe. He’s also running pedals into the clean channel rather than using the amp distortion. 

Littlejonny

ICBM said:

BillDL said:

I like my Katana 50 MkII, but I prefer the sound and simplicity of my Peavey Bandit Transtube 1x12 and the Studio Pro 1x12. They are both heavy amps though.

Admittedly I’ve put a neodymium speaker in mine, but I wouldn’t have described the Studio Pro as a heavy amp even before. It’s an easy one-hand lift and I can walk quite a long way with it.

Much prefer the Bandit. Great amp.

fretmeister

Dr_Necessiter said:

Keep the Marshall and get an amp-in-a-box with decent clean tones as a pedal platform? There’s a Hiwatt soundalike out from Foxgear that I thought sounded interesting: https://www.foxgeardistribution.com/product/100w-series/

The Marshall has excellent clean tones already on the Low input.

Littlejonny

Nikc said:

I had epiphany this evening - my youngest son has stolen my Boss Street Cube and was playing Master of the Puppets on a crunch setting - honestly it sounded ok you know kinda cool.

Then I plugged in to mess about and play along - nope thats why I play through my Orange all the time, ok is ok but more is more

Littlejonny

Sorry it did that thing where you’re typing in the comment you’re quoting and you can’t get out of it.

I just wanted to say, despite not being impressed with the Katana, I do like the Roland Cube series. The black panel, tweed and Brit combo were always quite usable for me.