Kustom Tube 12 Combo

First of all a little background story. I was buying myself a practice amp , a little one for home use , and this Kustom came across my path , i did my research , kinda knew what i wanted so it was this or a couple of others like marshal , laney and so on. So,too cut the story short i didn't get this amp for myself i bought it for my cousin who was just starting to play.

I bought IT and an ordinary Zoom II pedal and some Behringer Eq all for 100 bucks. Now, read on . On its own 8 with a ordinary Zoom pedal 10 ( no need for EQ but it was only 15 $) , so lets say a solid 9.

So we got IT home , set it up. First i drove it through my cousins Washburn with emg 81 / 85 , *****ing LITTLE (maybe little but don't sound like it ) thing was amazing , growled like a big boy volume at 1/3 , so i said ok volume at 1/3 anything sounds good then I crancked it up and IT stills sounds *****ing amazing. So with emg 81/85 through a Zoom I'd give it yet again a solid 9.

Then i drove it trough my Washburn with Duncan's '59 and Custom Custom ,Zoom also, and the LITTLE thingy song with joy and kept saying play me , sounds even better with Duncan's . If you want clean you got it if you want gain you got it , what ever you want you got with this LITTLE amp.

Had it for some time no problems . Sometimes i play 5 hours straight and IT doesn't get warm or squeak or anything . IT just sits there and does what IT knows best .

Bought it used.

Overall , amazing LITTLE amp , wont disappoint you no matter what you play if you buy just an ordinary pedal nothing fancy or expensive
, combined, all the sound you want and LOUD LITTLE (when you want it to be ) bastard it is , i adore it and trying to convince my cousin to sell it to me , i'd buy him anything else in that price range for it.

If somebody stole it i'd hunt him down and beat him with what ever is at hand and then beat him some more just for making me hunt him and i would hunt him no question .

If you need small amp to practice you can't go wrong with this one .

One-channel with 2-stage gain minicombo (really mini, especially for it's 12W output). 2007 year of production. Only four knobs (gain, bass, treble, volume) and 3 switches (power on/off, gain circuit on/off, mid boost on/off). Communications include input, phone output, line output, external speaker output. Lovely simple. 8" Celestion Super-8 loudspeaker. 1-valve (12ax7 type) preamp stage (gain switch activates the solid-state booster before valve to overdrive it? as I understand). Solid-state (with discrete scheme) power amp. Compact (but, unfortunately, cheap and boomy) cabinet.

Incredibly nice clean sound (as for paid price and taking in account, that it's just a simple chineese gibrid practice combo for home use only). Overdrive is adjustable with gain knob, when the gain switch is "on". Not the best overdrive in the world, but can be improved with the valve replacing (i've just replaced crappy chineese tube with old-stock ECC 803, and as the result is the much clearer, louder tone with good-sounding bass as well). Also overdrive sub-channel was noisy at high gain settings (and near powerful electrical equipment), but I've discovered, that the rear panel of amp isn't electrically shielded, so I've done it by myself with a significant decrease of noise level. Also I've damped the combo from inside with a layer of soft material to decrease "boomyness" of a thin-wall cabinet. So now it sounds much better - I suppose, this is only tube combo with such a serious sound in the world, that anyone can by for price of a cheap "for-novices-only" crap.
BTW, gain sub-channel is some balanced in a volume with clean sub-channel (it means, that volume of "clean" is equal to 15% of "overdrive" with a different tonal palete). So it could be used as 2-channel combo (and plus mid-boost for soloing), but there no foot switch option for it.
I'm using it with my Fender SE Mahogany Strat at home, and it gives nice clean and soft cranchy overdrive with the passive pickups, and nice lead hard-rock sounds with the EMG 81. But, to be objective, for really nice distorted sounds I use my tube stomp-box in front of this combo. It may sound incredibly, but, mixing the distortion of stompbox with light overdrive of combo, I've made very realistic sound of big high-gain amp in a such a small box. So, in this metter combo is very versatile. OK, there is still some lack of bass, but this 8" speaker just unable to give more. Anyway, this combo has sound of a real tube amp.

