Kustom Dual 30RC Combo

2 Channel, Effects Loops, External Speaker, Footswitch, CD Input. Has Chorus effect also.
Amp is mainly used as a bedroom amp, but have had it at band practise and it can compete with drums and bass alright, but I wouldnt gig with it.
Seems louder plugged into quad.
Very versatile, came with a paper slip that tells you to move your knobs to get different sounds in different positions.

As most have stated already, the clean is the channel to have. Best used with a distortion pedal. The clean channel is the most versatile channel I've had in an amp (previous amps; Classic30, AshtonGA80, BehringerGMX120).

Distortion Channel is a hit and miss, at low volumes it seems to be the tone, then when louder, it gets a bit muddy.

I use a Squier 51', and some home made guitars, nothing to fuss over, but can still get quite a good, "clapton" like tone out of the clean.
This amp is loud for a 30Watter

Have never had a problem with this amp, exept for when I had it at full volume in a big room trying to compete with drums. It cut out a few times, but recovered well, and didnt cause any damaage.

A great amp, I wish it had some more Watts and a master volume for itself and each channel.
The fact I and others have taken the time to write a review on it shows its either a great amp, or a terrible amp. But its great.

If it were stolen or lost, I wouldnt get another one, purely because its 30W, however, I would probably get the 65W or 100W ones I think they make in these.
Compared to a Peavey Classic 30, there isn't much different, you really cant tell on the clean that it's solid state. Had this amp of had more watts, I wouldn't have bought the classic30 in the first place.

Great value for money for any bedroom musician, or stater musician. Really lets you settle in and guides you to how to use tone and effects.

First off I agree with the others, that the volume is way to touchy.
This amp is very versitile as far as running distortion/pre amp effects thru a pedal into it. Without? Yeah i'ts not too shabby. Its alot better tone wise than alot of other amps out there. (due to the celestion tube 10 thats in it!)The controls are on the top in the back. I guess Kustom figured they might get damaged easier in the front? I really like the power button's blue led. I find knobs more comfortable than LCD screens with built in memory any day! The amp has the options to switch between the bold USA soundor the Gritty/diminished UK sound with the push of a button. You also switch between lead and rythm this way.(The gain and volume are not at the same levels when switching between lead and rythm)

I use my Hamer Sunburst Flattop with humbuckers, and a fender strat with triple single coils; when playing on this Kustom. The Kustom Dual 30RC Combo suits all styles of playing. It is a very versitile amp. Clean and warm. Not a whole lot of grit on this baby when playing straight through (no pedals), but she will pound when directed to do so!
I recommend this for anyone who wants to distort their sound without alot of compounded muffel. Pushing distortion through this amp will bring a nice clarity rarely found in most Hard Rock/metal distortion(its the included celestion). I really didnt care for the Lead Channel(especially when distorted),mainly due to the lower volume level. Thereverb and chorus are nice when playing "clean", but if your a distortion tone whore like myself you'll probably find little to no use for these to knobs. I think the celestion tube 10, more than makes up for these minor flaws.

I havent run into any troubles. This is mainly a practice amp, although I could see gigging indoors with this baby. Outdoors? Im not sure. The amp can be connected to a variety of things.
With extra jacks (hidden underneath the rear) for: external speakers, line output, effects send and return, and a foot switch; I'd say its decent. Its a heavy amp with a rugged rubber carrier strap on top. The front speaker cover is made of entwined plastic and cloth? And the frame is made ofmore rugged plastic and leather. Not the most modern looking amp, but looks are always deceiving.

Never had to call em. Had it almost a year now.

I got this about half a year ago. Like most amps, it has a clean channel and a drive channel. However, in my experience the drive channel isn't very good. The clean channel sounds nice with a great low end. It also has the option between switching between the deep, round US tone and the sharp UK tone. Being 30 watts, it can go pretty loud and still sound good. Lastly, it has chorus and reverb effects.

