It's been a long time. I don't generally get to see new stuff unless it breaks or comes into the shop for sale, as I rarely go out of my way to play with new things in other shops. But today there was a Katana 50 in the shop, for sale.
And I have to say...
... it sounded absolutely atrocious.
What is it people see (hear?) in them? Hideous grainy, harsh, hard sound with no life, sparkle or depth to it - and it's not the EQ, it's just the inherent tone of the amp and cannot be dialled out, only made bassier/middier/treblier etc. It was even horrible on the clean sound, and I can usually get a decent clean tone out of anything. The distorted sounds were pretty much unusable, although it actually got less bad on the higher gain settings - 'Crunch' was the worst.
Just to make sure it wasn't just me having a bad-ears day, or the guitar, or the cable or anything, I tried a couple more amps with the same guitar - a Roland Cube 60 and an old Fender Champion 110. The Cube - which I'm not a huge fan of, but they're usable enough - sounded so much better than the Katana it was almost funny. And the old transistor Fender actually *was* funny - it's far from the best sound in Fender history even on the clean channel, and the dirty channel has far too much gain and can sound really buzzy, but it was *still* possible to make both of them sound better than the Katana.
I'll be honest and say that it wasn't a total surprise since to date I have yet to hear a demo video that's sounded good either, but I thought I would reserve judgement until I heard one in person - I'd now be happy if I never do again. I don't get it. I'm really not trying to be funny or controversial, I just cannot understand why they're so raved about.
I'd take a Blackstar ID series over it any day, and most of you know what I think about those!
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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Don't know if it has a speaker out, but might be worth the experiment to exclude the potentially crap speaker?
And the speaker in the Champion is nothing to write home about either...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I’m a member of a couple of guitar and amp selling pages on Facebook, and these come up for sale 7 or 8 times a week without fail. The ad always says something along the lines of “awesome amp....absolutely stunning tone....classic etc.”
When I pointed out if they were so awesome and classic and stunning, they wouldn’t come up for sale so often....I was called a gear snob, and some bollocks about how many were sold, statistically they HAVE to come up for sale.
Doesnt compare to my silver face champ but nor did my Princeton.
Depends ds on your expectations.
But in practice it didn’t sound even tolerable, to me.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Not even good in the context of a cheap modelling amp - a Line 6 Spider is miles better.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I would put it third on the list of the worst-sounding amps I’ve ever played, after the Orange Micro Terror with its overpoweringly fatiguing sound that literally makes my ears itch, and the Blackstar ID Core series with its oppressive inside-a-padded-cell spatial effect.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I've had several, and I've not liked the ice pick, trebly tone on stock settings, but have always managed to tweak to a very pleasing sound.
I've never owned a 50 though, although I've heard other people's and they sounded fine.
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Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youOne thing to remember is that it’s a sub £200 amp. It’s great bang for the buck, weighs next to nothing (which, sadly, is a consideration these days), will keep up with a tame drummer, and has a decent range of pre-loaded effects (which personally I don’t use or like). However, it is never going to compete (despite Boss’s extravagant ‘gig-ready’ claims) with amps that cost substantially more. Although loud, it does IMHO lack projection and low-end ‘thump’.
What I mean is - those cheap practice amps don't interest me .. small modelling combos don't interest me... the bottom of the consumer barrel doesn't interest me. So I never play them. Doesn't surprise me that it sounds crap though - coz all the blues wankers love them! lol.
I agree about the basic Katana tone. it's not a neutral sound it's way less natural and open as older cheap SS designs like the Peavey Bandit, Fender Champions, Session 75's etc
I've got one coming in to be modded, customers wants USB socket fitted so I'll try it at home volume. The 50 watt and 100 watt versions I've played through were at gig volume. Be a chance to have a good look at the circuit too