Of course, I'd never use it on stage instead of big (100W for example) full-tube amp with an adequate cabinet (4*12" for example). but this thing could save me in some situations (when there no guitar combo for me at all), also it could serve as warm-up combo or additional stage guitar monitor.

I don't know.

I've plaing for 15 years, using only amplification effects such as above-mentioned stompbox. I prefere to use big tube amps on stage. But there's no use for 100W stack at home, so this Kustom is a real steal for me (indeed, I cranked it up to max volume only several times - it's really as loud as Frontman 15). Also I can easily take it to anywere I want due to it's little dimentions and weight.
If it were stolen or lost - I would by just anothe one Kustom tube 12A and tune it as I've discribed above. In a couple of words: it sounds three-four times more expensive than costs. Good reason to re-buy another one, isn't it?

Bought it new for practice and studio (believe it or not!) work. See previous reviews for "the features".
Also see the discussion regarding the little 8" speaker. In my opinion, the 8" speaker in this amp is remarkable compared to the other amps with 8" speakers I've played through and/or owned, but the REAL surprise has not been discussed here yet.
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And that surprise is this: While I was demo-ing this little guy the shop owner ran it through a new 4x12 cabinet. HOLY CRAP! 12 watts! I could easily play club dates at the decibel level he was getting, no kidding. Lucky for me I have an old Randall RG80 extension cab with a 75 watt Celestion in it. You owe it to yourself to run this amp through an extension cabinet.
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Previous reviewers gave low marks because it doesn't have channel switching or reverb. I'm giving this amp a 9 because it is what it is. The features it DOES have work well. Now, if it did have reverb, but a crappy reverb, I'd mark it down for that, sure.

I have not fiddled with changing the 12AX7A yet because I think it sounds fine. I'm sure I'll experiment at some point because I have a bunch of tubes laying around.
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The clean sound is quite nice, not brittle at all. The distortion sound needs a lot of attention to get it sounding acceptable, but truthfully, it reminds me of solid state Marshalls. Not great, but generally sufficient for hard rock. I like to set the volume and gain so I can clean it up by rolling off the guitar volume and lauch into a grinding lead but turning up. It does this well. Mind you, this is just my practice amp.
I think it desrves at least an 8.

Don't know. It's brand new.

No idea.

This is my 45th year on stage. You can just imagine how many different amps and guitars I've owned. I play lead, mostly rock.
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If it turned up missing I'd get another one.
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Now I'm going to preach a little:
Folks that brag about being tone freaks crack me up. When they talk about "blackface tone" and things like that is when they confirm that they really don't have the slightest idea what they're talking about. They insist that the only amps that get "real tone" are all-tube. Bullcrap! I have made at least a dozen good solid state amps sound good with careful tweaking and the right accessories. I have played solid state amps for years on end that sounded just devine, and, conversely, several tube amps (most of them Fenders) that sounded rough and lifeless, like what most people think of when they think about solid state. There is no substitute for real experience.
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Right now my stage rig is a Line 6 Flextone III 1x12 Plus running via XLR to the consol, a 71 LP Deluxe Gold top, and a Line 6 Variax 500. I have tweaked the amp for at least 10 hours and about five hours of modelling the Variax. It takes that kind of time. I have other gear, but this is what goes on dates. I gave up on tube amps (the last was a Mesa) last spring and don't regret it one bit. I'll put my rig up against anybody's.
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All that to say what I love about this Kustom amp: This amp is a very honest little guy. It only claims to be a small hot rod.....no reverb, no channel switching, and it is definitely a little hot rod. For $100 new, I don't see how it can be beat!
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I wish the baffle board was better attached to the cabinet. I can fix that.
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I was sold on this amp by the demo. The tones are better than my current practice amp (Line 6 Spider II 75). The Kustom will be it's replacement. I highly recommend this amp to anyone looking for a truly portable, toneful, and loud little amp. Our other guitar player (a real GOOD player too) likes to bring his 1982 Super Champ to band dates, and it really howls! This little Kustom amp makes me think of it......and that's a pretty good recomendation.

