Kustom Tube 12 Combo

Just your basic practice amp features, except it has a tube in the preamp section and sounds nicer than most practice amps. I wish I could hook it up to a bigger speaker.

I got a Highway 1 Strat on sale at Musicians Friend and so I had some money left over to upgrade from my trashed out Crate practice amp. I got on eBay and found this one for $65 used in like new condition. It was worth a try according to these reviews. Mine came with the crappy Chinese tube. Lots of gain but it had a buzzsaw distortion sound and the tube had a really bad rattling sound for a couple of minutes until it warmed up. I decided to change tubes, so I got one of those NOS GE 6072A tubes from Angela Instruments like one of the previous reviews mentioned. It is the same as a 12AY7A, just a military surplus type number. For $16 I think it is a great old American tube and will probably last way longer than an import tube. Much better than the Chinese tube it came with and the distortion is much more bluesy. I can live with the farty speaker since it only acts up when you push it loud and I am in a college dorm so I keep it down anyway. I plan to upgrade when I move out. Otherwise, the sound is nice and warm, which tends to balance the thin sound of most single coil pickups. The output stays clean until you get a transistor type breakup unless you use the gain feature which give preamp distortion sounds. The tube allows you to tailor your sound, but it does not have output overdrive distortion like a vintage tube amp. There is some preamp hum, but I think that is because it does not have DC filament power. If you are the electronic type you can easily put a filtered supply on the filament, but I tried it with a friend's Korg AX1G and that quieted it down, so I will get one of those later. Rather put my money on a good pedal, since you get better distortion that way and lots of other sound effects. A bigger amp would sound no better as I cannot really crank it all the way up except on weekends. With the right speaker and pedal, I think this little amp could really wail.

Other than the Chinese tube, it has been reliable. I kind of expect trouble from those things.

I have no warranty, as I got it used.

I think this is really good for the money. You get it cheap enough that you can afford to play around with it by trying a few different things. If you are a beginner, like me, and screw it up or something, you don't lose much money. Good little amp with a cool retro look that is plenty good enough to learn to play on and also do some experimenting on and learn a few things before messing around with more expensive amps. I couldn't imagine a better amp for the money spent; however, I am going to knock off a point because of the crappy Chinese tube. Some people on here lucked out and got it with a Tesla tube, I think.

Basic practice amp with gain and master volume. Features a mid boost switch instead of a midrange pot.

It has a very nice clean sound for the price. The distortion sounds vastly different according to what tube you have in it. I am currently using a 12AY7 in mine. It is best used through a good pead, however. I find the Korg AX1G fits it perfectly in sound and price. You can get a Tube 12 and an AX1G for around $200, and it will do more than any $200 amp by itself. The Celestion speaker is a cheapo and will get farty in the low end when you push it hard. However, it otherwise has a nice warm tone and will not need to be replaced it you practice at moderate levels. If you like to push the amp hard, plan on changing to a better speaker. Plenty loud enough for practice and makes my guitar sustain real nice.

It hasn,t quit working after a couple of months. Seems OK for the money spent.

Other than repalcing a unit with very major problems, it is too cheap to send off in the mail. No local service is available. I would fix it myself, or toss it or salvage for parts.

You need to tighten the screws down like other reviews have noted. Mine came with the Ruby ECC83S tube, which seems to be the same as the JJ tesla ECC83 tube, so it is OK in that department. Nice little practice amp for the money. It is louder than I expected a little 8" speaker with 12 watts of push to be.

Gain, gain switch, bass, treble, volume, contour switch. 12AX7 pre-amp tube with solid state power. 8" Celestion "Super 8" Speaker.

I owe several Gibson Les Pauls, a Fender Custom Tele, a Standard Tele and a Standard Strat, a Gibson ES-135 and a few other ditties. All of the guitars sounded relatively good, although the single coils seemed to have the best tone. Overdrive was fabulous with the classic 70's saturated tube tone at higher gain settings. Clean was nice sounding, although lack any significant amount of tube compression/warmth. Not much head room on the clean channel past 5, but amazingly loud at 5. Overall quality of the clean and distortion relative to the cost was phenomenal.

Haven't had it very long, but it seems to be built very solidly.

Haven't needed to deal with Kustom on this or the other Kustom products I own. That's good news...

