Dean Markley K-20X

Bought this amp in the summer of 1999. Best practice amp ive ever used, beats out any line six sypder amp. The three band eq controls allow for great sounds. Can put out nice uber metal sounds and sounds great clean as well. The overdrive setting is good if set low and used for a blues or a low boost but thats basiclly it. Loud, durable and inexpensive

Good clean settings again three band eq is awesome. The overdrive really cant be used for mutch but can be usefull at times. Pulls of great distortions with my death metal and grunge pedal. loud.

Had it for about 9 years now and its never broke down and still sounds great.

never had to worry about contacting

Play a charvell jackson, squire bullet 08 and a squire 2000 (maybe later). Enjoy this amp use it everyday sounds great. MY bands other guitarist loves it and is excited about buying one.

Most of the features are already listed above, mine is made in China although some earlier models came from Korea. I gave it that rating coz I can do a lot of sounds with it. Basic amplifier with an overdriven channel.

Sounds great for the price. Plugged in my classical, steel string, and electric guitar to this thing. Sounds great. Very loud for its power rating. The 3 band eq helps a lot in shaping the sound. Nice distortion on the OD channel and quiet clean channel. For the price, its a great bargain. If you probably want a heavier sound, use a distortion pedal or a multi effects.

Never broke down

Never had to

I've been playing guitar since I've been 8 yrs. old, I'm 25 now. I would probably get one of these again if its got lost. No longer in production though. Its a very basic amplifier, not much extras but for the price this thing is a deal. You can use the amp for live performances, loud enough for a small hall. There are some really bad equipment out there but this amp is a good find so I beg to differ from the lower reviews for this amp. Compared this to other amps in the same price range in the shop, I bought this one because it was the loudest and I could shape the sound well with the 3 band eq. I think most users don't know how to use their equipment and end up buying expensive stuff that they probably don't really need to sound good. Before buying any equipment, always try it out first so you won't end up with something you will regret. A good store usually lets you try equipment out. An advice to fellow musicians, equipment is just a very small part of the equation of sounding good.

The features on this amp include...lets see...the headphone jack and the OD switch? but then again its what you'd expect for $40 used.

I play an ibanez RG series with stock humbuckers and on this amp, the mid range tones are overkill. On the clean channel, you have to turn it up to get half descent tones, and on the over drive channel you gotta keep it under 3 for a nice, crunchy tone. I use a BOSS distortion pedal and if i turn it up past 5 mids swoop in and the sound is lost. also, with humbuckers the clean channel gets distorted at high volumes.

Good as a practice amp but THATS IT. deffinately no shows, (unless you condsider your family an audience) and absolutely no recording with this amp. The toughness is the only good thing of this amp. i usually sit on it to play, or stand on it as a ladder. its tough.

overall, i think even though i;ve been playing only two years, i can still have a half-ass-descent opinion. i;ve heard other Solid state 15 watters played and this amp fits down at the bottom end of the list.

15W solid-state practice amp. Two-channel (clean and distortion), standard three tone controls (treb, mid, bass), reverb, input for footswitch to switch between channels (footswitch NOT included), headphone out. Basically everything you need in a practice amp.

This amp is a low-wattage, cheap, solid-state amp. I bought this amp four years ago when I was just starting out. You know, newbies and their junk equipment. The clean channel is just that, clean, no warmth. Overload it and it will pop. Ugh. The distortion is decent. You can really grunge it out. Reverb works really well as well. The main problem I have with this amp is that it has no power. Forget about jamming with a drummer. I know the beginners who buy one of these won't care about the lack of "warmth" that comes from crappy solid-state electronics, but gee golly they should at least have some power. And this amp doesn't have any.

The potentiometers used for the volume control of both channels are going bad. Bump the amp and it will cut out as the pot jumps back and forth. The hallmark of cheap construction unfortunately.

Anyone who's past the beginner stage will be disappointed with this amp. I wish I had known then what I know now. For the same amount of money I could have got a used 30W Crate or something similiar. Something that I could have jammed with. Seriously, if you get a practice amp, get something with a little power (30W or more). You're going to end up bringing it to jam with anyway. You don't need to go all out like I did (after a couple failed jam sessions with my Dean Markley I went out and bought a Fender Blues Deluxe, a gig-worthy amp haha) but definitely spend the money to get some more power than this guy has. You won't regret it.