There are already 61 reviews of this amp so I just want to add a few comments. I got it mainly as a practise amp. I changed the crappy 12AX7 with a GT 12AX7M (their Mullard reissue) which was a big improvement. I then put in an Eminence Beta-8A bass speaker (rated at 225 watts!) and I've been bringing it to small gigs where it hangs with the band just fine. I never use the boosted channel, but will goose the signal up with a stomp box for some of my solos. I find it to be more versatile than the Epiphone Valve Junior, which is a nice little amp, too.

I've mainly been using humbuckers, minihuckers and P-90's and it gets a good sound with all of them- in the Clean channel, which is all that I use. Being mostly solid state it is fairly quiet. And the Clean channel stays clean even when dimed.

It has taken a kickin' and kept on tickin'

I have no idea what kind of customer service Kustom provides. They have been around a long time (or at least the name has) so they must be doing something right...

The only reason I'm adding my review here is to mention the Eminence Beta-8A speaker. I play a mix of blues, soul and some rock so having a full bottom end is very important to me. Someone more into rock might prefer a nice Celestion speaker. And Weber's usually have a great sound although I don't think that the bass response would compare to the Beta-8A (which sells for about $55 over at MF).

I'm giving it an overall rating of 8 because for what it is and what it does, it is really great. And I would definitely replace it if my dog ate it.

Well, as we all know, this little guy has only one 12AX7 tube, in the clean channel preamp, and the rest is all solid-state. So, basically the clean channel is a hybrid, and the dirt channel is solid-state diode clipping. Did this stop me from purchasing it? Nah. After spotting the Tube 12 in a pawn shop amongst a bunch of other little amps (primarily the TransTube Peavey stuff), I read all the reviews here on the Tube 12, went back to the store and tried it out. I was actually a bit surprised by the clean tone, and walked out with it for 40 bucks.

Originally I thought that this might make a nice little home practice amp and be another amp to bring to studio dates, since I still don't (sob) have a Valve Junior. I played with it at home first, and I do agree with many other reviewers that the clean tone is very good, notes sing wonderfully at loud volumes with the tube nice and warm. I also agree that the dirty tone is lacking; in fact it is not that great at all. I was able to dial in a decent sound for practicing at home, but certainly no distortion tone I would use live or in the studio. I got a wild hair and brought it to a gig to use in conjunction with my '65 Bandmaster and I was pleasantly surprised at how good the little bugger sounded with my live pedals and effects going through it. Definately couldn't be used on it's own live, but it did sound very, very good. Gotta give the little Celestion Super 8 some credit, it didn't fart out and, while a bit boxy (duh-it's an 8" speaker in a tiny cabinet!), it gave out very good guitar tone. I kind of regretted not bringing the little sucker with me to a studio date the previous day after hearing it live with my effects. Running good dirt pedals throught the clean channel at a loud volume sounds quite good. It may be a little beginner practice amp, but the clean channel shines.

I got it for 40 bucks, I think it can take what I can give.

I've been playing almost 25 years now, been gigging a long time. I play mainly strats through my Bandmaster and a 4-10 Peavey cab with some effects. I've had some little practice amps before, and I am fairly impressed with the Tube 12. No, it's not a '60's Champ. Heck, it's not even a Valve Junior, but I like it. Certainly not an amp to give a 10 to, as it has it's limitations and the dirt channel sounds are pretty uglynastygrossickypoopy for the most part, but after blasting it live in the clean channel with a Bad Monkey and occasionally an old Shredmaster, at the same time as my Bandmaster, I was shaking my head, grabbing musicians on break going, "Hey, you have to hear this little bastard, come here!" "BRANNNNGGG!!!" Yep, crank up the clean channel, hit it hard with a good overdrive or distortion pedal and this thing is more than just acceptable.

Not too much to speak of. I really can't tell you what the 'SHIFT' switch does..but who cares the amp sounds great without it. It would be close to the perfect little practice amp if it had a reverb tank on ot, and 2 foot-switchable channels. But hey it is a bedroom blaster!!!