I have been playing over twenty-five years and play everything from classical music to blues to heavy metal. If this were stolen I would replace it. It is loud enough for practice gigs and small enough to carry on a motorcycle. The tone is excellent, the price ridiculously low for tube, sounds better than many Fender Champs I've played through and has a vast array of sounds, unlike the Champs. It would be darn near perfect with reverb...

I posted a review 9/02.
Here's another vote for retubing to a 12AU7. In this case, an RCA 12AU7A. Much more-better-clean headroom. Crank the volume and let it growl. AND, the Gain channel (with Shift ON) is very usable for overdrive and beyond. Just enough hum to let you know its running. With an aftermarket speaker, this amp sounds every bit as good as my Blues Jr for practice, on all settings. Actually better. At this price point, I'll give it a 10 - you'd probably have to spend another $400-500 to get a better sound, imho.

Dear Mr Kustom man: add spring reverb to this amp.

Okay let's review this amp for what it is. This is a practice amp for those on a tight budget. So it has all of the feature that I would expect out of a practice amp and the tube thingy is nice too. Based on the fact that you can play it clean, it has a distortion channel, a clean channel, and a headphone out. What else do you need?

I use this with several different guitars and I mostly just plug it straight into the amp. Sometimes I do use effects, but I really like the distortion that this amp has. I play this exclusively at low volume I don't need a loud practice amp. There is a small hum on the distortion channel, but on a practice amp this doesn't bother me.

I've used this amp every single day since 8-20-02 without a single problem. For this I'd give it a 10, but I don't really push this amp so I'll give it a 8.

Like I said this is a cheap practice amp. And of all of the other cheapos that I tried (I'm a tightwad so I tried them all!!) this amp sounded the best. It's Cheap, It sound good for a practice amp. Take it for what it is.

good features for a little tube amp, treble, bass,gain, mid boost, all controls are useful and actually do what they're supposed to.

I've had cheap practice amps before that were useful as direct input boxes, so that's what I was hoping this could be used for, but no luck. This thing has a hum that won't go away. If you're not recording with it, then it won't matter. But the hum gets on my nerves. other than that, here's my review:

I'm comparing this to an all tube seventies fender champ. I a/b ed the two and the fender sounds better, it has an almost indefinable warmth and body that the kustom can't compare to. the champ sounds better, but in the bass department, the kustom is way punchier and has a lot of clarity. the kustom sounds good, just not as smooth and pretty as the champ. it's a really good amp for the money though, although it hums i'm going to keep it because it does sound good. overall (not compared to anything) it's just a good sounding amp. the clean is good, it's kind of a scooped (lacking midrange sound) but it sounds nice. like i said, it is REALLY punchy, it sounds even better than the champ for rhythms (the champ is better for lead). it has a really punchy bass sound. the distortion is ok, it sounds like the cheapest distortion pedal you could find though...it's not totally useless, but it's not that great... it's pretty crappy sounding. this amp is definitely worth the 80 i bought it for at music123.com. i f you're looking for an amp, try a fender bronco (new one for about 120), it's the best amp i've ever played

GREAT RHYTHM SOUND;GOOD FOR BASS;SO SO TO GOOD FOR CLEAN LEAD;DISTORTION BARELY OK

just bought it

fdsfd

definitely worth the money, probably better than anything you can find for 80.00 (remember music123.com), but for 120 you could get an orange crush or fender bronco which both probably sound better, but i haven't abed them...but this is a good amp...other than the humming it's perfect for the price

Same as in my other reviews below. I'm just updating my latest findings in playing around with this great little amp.