I use an Epiphone G-400 SG and sometimes a DS-1 distortion pedal. The clean channel, as previously stated, is very good. It also sounds good with the DS-1. However, the drive channel is pretty bad. I play a variety of styles, from blues, to metal, to punk. The drive channel is a disappointment for playing blues. However, using a DS-1 with the clean channel, you can get a great punk or metal tone.

I haven't taken it anywhere, but this amp is very sturdy. Nothing seems prone to break, the knobs are solid, and the buttons seem good. I can't picture it ever breaking. OVerall, this is a very well made amp.

Never had any problems.

Overall, I would give this a 7.5. But since that's not an option, I'll give it an 8. The only thing really holding it back is the drive channel.

Bought the amp about a month ago. It has an effects loop external speaker jack, footswitch jack, the standard bass mid, treble eq,chorus and reverb,2 channels(clean and distortion).Also has a switch for usa or uk sound. I find the uk setting really thins out the sound. also has a headphone jack. I use the chorus and reverb and both are more than acceptable for the price of this amp. I also like the tweed grill which gives it kind of a vintage look. The foot switch option is nice but it doesn't come with one so you will have to buy that separately.I use an american tele deluxe,american standard strat and a les paul studio.They all sound great through the clean channel. The dirty channel produces some nice tones if you tweak the eq a bit.But lets face it. No serious guitarist is going to use this amp for gigging. But for the price its a really great practice amp.

I have been playing guitar since i was 6 years old. I gigged professionally for 15 years and have owned a lot of gear. I used to use a fender princeton as a practice amp.I bought that amp maybe ten years ago for I think about 350 bucks canadian. It was a great little amp. For less than half that, this little kustom is every bit as good with basically all of the same features.With the celestion speaker you boot this amp up all the way and it retains it sparkle on the clean channel.I havnt cranked it up on the dirty channel.Amp is really loud without crapping out like many other little amps.

This amp is built like a tank. I have a line 6 with 2/12 100 watts.The line 6 is an embarrassment as far as the structure of the cabinet compared to the little kustom.So far absolutely no problem with dependability. the pots are solid, excellent weight for a little amp.the cabinet helps drive the speaker nicely.big corner protectors.Again, for me ,this is a practice amp and I wouldnt use it for gigging unless i had no choice.

Be surprised if i will need to use customer support. Extremely well built for the price.

I really like this amp. For the price, features, construction,and awsome clean channel, I think you would be hard pressed to find a better deal. Could have thrown in the footswitch.

I use the headphones alot and it sounds great. I love the reverb and when I sometimes use the chorus, it is adequate. This amp has all the inputs and outputs you will need for footpedal, effects loop, cd/tape etc. Has lead channel with "USA/UK" setting. The USA setting is full and round. The UK setting is thinner and grittier- very nice for vintage rock. I don't use the clean chanel much but it seems pretty clean to me. For an inexpensive amp, I think it has all the features it needs to have that are actually usefull and work well.

I have been learning guitar for about a year now and the better I get, the more I realize this is not just a beginers practice amp. After listening to other more expensive practice amps, the happier I am with this one. I like playing blues, early rock, hard rock. I have had none of the problems that others have mentioned here. I did notice though, when I swapped my no-name humbuckers (that actually sounded pretty good) for a Gibson 490T and 490R, the controls on the amp became way more responsive!!! Playing through the lead channel with the preamp set to "UK" and a moderate gain, those AC/DC licks sound awsome especially cranked. I love the "USA/UK" switch, with just one button you go from the gritty UK sound to a much rounder USA sound.The gain on this amp goes way past anything I would ever play.

After playng every day in my basement, absolutely no issues at all. I would give it top marks if I owned it for 5 year without a problem.

never had to deal with customer support. I guess the best customer support is that fact that it is not needed.