I use a Epi Les Paul Standard, Fender Strat H/S/S(Dimarzio Tone Zone, and Duncan Stacks for SC's), Fender Tele (Lil' 59 / 1/4 Pounder) and a few others...but that is besides the point. It is a nice sounding little practice amp. I did swap out the tube for a JJ/Tesla ECC 803S and that made a WORLD of difference, nice warm PHAT tone. I tried the JJ/Tesla ECC83S and it sucked (might have got a bad tube or something). But the 803 ROCKS...can't recommend this combo enough. The amp is easy to swap the tube out in 4 screws and your done (UNPLUG IT FIRST!!!) Kind of want to try a Tung-Sol in it. ANYWAYS for what this amp is meant for it sounds amazing!! I haven't tried it lined out or anything fancy like that, I have a Marshall AVT50 and a 66 Super Reverb (the real thing baby) for shaking my eardrums into sonic orgasms. This thing sits in my living room for me to noodle on while I watch TV. But it does that very well.

Good so far...like I said I have other amps I jam and gig with...but you know this thing does have some decent headroom...I might take it along one night, just to see if it can keep up with the whole crew...it would be close...definitly wouldn't gig with it though.

Never used it....

For a little practice amp at this price I would give it a 9, only because my brother has a VOX AD30VT, a little bigger and more expensive, but a nicer amp...I would like to try the VOX AD15VT...more "bells and whistles", but twice the price...This little Kustom is definitly allright. Makes me want to try out some of their bigger amps. I think amp manufacturers should put a little more time and R&D into their little practice amps...having a good small beginner amp will lead to brand loyalty. My first amp was a little Peavey (can't even remeber what kind), I hated it and have never owned one since, never even tried one. My first "real" amp was my 66 Fender Super Reverb (had it for over 20 years now...still going STRONG) but I have tried countless little fender amps and think they have all sucked (although the little G-Dec has intrigued me). Same with low watt Marshall's. Come on boys do a little R&D this is a HUGE market...under $200 tube pre-amp, real reverb tank, 2 channels (footswitchable), external speaker jack, maybe some effects...is that too much to ask for???

Bought this amp new last year to supplement my other amps (newer Traynor YCV40, 1964 Gibson Falcon) as a quiet home practice amp. I use the headphone out into an Alesis mixer for home studio playing/recording.

Good features for the price. OK sounds. Even though it's got a 12AX7 in the preamp section, make no mistake, this is a solid state amp. Not a bad one - IMO, better than other SS Traynors and Fenders I have owned over the years.

I wish it had built-in reverb.

I'm playing: a Fender Strat (3xsinglecoil), an Epiphone Les Paul '56 Goldtop RI (2xP90's), a Fender Deluxe Active Jazz Bass. I play classic rock and blues mostly with a bit of funk and R&B in there...

My guitar signal chain is guitar > Boss TU-2 tuner > Voodoo Labs Sparkle Drive > Voodoo Labs Microvibe > Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man > amp. Bass > TU-2 > amp.

Stock with no effects in front, the Tube 12 sounds sterile and weak on either the clean or dirty channels, 12AX7 preamp tube or not. What do you want with a small solid state box and an 8" speaker? It can get loud, but that's when I killed the speaker.

Decent clean sound with my Sparkle Drive (using clean boost), but not what I'd call tube warm. I have been running the headphone out into my Alesis mixer to "warmify" the sound and to add reverb using the headphone out of the mixer. I have plugged this baby into a crappy old 1x15 bass cab that I have sitting around and can get a rich Marshall-like gainy sound with the gain channel kicked in. Nice. I could probably bring this amp, cab and effects setup to a gig and sound not too bad. But why? I've got a nice portable 40W combo to do that...

Here's a crazy thing: I plugged my BASS into this thing and sent it through the 1x15 cab via the speaker out (bypassing the internal speaker) Not only did I get a nice warm, thick "vintagy" bass tone, it got loud. LOUD, I say! I brought this setup to band practice and, believe it or not, it was powerful enough to hang with a loud blues/rock band playing at volume. I have half a mind to bring this to a gig and see how it works out. It's probably a function of the active electronics on my bass, but wow!

I'm giving this a 6 based on the fact that this is a budget practice combo amp and what do you really expect....except, it absolutely NEEDS a better speaker/cab setup to really rock. And rock it does - for guitar OR bass. Who'da thunk?