Good tubes to try are the JJ or Ruby ECC83S (made by Tesla, latest production), Sovtek 5751 (special 12AX7LPS for guitar amps or low noise, lower gain applications), Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 EH (premium Sovtek brand), NOS GE 5751 or 6072A, and NOS Philips (have not bought any Rhilips yet, but their reputation is good). I bought both the shiny plate and gray plate (better heat dissipation) versions of the EI ECC83 and installed one in my amp and one in my dad's. He admitted it improved the tone over the Chinese tube, but this tube has a bad reputation for soon going microphonic in combo amps, but audiophiles like it a lot in stereos. For $5/$8 from Angela Instruments, it's worth investigating even if you have to buy two tubes for every one that's a keeper. Dad and I have had no problems so far, so maybe the factory has finally got it right. Angela has the latest production, but you might want to call them @ 301-725-0451 to make sure. Try www.angela.com for info on this bargain basement tube. Check out their GE 6072A at only $16 while you're there. When they're gone, they're gone, so stock up! This is a great little amp for checking out tubes for other amps since everything goes through only one tube and you get to hear what it's doing without masking distortions from other tubes. Did anybody else think of that? Therefore, it functions as a very practical test instrument for the truly serious guitarist and can save him lots of grief by sorting out microphonic tubes and such. You can also burn in tubes over the weekend since it uses little power when turned on, testing them every now and then along the way. I looked up the specs on the speaker that Todd suggested. It is nearly as efficient as the Celestion Vintage 8 at 94.4 dB vs. 95 dB for the Vintage 8. Since it is 4 ohms the power of the Tube 12 will almost double into that lower impedance load. I would estimate about a 2 dB improvement in loudness gain over the 8 ohm Vintage 8. HOWEVER, before you go that route, consider this: The Tube 12 will work much harder into the 4 ohm load and the output transistor will run hotter. If it's a MOSFET, it will fade back in power when it gets hot (to help prevent burning out). You can feel the inside of the steel chassis where the output transistor is heat sinked if you go this route. If it gets too hot to touch for a long time, the life of the output transistor will be shortened. Trust me on this one, I was once a failure analysis technician for a semiconductor manufacturer. I must admit, the low cost of the Jensen speaker coupled with high efficiency and possible power increase makes this option enticing. Also, the Jensen has a 10 dB midrange dip centered at 400 Hz while the Vintage 8 has a more linear tone. I am not afraid of midrange, so I prefer the Vintage 8 sound. $60 + S&H does bite the pocketbook, however. Ouch! Don't overlook the 8 ohm Jensen if a lower output level would satisfy you and you're on a budget, as it would prevent overdriving the output transistor. Maybe Todd will update us on any overheating problems the 4 ohm Jensen may or may not cause. Just play a note in full sustain and max volume for about 15 minutes and you should know. The output transistor should be cheap; if you know how to replace it, then give the cheaper 4 0hm Jensen a try! Major cost savings over the Vintage 8.

I would rate the JJ Tesla ECC83S as the best sounding new tube I have tried coupled with high reliability, but the Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 EH is considered even higher in reliability and gain, but at somewhat less refined sound. This is a personal preference call. These tubes are available from almost everybody that sells guitar tubes. The Chinese Ruby tubes have very high gain, but the distortion sounds like bees in a glass jar to me. Watford Valves got the same results in their test report, which every tube amp owner should read. www.watfordvalves.com and they are a good offshore source if you cannot find what you want in the USA.

The Korg

After putting in a better speaker and better tube, I think you could really rely on the Tube 12 as a gig amp after taking care of cabinet rattle issues. If your amp came with the Ruby ECC83S (same as JJ Tesla ECC83S) like my second one did, you should be OK in the tube department. The cabinet is particle board, and cheap particle board at that, so don't abuse it too much. Remember to bolt the speaker baffle to the baffle mounts if you're going to gig it. Not necessary to glue it, but I did. Working in failure analysis made me an overkill design junkie.

Never contacted them. Wonder how they feel about all us guys modifying their little amp? Your warranty is probably shot to hell if you do and they find out. Big deal; it's cheaper to fix it yourself than pay shipping both ways, and you can upgrade while you're at it.

It's at least a 9 after modification when you factor in the cost. Don't mistake this for a boutique amp in the quality of construction, but I wouldn't doubt that it rivals many boutique amps in sound quality after decent mods are made. This is an amp you can play the hell out of without worrying about any major repair cost issues because it's probably repairable by you if you have any common sense and electrical inclinations. My brother got great heavy metal tones out of it when playing two amps in combo. In fact, every style he played sounded good (he's the best guitarist in the family). Get a footswitch and two amps (or more) and rock out! The Vintage 8 can get great tight chunky lows that the stock speaker cannot handle. It is a good speaker platform for getting any sound you want. The small size is very deceiving and you would never guess what this cheap little amp can do without hearing it for yourself (after mods). The Tube 12 deserves to become an entry-level modifier's cult classic amp.