I've been playing for about a year now and it still suits me just fine. I doubt that I will outgrow this amp for a couple more years. If you are just starting out, get one of these, you can get them on ebay very cheap.

It has three channels if you count the two pre-amp modes (usa and uk) as seperate channels, otherwise really two channels (clean and lead). It has a 10 inch celestian speaker (which is sweet), effects loop, REAL spring reverb, analog chorus, headphone jack (never tried it), footswtich jack and second input for drum machine/tape/cd player in (which works great with my drum machine).

I use two guitars with it: A Gibson Melody Maker with a single p90 pup and a Fender 1952 reissue Telecaster. I mostly play blues (old school blues, NOT blues rock) and a little rockabilly. For this stuff the amp sounds great with both guitars. The lead channel with a lil' gain sounds great with the p90 pup. Really has an edge to it. The Tele sounds good on the lead channel two, with the bass and mid adjusted a little under the treble. A real convincing blues tone. The spring reverb is nice! I can take or leave the chorus, it sounds good, but I've hear better and don't really play with chorus much.
I think for the music I play this amp sounds great. If you didn't no this wasn't a tube amp, it could fool you by the sound that comes out of it. I useally just play straight into the lead channel with no effects at all, but have tried it with my V-Amp and my digitech amp modlers through the clean channel. It works great like this as the clean channel is realllll clean and makes an amp modeler sound great without "coloring" it.
If you are into hard rock or metal, you might not appreciate this fine amp, but if you want a blues/rockabilly/country/honky-tonk sound and don't want to spend a lot or fuss with tubes anymore, you may really, really love this amp.
For thirty watts it delivers enough volume, clean enough to jam with a drummer who isn't into metal/hardrock. It has enough power for rehersal and small gigs. Basically gets loud enough.
I've had this puppy for awhile now and tried (and owned) a lot of amps in the past, honestly this is one of the best gear buys I ever scored.

Never a problem, none , zippo, it works like it should and seems solid.

Never needed it. Hopefully won't. Really not sure.

I've been playing electrics on and off for 28 years. Owned many an amp. In an amp I like real spring reverb, doesn't have to be a tube amp, needs to be fairly portable, needs good clean sound, needs bright "sparkle" on the lead channel. This one delivers for me.

Only a quick review, 2hours of playing, ibanez jet king2 guitar, artec twinhead drive pedal.

I can state what the previous reviewer says about the clean channel volume pot, very annoying since it is a practice amp: chances are big that you won't be able to find the proper setting at home(you'll be too loud).
Reverb always on, chorus switch...
I only used it on clean channel to check drive pedals,but read on

It sounds way good clean! Very round, full and warm and focused. Can get loud if needed.Passive eq, usable but not drastic, and the reverb (normally the weak link on budget amps) is quite superb and well balanced.
It accepts drive pedals with joy, and frankly I don't know of a better clean sound at this price/size.
I own a marshall mg15dfx, costs more but not even close cleanside.
And with a decent pedal what more could I ask for?

I had a kustom acoustic 65watter, which was great the 2 hours(!) it worked...
But: I asked some dealers I know in my area, and all agree that they have very few problems with the 30watters, be it bass,acoustic or electric.
And while the effects are analog I don't foresee any trouble, not like the dfx series...

Where I live, that means nada nothing, you can buy kustom amps but no service inside the country.
I mailed Gewa (german import) several times about their products, never got any feedback.
IT SUCKS!!!

The volume pot problem you should carefully check when buying (because a low perceived sound level in a store is already far too loud for home).
It sounds great when clean, or with a good pedal.
If you can have good retailer support, I think you can buy one and you'll be happy with it.
20+years of playing, if only I had such an amp to start with...

Solid state amp. 30 watt. 3 band eq (shared for all channels). Effects are spring reverb and chorus. 10" celestion speaker. Foot switch for channel selection. Effects loop. Headphone jack. Line out.

Got it new from www.musiciansfriend.com.