I blew the speaker in less than a week. But since I mostly play it via the headphone or speaker out, no loss. It's dead simple to find and install another beter quality speaker, if I really wanted to.

Otherwise, it seems pretty indestructible...

Never bothered to call....

Been playing 25 years as a hobby. Gigged my fair share over the years in rock, blues and rockabilly bands as a guitarist and bassist. Owned a crapload of gear over the years, lots of it cheap and crappy. Finally have some decent gig-worthy gear yet not overstating my level of talent.

I have thought of just outright replacing this with a little Marshall practice combo, but I've got it working the way I want it right now, so not necessary. I am really intrigued by this bass thing - why is it so loud and decent sounding??

I still wish it had reverb.

No need to get into all the specs here, see other reviews. Mine is a 2002 model with no line out or external speaker jacks. It would have been nice to have them, but I agree with others that adding a reverb unit to this amp would not make much sense. The tone controls are sensitive. I rarely use the midrange button for either clean or overdriven sounds, but it is nice to have when a particular guitar needs a little mid-boost.

I bought this amp 3 1/2 years ago just to have a decent practice amp. I do mostly recording and was using a POD at the time. Around the same time I also bought an Orange Crush 15R for a bandmate. I A/B'd them and the Kustom had a much warmer sound although the Orange's reverb did not sound too bad. I used it off and on mostly for practicing by myself. About a year ago I purchased a Kustom WAV 212 amp for gigging (also a very good and underrated amp!) but found that it was bit too loud for recording and I had begun to do a lot more amp miking in my studio. So I pulled out the Tube 12 to use in that application and found that it was sounding pretty noisy. Only recently I decided to do some mods to improve the amp. I had no idea so many others were doing so and it is quite a kick to read all these reviews. I find it interesting that so many reviewers want to compare it to the Marshall AVT20 (not a great sounding amp anyway IMHO) or a Blues Jr. The Tube 12 is a $100 practice amp after all. I knew the noise was probably due to the tube and went about replacing it. The tube in my amp had no print on it so I assume it was the crappy high gain Chinese tube and not the Ruby. I never was very impressed with the Gain mode but always loved the clean sound of this amp. I have a friend who is heavily into NOS tubes and he is going to send me some of his picks to try. But I wanted to get some new production tubes and I ended up with two Russian tubes, the Tung-Sol 12AX7 and the Svetlana 12AX7SP (supposed to be ultra low noise). I broke both of them in a little and found that the Svetlana had a slightly more interesting clean tone but the Tung-Sol had a much smoother overdrive tone, still with a much-improved sound on the clean setting. I settled on the Tung-Sol for now. But they are both very nice sounding. I always felt that the stock Celestion sounded decent but did break up early with higher volume and bassy tones. So I set about looking for a replacement speaker even though I knew it would probably not make a huge difference. I looked at the new Jensen MOD and the Eminence Legend 875, both of which seemed like decent speakers. But I had heard so many great things about Weber speakers that I went to their website and saw that they make many models of 8? speakers. In fact it was a little overwhelming to have so many choices so I emailed them and received a response the same day from Ted Weber who recommended the Signature Series Alnico 8 ?S?. I could have gone with one of the Vintage series speakers but I was concerned that the depth of the magnet would not fit properly or might be too tight a fit against the electronics chassis of the amp. I could have also gone with the Signature Ceramic speaker but I?m happy I chose the Alnico. It was on sale for $25 (+$12 s/h), which is a damn good deal for such a high quality product. The results are a more open sound and the ability to handle louder bass. It sounds warm and full and the clean tones are way beyond what you would expect from this amp. The overdriven sounds with the Tung-Sol tube are tight and rich in harmonics. I am able to get some pretty fair mild OD tones from rolling off the guitar volume. I should point out that this speaker needs about 4 or 5 hours of break-in to get the best sound, don?t judge it right away. My Tube 12 sounds excellent with effects pedals, and I use tons of them. Unfortunately my Electro Harmonics Holy Grail Reverb pedal, which should be a great accessory for this amp, sounds a little noisy for my tastes. There may be some other reverb pedals that are quieter, but I?m not about to dump $300 on something like a Van Amps Reverbmate unless I had other applications for it. This has not been a problem for me though because since I am using this amp for recording I am able to add some nice post-reverb to my tracks using my rackmount TC Electronics unit.