I have recently purchased a Kustom Tube 12 Guitar Amp for use at home. The tube preamp helps the this amp differentiate itself from the others at this price point. For a samll amp it sounds "big" the tone, volume and gain knobs work well and have a solid feel. The "gain on" and "shift" push buttons are a little cheesy but work OK. This amp is capable of sounding great with most types of music but you will have to spend time learning the settings to get the most out of it. The two features I would like to see are " a remote speaker jack" and "remote gain switching". After making a few minor changes, this amp is loud enough to play with a drummer, bass and other guitarists at "sane" volume levels. If it were miked you "gig" with it as well.

The modification that needs to made to get the most out of this amp is "CHANGE THE SPEAKER" Per other reviews our amp had numerious rattles and speaker break up out of the box, under high gain, high volume situations. I ordered a Vintage Jenson 8" inch speaker from Joe Scinta @ www.VintageSpeaker.com. I chose a 4 Ohm version with a ceramic magnet for about $25.00 delivered. After installing the speaker and using black electrical tape on the tube chimney, I also tightened all the screws holding everything together. This was the best $25.00 I have ever spent on an Amp.

We use this amp with 3 guitars. My son has a "Squire Strat" and I use my 76' "Tele" and 96' Jackson "Dinky Pro EX". These guitars all sound great through this amp. I play mostly Blues and Blues Rock, but I also crank it up and can get a great distortion sound with the Jackson. The amp is much better and sounds in complete control now because of the new Jenson Vintage Speaker we ordered. The clean channel can be overdriven by turning off the gain and cranking the volume to about 2 O'Clock or higher, this is a great blues sound especially with the 'Tele" using the neck P/U. With the "gain on" button activated and "gain knob" turned up to 1 O'Clock you can acheive a good overdriven sound with great sustain. The higher the gain the greater the crunch! However you must swap out the original speaker with a new higher quality unit to obtain these results! The original speaker sounds nasty, it rattles and is very harsh when pushed. The amp also has a good clean sound when played at moderate 9 O'Clock to 12 O'Clock volume levels.

So far so good! We will see when my son starts taking it to band practice.

No experience here.

Good basic amp for the money. It has a better sound stock than most other amps in this price range. Much better than most with the mods I described.

This is an update to my previous review. Price includes the cost of installing a new Celestion Vintage 8 speaker and hardware for taking care of rattles in the cabinet. It does NOT include the cost of any NOS tubes as the prices of the NOS tubes I have on hand vary anywhere from $10 to $100. The $100 NOS Amperex tubes are being saved for my Conrad-Johnson EV-1 audiophile-grade phono amplifier, not this cheap little amp. I would suggest trying something like Electro-Harmonix 12AX7A or the new Sovtek 5751 available for very reasonable prices from The Tube Store and other quality retailers before getting addicted to NOS tubes. I have some NOS tubes that are absolute junk for audio, but OK for other purposes, so do not head down that path until you research what works best for the intended purpose. I have some Russian tubes that sound great (Sovtek KT66) and are even used by Conrad-Johnson (12AU7) in their high-end audiophile amps. Some of the latest tubes from overseas are very good indeed. Features have not changed from my previous review.