Reason of purchasing: I own another Kustom amp, Solo 16R (my review is published for it), which I like a lot. I used to think that the two are similar in the design, just more features added such as, the effects loop and channel footswitching. I was wrong on that. The two amps are completely different in quality of tone they provide. I will stop comparisson now and rather will concentrate on the Dual 30. Another reason for purchasing was the other reviews. It seemed to be ok to check it out personally.

In my opinion, the amp has all of the features an average guitar player might ever need. 10 here.

In general, I am just jamming weekly and practicing on daily basis, while writing/recording my stuff (something close to instrumental rock, alternative or so...)

The below is my current setup I like for years:
H-S-H or H-S-S (dimarzios) --> Ibanez WD7 --> Boss DS-1(keeley moded) --> Laney AOR 100 send --> tc electronic M300 --> Laney AOR 100 return --> 2x12 Celestion Vintage 30s.

By purchassing Dual 30 I was intended to substitute Laney AOR head and see how would that sound.

Unfortunatelly, I stopped trying after an hour of just playing a pure guitar through Dual 30. For that hour I've desided to ship the amp back.

Why?

1. The volume pot on the clean channel is not efficient. When it is 0 - no sound, when it is between 0 and 1 it is loud. I've got listening fatique very quickly while trying playing with eq settings and finaly I had to go away 10-15 feet just to keep on trying. I have to admit that the tone is great and eq is efficient for clean sounds. So the volume management is problem number 1 for the clean channel. I have not tried volumes louder than 2 (too painfull for ears).

2. Dimarzio evolution, breed, HS-2, IBZ USA C2, IBZ USA F2 pickups when going through Boss DS-1(keeley turbo/seeying eye moded) all sounded thin thorough the clean channel and no eq settings can fix the problem (this was the greates disappointment for me because I use this combination for solos).

2. The lead channel is total crap. Again it is not even close to the other kustom amp I own (Solo 16 R), where the Lead channel can be used for a really good crunch. Gain control makes everything sound thin with tremendous amout of high. Removing highs on eq dumps the entire tone down. Increasing volume after that just boosts the fart louder. Cannot continue about Lead channel. At this point I had no doubts about sending it back, even having to pay for the shipping and loosing money.

3. The manual states 3 channels (1 Rhythm, 2 Lead). I failed to find the 3rd channel no matter how hard I've tried. Sound like misleading manual/advertisement, doesn't it?

4. In the manual, control #8 is preamp switch button. According to the manual "Preamp Switch - thisi switch selects which preamp style you are using. It will switch between the classic USA warm sound or Brighter sound famous in the UK." While playing a realy long sustaining note I desperately kept pushing that button just to get the difference in tone. None. Seems like that switch is not connected to the circut board.

5. I bought this amp after reading the other blooming reviews. I still believe that the guys are really happy with what they got and my 4 problems listed above are just an indication of inconsistency between amps in the same product line or just poor quality control. In other words I was not lucky enough.

1 is too much here but negative values are not available, No Opinion is not true. Not usable volume control on clean channel, crappy lead channel; plus misleading manual/advertisement and not working preamp switch plus inconsistency in quality for the same product line.

Looks solid. No fragile tubes inside. 10 for this section. One can use it as a very dependable chair or as a storage for cables.

No idea about Kustom's support.
It is easier to return it.

www.musiciansfriend.com issued a pre-paid shipping label after I listed the above problems (read sound section of this review).

Please consider my review as my personal experience and always trust your own ears. Finding your tone is not easy (if possible at all). Good luck to all who is still trying...

:o)

Current model (purchased early 2005).

I'm primarily into hard rock/metal with a bit of crunchy blues thrown in for fun.