Compared to some of the other reviewers here (some of whom I?m wondering if they?re comparing this to a Bad Cat Mini!) I think the build quality is fine. Perhaps I got a good one, but my unit never had any noticeable rattles or loose screws, etc. As a budget, Chinese made PRACTICE amp this is decent quality for sure. I did tighten all the screws just as a matter of practice. When removing the baffle to mount the speaker, I decided to simply replace the existing baffle screws with a slightly wider #8 ?? wood screw and carefully tightened them by hand. I?m sure you could strip the originals in the particleboard if you aren?t careful. But I was able to get a very tight fit with no rattles whatsoever. Worst case scenario I think the idea of drilling through and bolting the baffle to the frame is ok, but I had no need to do this. I also used some electrical tape to secure the tube cover just as a precaution as per the other reviewers? suggestions. My amp is now tight as a drum and there are no rattles of any kind. Also, the new tube and improved speaker seem to have solved all the noise problems. The amp is dead quiet on the clean settings, even at high volumes and the Gain mode is only marginally noisy at high levels, obviously better with humbuckers than single coils.

Only contacted them once regarding my other Kustom amp (WAV 212)and they responded in a reasonable time frame.

I have been playing for 20+ years and have more than a dozen guitars and a very extensive collection of high quality pedals. For what I paid this amp is a tremendous little bargain, even with upgrades. I would put it up against an older Fender Champ any day. And as I?ve stated before I don?t consider the Marshall AVT20 to be anything special. Same for the Blues Jr. Until I find something like a mint Trace Elliot Velocette to reign as my recording amp of choice, this will do very nicely. For less than $150 total I have a toneful, responsive recording and practice amp that suits all of my needs. Highly recommended.

This is just a simple tube amp. No footswitch for turning the gain off and on, just a button on the amp. It has a midrange boost button as well. This is a basic 12w amp. No frills, all tone.

I play a G&L Legacy with single coil pickups. I do very blues based stuff, and this amp fits that bill perfectly. If you crank the gain up, you still get a fairly ringing sound from full chords. This amp is not muddy. The clean channel rings like a bell.

Many people who have reveiwed this amp suggest you change the tubes. I see no need to do that. The gain is very sensitive, but if you just make subtle changes slowly, you'll get the kind of break up you need. I turned this thing all the way up with the gain cranked, and the speaker took it well. Not bad for an 8 inch Celestion. This amp is so loud, I doubt you'll need to crank it that high unless you play with Keith Moon at practice!

The clean channel is pretty clean even when you turn it all the way up. The distortion will get you heavy blues sounds at the most. Using a fuzzface or an overdrive pedal with this amp will give you a great Cream or Hendrix sound, just at lower volume.

Still pretty new to me, so I don't know yet. There is one tube, so it won't cost you an arm and a leg to have some back-up tubes handy.

I bought this to record with, and for practice. I never tried Kustom amps before, and this amp has made me a convert. The sound is pure warm tube. If you play the blues, this amp will set you right. Many people talk about how many watts they have when bragging about their amps, but if a blues amp is what you're looking for, the watts don't mean a thing. Don't be fooled, this amp is loud. I got it for cheap used, but even the new ones are only 100 bucks, and worth every penny. The people who complain about no reverb on the amp are just being silly. This amp is a steal for what you get out of it, pure killer tone.

This is a recent K12 tube 12 , I bought it new in July 2005 in UK.
I had been looking for an amp that would supply me with a sound that had `more life/feel` for home practice. I like a blues sound but nothing too distorted. I was never really happy with my Roland Cube 30. Then a friend bought round an Ashdown Peacemaker20. The impact on the sound of my Parker P38 HSS was massive. It gave the sounds I was looking for but it was ?399 !!and is no longer made. So I looked around and came up with 2 choices in my price range - FenderPro Jnr or a Laney LC15r. But i really wanted to use it at home & people say they are quite loud & they have no headphone option - all valve amps. By chance I heard a Tube 12 in a guitar shop , tried it and for ?75 decide i coudnt really go wrong ...i was really pleased with it seemed to meet all my needs , a reverb would be nice though.