The Vintage 8 speaker sounds better all the way around while maintaining that vintage sound. Not quite as warm in the bass as the original red label Celestion, but with at least 3 dB more efficiency you can turn up the bass while turning back the master volume and arrive at the same approximate tonal balance. The bass is tighter with the Vintage 8, as you would expect from the magnet structure that's about 4 times heavier. It seems to have doubled the power of the amp. This will please the hard rockers among us, while doing very little for the clean country pickers like my dad who play at relatively low volumes. I get a more even response all up and down the fretboard with less deadspotting which is probably due to the edge treatment on the speaker cone that reduces resonate spikes as well as the huge magnetand bigger voice coil that more tightly controls cone motion. It is important that the Celestion speaker be mounted correctly to prevent rattles or overstressing the weak 1/2" particle board baffle. It would be best to install a stronger plywood baffle board, but my mounting method gets the job done right: Remove the speaker leadwires and then carefully remove the electronics box from the cabinet. Lay the Tube 12 down on it's face. Remove the red label speaker. Save the nuts, but throw away those flimsy washers. Now make sure the nuts that hold the mounting screws in place are snugged tight. Run the nuts you saved down on these nuts and snug them tight. Use a small amount of super glue to prevent the nuts from loosening. Place one or two washers on top of this double-nutted assembly. These washers must be properly sized or the speaker may not mount into place. The purpose is to provide at most 1/16" compression of the hard foam Vintage 8 gasket in order to prevent excessive deforming of the weak particle board while still allowing very snug tightening of the washer and nut used to hold the speaker in place. It also prevents any possibility of deforming the Vintage 8 frame due to overtightening of the mounting nuts. Now CAREFULLY lower the speaker into place while the cabinet is laying on it's face. Those screws can very easily punch through that paper cone. Check that there is no more than 1/16" clearance between the washer(s) and the inside of the speaker's metal frame. Add or remove a washer as needed and measure again. Now use another washer that is slightly wider than the ones under the frame as a mounting washer on top of the frame. Use a metric Keps nut (my preference), nylock nut, or conventional nut and star locking washer to secure the speaker in place. Tighten snugly and check that there are no rattles when played. You may notice a slight bending of the top and bottom sides of the baffle board due to the pressure from the hard foam gasket. This is normal as the baffle is only about 1" wide from outside edge to speaker cutout at this point. This is the reason for limiting compression of the gasket while firmly clamping the speaker between the washers and nuts to prevent loosening under loud playing conditions. You should have firmly mounted the baffle board to cabinet as per my previous review. If not, then do that before mounting the speaker, unless you're really feeling lucky. My baffle board is bolted AND glued to the cabinet now. I still noted a rattle at a specific frequency and a higher harmonic of that frequency. This denoted a high-Q resonance and not speaker breakup. The culprit turned out to be the aluminum tube shield. I felt around inside the cabinet while turning the amp up loud and holding the note. The sound quit when I grabbed the tube shield. I wrapped some electrical tape around the tube shield in such a way that the edges contaced the chassis when mounting the shield to the chassis. About 1/32" of push against the tape edge allowed the shield to rotate into place while stopping any tendency to rattle. The small flathead screws that hold the plastic covered particle board

I would not advise gigging with the Tube 12 unless you make the modifications I have noted, carry another one as a spare (no problem; it's small, cheap, and light!), and have played it loud for extended periods with no breakdowns. I think this amp is just too new to tell what it will do under stressful conditions and hard constant use. It should be just fine as a home practice amp or studio amp, however. The new Kustom company is NOT the same one that made all those vintage tuck'n'roll amps in Chanute, Kansas. I saw many pros using them in the 70's. The back panel had all 6 of the screws backing out when I unpacked my second sample. This is no English made Marshall or American made Fender or Canadian made Traynor; it is not gig ready out of the box. It is an amp with potential in need of a little help from an understanding owner. It uses cheap carbon film resistors as well as PC board mounted components that are harder to change out and substitute for when breakdowns occur. The single-sided circuit board is made from resin coated paper, just like a cheap TV set. Double-sided plated-through mil-spec circuit boards with higher grade components are just fine for building gigging amps, but they cost nearly as much as hand wired units and are not possible at this price point or for twice the price even if built in Asia. That does not mean they cannot be made fairly dependable. It just takes a good job of engineering and manufacturing to prevent any constant problem areas from surfacing on a regular basis. My mods have taken care of those areas I have spotted so far. YMMV.

Like I said, I'll probably fix it myself if it breaks. Too cheap to send off for repairs. I just wish they would do a better QC job during the assembly of their amps.