As mentioned below, 1x8, 15w, 2 channel (pushbutton, no footswitch), attractive small openback combo. Weighs about 12 pounds. There is a headphone jack but no line out and no aux in -- but what do you want for $69? Now made in China by the way, not Korea.

I was looking for an inexpensive, lightweight, not terribly ugly small amp under $100 to take on the back deck, to a friend's house to jam a little (with an acoustic or banjo, not a bassist and drummer), or on car-trip vacations etc. I use a wide variety of stompboxes and multiprocessors but also wanted a basic usable tone in the amp itself. I've tried this little beast with a variety of Les Pauls (US, Korea, China), a couple of Mexi-Strats, an acoustic with Fishman electronics, etc and a wide variety of pedals. For an amp of this type and price, it's amazing that (a) it is virtually noise-free at all settings unless you introduce noise via your signal chain and (b) the "Vintage Rock" Chinese speak is not only not farty but actually provides a very nice sound right to the top of the volume spectrum and (c) this thing is LOUDER than you would expect. The distortion channel is somewhere between crap and OK. You can get a passable classic rock sound with it -- think "Barracuda" -- but if you want an amp this size to do modern metal you need a pedal (or maybe the ToneBlaster from Ibanez instead of this). With a Les Paul knockoff and just a Danelectro echo pedal I can do some very pleasing stuff...Pink Floyd on the clean channel and Deep Purple on the dirty.
Rating based on basic tone and the price, not compared to a Plexi or an old Twin!

I've had it three days and it has worked each and every day I've it!

"Dean Markley" amps have nothing to do with Dean Markley (the string company) except a licensing agreement. Kaman Music (Ovation, Hamer, etc) manufactures and imports this line under license. So if you needed help with this type of product, you would need to take it up with the dealer, or with Kaman. I don't anticipate needing to worry about it -- shipping the amp to get it fixed would cost 1/3 of just buying another one.

I own a ton of gear including several smaller amps, none of which were doing exactly what I wanted this for -- loud enough to jam, quiet enough to practice, lightweight, not ugly, decent basic tone, under $100. In the small amp category I also have a Tube 10, Dano Nifty 50 (which is awesome within it's limits, but that hiss...plus the crunch tone is too tinny for me usually), a Vox Pathfinder 10, and a Fender Amp Can. The Amp Can is great but is too expensive to really knock around and actually too loud/boomy for what I wanted this for. For a first amp for a kid, this might be a good choice, but moreover I think it's a great choice for an intermediate to semipro hobby player (c'est mois) who needs a knockabout amp with solid basic tone and nice construction, doesn't care about the brand name on the plastic thingy, and has a budget of $75 or so. I would compare this favorably to the IBZ10 from Ibanez, the MG10-II from Marshall, etc, all of which have smaller cones (6") and much less peak volume. This thing looks and sounds like an amp, not a toy. Again, rating based on purpose and price. At $250 this would be a 2 but for $69 it's a great deal.

Small 15w practice amp with 1 clear and 1 dirty channel, 3 setting eq and headphone jack. Compact package. I use it as a practice amp and it was obviously build for this purpose. I rate it using practice amp criteria.

I use this amp with a Strat like guitar with S/S/H pickups. I play a bunch of styles from good old delta blues to grunge. The clean channel is a bit too clean/clear/twangy to my likings. It is however extremely precise and could very well send straight to heaven someone who is into country. The dirty channel is so so, but I use a diss pedal anyway. This amp is quiet, precise and can make a fairly nice natural distorsion at around 3/4 o'clock. High quality equipment here. My only regret is that I didn't know much about the sound I was looking for when I bought it. But that ain't Dean Markley's fault!

Build like a tank. Very small and light, this amp could endure a pretty hard fall none the less. I won't try it still... This was obviously build to last. No problem here.

Never broke down, but they don't do a good job of advertising their products. I came across it at a small mom and pop music shop. Very helpfull sales person directed me to it. Their web site says nothing about their amps. Really don't think they want to sell these things. Too bad, it's a lot of amp for the money.

I have had this amp for 18 months now. A really good and inexpensive practice amp. This will last a long time. While the clean sound isn't exacly what I'm looking for, it very much is a high quality amp. Small gripes with the eq that makes it hard to shape the sound. Lots of power for 15w. This could play in front of a small audience!