This amp has more than enough power (30 watts) to shake the house and send the kids running to the basement, and it may even be loud enough for gigging (it's the smallest amp in Kustom's "Stage" series). While it's got no digital effects, it has all the features I need including Reverb, Chorus, and 2 preamp modes (UK and US). It's foot switchable (clean/gain channels and chorus) should you want to gig with it, and it has an effects loop, speaker out and headphone jacks. The single 10" speaker is a Celestion.

My only guitar is an early 90's Alvarez Villain Strat Copy with Modulus Graphite neck, Kahler locking tremolo and Dan Armstrong pickups (humbucker and 2 single coils). It's a stealthy looking "Metal Axe" and I've never seen another one like it.

I'm not a great player and have not gigged since I was a teenager, but the Kustom delivers the sounds I like very well. I borrowed a friends 50 watt solid-state Marshall combo for a couple of months and the Kustom can simulate that crunchy Marshall tone very nicely. It's got loads of gain that should satisfy metalheads when cranked, and the difference in tone when switching from the UK/US lead channel settings is quite dramatic. The guy at the shop called it a "tone monster" which I think is an apt statement. The Chorus does not have separate rate and depth controls, but for the price I suppose you can't have everything.
I typically practice at low volumes in my living room and while it's got an audible hum at "idle", I don't think it's any louder than the other amps I tried.

So far so good, but it's only been a month. I should mention that the first one I brought home was a dud (started to howl loudly with the reverb turned anywhere past halfway) but for all I know it may have been dropped in shipping, and the second one I took home is flawless. It's a solid little amp (it weighs 27lbs) and seems well built so I don't anticipate any problems. The pots are really smooth and don't wiggle around easily, several amps I tried had much flimsier controls by comparison.

Not needed yet. I'm still confused by the warranty length, the store told me one year, but the shipping box it came in says 3 years which would be a very generous warranty.

I played guitar years ago, took a 17 year hiatus and decided it was time to get back into it after sitting in on my son's lessons got me stoked to play again.

I've long since sold all my old gear but none of it was particularly memorable.

I did a fair bit of research looking at small practice amps, I demo'd several 15 Watt amps with built in digital effects (Marshall, Crate, Line6 etc.) that were all priced about the same as the Kustom but I found that a lot of the digital effects in these amps are not all that useful, at least not for my tastes.

As sound is totally subjective I'll only say that I found some of the amps in this price range to sound tinny and a bit sterile in comparsion, and I'm very satisfied with my choice. Anyone looking for a rugged and reasonably versatile practice amp capable of producing some pleasing warm tones should give this one a try.

This solid-state 30 watt amp is a great beginners amp and a mighty fine practice amp for the more experienced player. It houses a Celestion Tube10 10" speaker. It has a clear rhythym (clean) channel and a lead channel with a gain knob for distortion, a low-mid-high equalizer, and reverb and chorus effects. It also has a headphone jack, external speaker jack, effects (send and return) jacks, a line in, and a line out, and also a footswitch jack although I haven't used it. The reverb is pretty good and the chorus is decent, nothing too special as far as effects go. I use this amp at home and it is quiet enough to play and carry on a conversation at the same time and then loud enough to shake the whole house. Plenty of power for someone who wants to jam with a few friends, but probably not enough to gig without a PA.

I play a Washburn wi-64 and I get really nice clear tones on the rhythym channel. On the lead channel, I can get some great slighty overdriven tones and pretty good medium level overdriven tones. This amp is great for blues and classic rock type sounds, which is what I play the most. The heavy distortion seems decent for such a small and inexpensive amp, I don't use it much though so it might leave something to be desired for someone who is into metal or grunge. For the stuff I do use, definitely a 9.

Haven't had it for very long, no problems so far.

No idea.

All of these ratings are with keeping the size and price of the amp in mind. This amp doesn't compare with your neighbors Mesa halfstack, but I think it is a great amp for the price and when compared to other amps in its price range it has some excellent sounds. When I started looking for a practice amp I wanted a decent amp but I didn't want to spend a lot. I got exactly that and a little bit more with this amp.