Remember that my price includes some serious upgrading. Nothing that you can buy new at retail will touch this amp unless you locate a fire sale, but you will have to invest a few hours of your time and some extra money to realize the potential this amp has locked away inside it. Just taking care of the rattles/buzzes and maybe substituting a better tube is the only upgrade you will need if you want a practice amp at low to medium volumes. My amp can now run with the big dogs and not be embarassed. As I said, I'm a beginning guitarist, but I know good tone as I have a rack with about $10K worth of high end audio gear such as Conrad-Johnson, VPI, and Vandersteen and some audiophile grade recordings to play on it. My youngest brother used to play in a band as well, and I got to hear him practice. I like the sound of my Tube 12 practice amp driven by my Rickenbacker 650D better than his solid state Crate and Randall amps driven by his Washburn. His style is NOT clean and smooth. He hates the Fender clean sound. My father plays the clean country music with his Gretsch and Tube 12 (unmodified). He does not like solid state sound. I'm somewhere in between. Different strokes for different folks. I would probably buy a couple of these amps again and modify them as I have an electrical engineering degree and can do my own mods. I have never heard a better sound in this extremely low price range. However, it dictates that the amp be built in a third world country with extremely cheap labor and fast production schedules. If you need a completely finished amp built by fanatical workers that's ready to gig out of the box, look elsewhere. I now have two amps sporting genuine Celestion Vintage 8 speakers (with original speakers in reserve) that I can individually set for clean and dirty tones and play together or individually through a switch box. For around $350 new for a pair, I consider that a bargain, even if I had to spend some of my labor and time on them. I can get a very wide range of tones out of my two little Tube 12 amps. Tone is what it's all about.

I'm a beginning guitarist. Messed around with a Fender Precision Bass twentysomething years ago. Decided to try guitar as my dad has a vintage solid body Gretsch and when he bought one of these Tube 12 amps and plugged in the Gretsch, it was the best sound I ever heard that Gretsch make. Hmmmm.......for $100 it was simply unbelievable on the clean channel. The gain stage (not a separate channel, just an extra gain stage that is engaged by a little chrome button) was not so hot, but I later found a way to make it more useful. The Celestion Super 8 speaker with the dinky magnet makes a lot more music than I ever would have guessed without hearing it. The headphone jack is really useful and has plenty of volume for my Grado SR60 headphones. You have a master volume knob, a bass knob, a treble knob, and a mid boost switch. Just what you need to get your basic clean tone and nothing more to screw it up. Reverb is clearly missing, but if it had been included at the asking price, either it would have been poorly executed or the sound on the clean channel or the cosmetics and overall build quality would have been compromised. If reverb and distortion is your thing, figure on adding a pedal or two. I ordered a Korg AX1G and have more effects than I'll ever need. Kustom wisely chose to put the money into the basic clean tone and build quality and thereby saved the customer enough money to add the effects he/she wanted without having to pay for an amp with a lot of extras that tries to be all things to all guitarists. The chromed steel knobs, cabinet edge protectors, quality rubber feet, detachable power cord, brushed and anodized aluminum control panel, blue power light, and white piping around the grille give this little amp a deluxe appearance. As long as Kustom included the distortion feature, they should have made it work better and more gradually. It also lacks a remote speaker outlet, and an amp that sounds this good should have one. In my eyes, these two things keep it from being a perfect 10 for the money spent.

