Kustom Defender

I took this amp to a medium volume band practice to check it out. I was looking for a 'clean amp with character'to run pedals through. I compared to the Fender Blues Junior, AC 15 and a Mesa 5:25. I had doubts until I checked it with the band.

The amp has 2 basic modes.

Clean with Master volume disengaged, which is like a Fender with Vox low mid flavors. There is a wonderful, present, low to low mid 'knock' that I am enfatuated with right now. It remains present with pedals in front and gives this amp a definite character. More guts than the Fender. More headroom than the Vox.
It gets barkier as you raise the volume in this mode and more ditorted and extremely loud, but it is definitely usable. The distortion reminds me of a Pete Townsend-with-a-fuzzy-halo. I personally would not have a club to play in that is big enough to use the distortion you can acheive in this mode.

The second mode would be clean with master volume in. I wasn't as pleased at first with this mode as the tone gets muddier. But I found that with the bright engaged, the pre volume at 10:00 to 2:00 and the master at 9:00 to 10:00, there is some really cool clean grit to grind. You may sacrifice the 'sweet' clean, but the tones are much more at band practice volume and they have a great mid to late 70's crunch sound that responds well to guitar volume. I have to stress that the secret is to hit the bright switch. Someone in design thought that thing out...it really does a good job of compensating for the dark sound this amp gets at lower volume, especially with distortion. Add a pre boost and cover alot of range. I got through 2 sets of cover material with tweaks to the pre volume and very little else. Impressive.


The tone controls are interesting. Mine are at: Lows 1:30, Mids 2:30, Treble 11:00 and Presence 9:30. The mid in this scheme acts as the 'sharp' control, taking the Hi-mid spike in or out with very small adjustments. I find this EQ with the Bright in or out works well as a starting point for all my settings.

The reverb is a cavern. Not my cup of tea, but cool for Dick Dale and occasional Floyd covers.

The boost is nice but seems to change in apparent volume with different settings.

I'm giving it an 8 because it does not do everything well. It is not a Marshall or a Boogie and I don't think it will do the extremes of those amps. It does what it does very well.

I am using a PRS Standard 22 Satin. 70's to mid 80's rock sounds. This amp works very well for this.

Like all tube amps, it does have a minimum volume before which it's tones are anemic(and distortions buzzy). It starts to sound really good at just above bedroom practice level.

It is quiet. I haven't done an A/B comparison, but it hasn't jumped out as an issue to me.

In my opinion, this can do the job of a Fender, Vox, Hiwatt, Orange or comparable amps...which is pretty good for a $500ish price range.

We'll see...

I haven't read the warranty yet. We'll see....

I've been playing since '79. ( damn I'm old )I've had alot of gear. I've been using an Atomic powered POD...which worked very well for what I've been doing. But it has been getting hard to justify using a simulation of a tube amp into a tube powered amp with a tube distortion to get the sounds I need.
If this amp holds up, I will be using it for a while.