I use a Parker P38 HSS & my daughter has EPI LP custom. Both sounded good through the amp giving my desired Blues sound but I decided I would like a lillte less distortion & more control of the gain knob & a little more mellow sound. The postings below suggested I could change the valve from the original 12AX7 ( Ecc83). But I am new to valve amps & was a confused by AX, AU , AT , AY etc notes . So I searched the net -
3 sites ,http://thetubestore.com/gainfactor.html , watford valves & www.guitaramplifierblueprinting.com each explained a lot to me .
But I was a worried by a posting below that suggested an AT valve had screamed `like a banshee`. In the end I decided to buy 2 valves a Ruby 12AX7A-c ( ECC83 better quality chinese ) and a 70 % gain factor Groove 12AT7 ( Ecc81) from guitarworlduk - good service they arrived within 36 hrs.
I tried the new valves (just take out the 4 screws to drop the amp section down). Compared to the original valve , the Ruby AX was a little more mellow/ cleaner when the mid range button was on, it was also a little lower on volume - But the best sound for me was with Groove AT. Both Clean and gain sounds were great and I got the control over the gain control . Volume decrease was not really noticeable & this valve didnt scream.
I now have the sound I want for an outlay of ?80.I plugged in my daughters Korg ampworks effects unit,added a little reverb & reacehd the end of my sound journey (for now..speaker change next ?)Best of all I still had over ?100 in my pocket.

Dont really know - its new , but my original Kustom 10 that came with my first guitar is still going strong after 3 years & for ?70 who`s really that bothered.

3 year warranty in UK - good by Uk standards

Ive been playing for 3 years (Parker P38 HSS). Fro only ?70 this amp has finally given me the sound i wanted - i think i need just that valve !!. My Roland Cube 30 now sounds dead by comparison at low volumes in home use & I cant seem me ever looking at solid state again. There is no other valve amp in UK for this money - nearest is a Laney LC15 ?200. Its fitted with headphone,line out and extrenal speaker outputs.So when the family moans i can shut them out. It is easy to adjust/ modify the sound with a valve change for about ?10.What more do i need for home use at this price ?? If it had Reverd I would give it 10

I have dozens of amps ranging from over 40 years old to boutique new stuff. I only need the overdrive sound for recording slide guitar. Cheap is good when it comes to the sound I want and use. I'm not concerned with much else, except switchability would be good for rehearsals.

I use anything from old single coils to humbuckers and hotrails. This amp sounds very sweet on semi acoustics [Epiphones and 335s great] with the top rolled back a bit and is particularly effective on tele's - again with the top rolled back and the drive up. Great valve compression.Work at it a bit and there's a sweet spot there.

Too early to say. I tried 3 identical amps in the store and one was faulty.

Again, too early to say yet. We'll see. It's not going to get hard use. Studio mostly.

I've been playing for [christ, really that long?] 40 years in just about every situation and type of venue imaginable. I tend to blend amps to get the sounds I need, for example, even for festival gigs I'll use a 4w [yes four watt!] 40 year old Jennings Domino valve bass amp for slide guitar, through am Electrovoice 15 inch cab, with an Ashdown Peacemaker 60w combo on top for the gain button control over solos, and some top back up in the overall mix. But I have a selection of anything from rare Gallien Kruger to old Selmer, basic Peavey and oddball Trace Elliot. I had a 60s Fenton Weill 7watt amp from almost new that I used to use for everything. Recording, even miked in a chair for big gigs. It got stolen, along with the car it was in, over 20 years ago. I have now found the perfect replacement in the form of the Kustom. In fact I bought two to use them in stereo - cheaper than a crappy effects pedal! I may yet use them live, miked into P.A.

I like the fact that it's simple, without a lot of effects and complicated stuff. Being a beginner, I just want something simple.