I wanted a guitar that covered a lot of different tones, so I read the reviews and ordered a new Rickenbacker 650D Dakota from Rhoads Music in Pennsylvania. Jim Rhoads had one in stock and gave me a really good price. Like the Tube 12, it is also a giant killer for the money. Way better than any Gibson or Fender I have ever met at anywhere near the price. My father and brother played the guitar, and rated it as excellent. Better and wider range of tones than the Gretsch when played through the Tube 12. The tung oil finish and lack of sound-killing plastic paint makes the Rick look and sound like a really great guitar. The Tube 12 let the unique character of each guitar come through clearly on the clean channel. Wish I had a Strat, Tele, LP, Explorer, or ES to also try on the Tube 12, but I am sure they would sound good also. My Rick has humbuckers, but they have a bit of single coil sound to them and are high output in nature. My brother got the Rick and Tube 12 to sustain with controlled feedback with no problem when using the gain stage. My brother once owned Dimebag Darrel's used Randall halfstack and a Washburn guitar. He was impressed by the 650 Dakota and Tube 12 combo. The distortion didn't sound all that bad to him. I like the clean channel the best, but I found you could improve the distortion feature by changing to a 12AY7 tube. If you always play with the gain stage engaged, you might getting even better sound by using a 12AU7 like a previous reviewer did. The problem in doing so is that you would not have enough gain in the clean channel when you disengaged the gain stage and played clean. You might not reach sustain level when playing hard rock also. The 12AY7 barely has enough gain to bring the clean channel to distortion with the Rick's pickup volume and Tube 12 master volume turned full on when picking a single note. It will sustain when the gain knob is cranked at least half way. Now then, that Celestion cheapo speaker with the dinky magnet certainly sounds nice, sweet, and warm most of the time, but when you crank the bass and play real loud it rattles and buzzes. Tightening all the screws in the amp helped some, but I know what speaker breakup sounds like when I hear it. Replacing the stock speaker with something like a Celestion Vintage 8, Jensen P8R-8, or Eminence Legend 875 would solve that problem, but it will set you back about $60 or more if you do it yourself. If you are a clean country picker like my dad, you would never be bothered by rattles or buzzes in most cases. If you once owned Dimebag Darrel's Randall halfstack like my brother, you're going to spring for the Vintage 8 or Legend 875 unless you like the sound of rattling and buzzing speakers (at least he didn't freak out over the rattles, and the speaker suffered no damage). The amp is capable of attaining a wide range of clean tones, but limited in the distortion area unless you do some tube swapping. Metal heads and hardcore rockers had better plan on springing for a better speaker. I'll probably get the Celestion Vintage 8. I will also probably hook up an output transformer of my own concoction between the output transistors and the speaker (MacIntosh did this on one of their transistorised audiophile amps many years ago). What we know as tube tone has as much to do with the output transformer as the output tubes. You pick a transformer that starts going into saturation just before the output transistor clips and that softens the harsh clipping transients, just like in a tube amp. But that transformer will cost you as much as the upgraded speaker, and now you have an amp over $200 and still no effects pedal(s). If you are a clean country picker the amp rates a 10, if a raging metal head then it's a 6. I give it an 8 because I'm somewhere in between those two extremes.

OK, this amp's cabinet isn't made from 13-ply Baltic Birch plywood because you didn't pay over $1000 for it. The particle board would probably get busted if you took it on the road continually, but particle board is deader and has a more neutral sound than plywood, so that makes it better for home practice or recording studio use. And it takes a heap less wampum to get it out the dealer's door. It's not a gigging amp, it's a practice amp. It should be reliable for its intended purpose. I went to tighten ALL the screws after I got it out of the box (because this thing came all the way from China and spent several days in the loving arms of UPS) and that was when I noticed that two screws of the six that hold the front baffle in place spun freely when I attempted to tighten them. I gave the baffle a shove and it almost fell out of the amp. Those six screws get less than a half inch bite each in brittle particle board, and the baffle board gets the most vibration in the whole amp. A lot of people are going to get into trouble with this little design flaw. I think it has something to do with the sound problems that others have mentioned. I drilled through the baffle board from behind after removing the electronics box and used six little 1/8" machine bolts and machine nuts to hold the baffle in place. I used round headed black bolts that match the grille cloth, and they are not noticeable from a distance unless you look for them. That baffle isn't rattling now! I give Kustom a 5 for making me fix the amp as soon as I unpacked it, even if it was minor. The good part is that it is something you can do yourself when you have that electronic box out for a preamp tube change if you decide a 12AU7 or 12AY7 would give you better distortion tone. I would have given them a 9 if all I had to do was tighten a few screws. Since I was able to easily fix it myself, I am splitting the difference and making it a 7.

Other than asking for a schematic, I doubt that I will ever use them. It is cheaper to fix this amp myself than ship it back and forth between Texas and Ohio. I will know when I call for that schematic.

This amp has an overall rating of 9. It really is a great amp considering how little it costs. I give it an 8 because I am picky and I found some problem areas that some of the other reviewers did not. If it cost $300 like a Marshall AVT20, then I would grade much more harshly, but not as harshly as some of the previous overly negative reviewers have done. Considering that it has a street price of $100 and about $10 delivery to your door, I consider it an outstanding value. I like it so well that I bought another one. One will be optimized for playing clean, and the other will be optimized for playing distorted. I am going to build a footswitch to switch between the two. This little amp sounds way better and plays way louder than a hundred dollar bill gives you the right to expect. Buy two of them for $200 and you have a very cheap and very good stereo amp. It is only significantly bettered by amps that cost much more than it does. I am a tough customer, and an 8 rating is really high for such an inexpensive amp.