I just want a clean, undistorted sound. As others have said, the warm, soft sound of tube amp is great. I bought a Kustom KGA30 as my first amp (solid state) from a pawn shop, and then I saw this Tube12 at another pawn shop and had to have it. I'm now selling the KGA30, the Tube12 is better.

I don't know anything about amps, but I could tell the difference between these two. I found some old NOS tubes in a box that I got with a tube stereo receiver I once bought, and I replaced the stock 12AX7 tube with an NOS Sylvania 12AX7 made in the USA, and it definitely made the sound cleaner and clearer. I have a Japan made 12AX7 that I might try too, but I'm happy with the USA Sylvania.

The gain dial(distortion) isn't great, but with the new tube it's much better cleaner and more distinct.

Seems to come on when I want it to and hasn't given me any trouble so far. All the dials are smooth and the cabinet seems very solid.

N/A

I've only been playing for 2 months maybe, and this is only my second amp. I think I'll stick with tube amps from now on as I like the sound better than my solid state amp. I like the small compact portable size and the solid feel the unit has. Nice and inexpensive and gets the job done. Actually seem to have quite a bit of volume to it....sounds like more than 12 watts.

12 watt practice amp with tube preamp and Celestion Super 8 speaker. This amp is really small and handy to carry around.

I disagree with previous posts that this amp needs a different speaker. I liked the warmer tone of the Celestion Super 8. I controlled the farting by adding a 200 uF nonpolarized electrolytic cap in series with the speaker. It rolls off the lows in the bass guitar and extreme lower guitar range without affecting the higher frequencies and protects the voice coil from over excursion and jumping out of the magnet gap, which is what farting really is. You can also just back off the volume or at least the treble. Adding the cap allows more lower midrange while still preventing ultra low frequencies from getting to the speaker. The Super 8 can't handle much power, but it sounds so good and is rather efficient. It goes as loud as I want to play in a small room. There is some hum when you turn the amp up loud, just like in an old tube amp. This isn't boutique quality sound, but for $100 it is very good.

Reliability should be about average because of the tube preamp and cheap crumbly particle cabinet and thin tolex covering. Adding the cap protects the speaker. You are protecting yourself by not carrying around an expensive amp that can get stolen. I have two of them, so I'm covered in case of breakdown or theft. I generally keep one in my truck.

No breakdowns yet.

I needed a couple of amps cheap enough that I didn't need to worry about them and without the hassles of a full tube amp. These are cheap and light. You will have to tighten and secure some screws and chase down a rattle or two, but very good sound when you tweak it a bit. The baffle board is weakly held in place by 4 very shallow driven screws, so I glued my baffle board in place on both my amps. I like the fact that changiong tubes affects the sound, so it's cheap to experiment there. I feel the stock speaker is very good for such a cheap amp. I can't give it a 10 because it still needs a reverb and better QC on the cheap particle board cabinet. Your effects unit will probably cost more than this practice amp, so it's a winner for the price. It takes the place of an old Fender Champ rather well and can actually play louder than most Champs.

I quit seeing these on eBay, so you might have to cough up the $105 or so that is now being charged for a new one. I think it would be worth building a nice plywood cab for the power head and speaker, and I might just do that. If I do, I will add another Super 8 speaker for a 2x8 combo, and also add an Accutronics reverb unit.

I also tried a Marshall AVT20 combo. If you have the money and don't mind the extra weight, go that route before dumping a lot of extra money into the Tube 12. It has a reverb and 10" speaker with better bass and true Marshall tone. A used AVT20 at $200 is a better buy than a new Tube 12 at $105. It's just that the Tube 12 is so small and handy to pick up and head to a friend's house for some practice. I don't think the Tube 12 could ever equal the AVT20 no matter how much you modded it. Problem is, the AVT20 not only costs 3 times as much, it weighs 3 times as much as well. The AVT20 circuitry is much more complex and it has a DI jack, so it can actually be gigged at a fairly large venue through the PA system.

Bottom line: nothing else this small and light at anywhere near the price has ever sounded as good to me. Just don't think you can get it all from such a package. Compromises had to be made.

It's a little practice amp. Really the basic stuff. No reverb or tremolo. If you need more, plug in some effects. The best feature is the portability, low price, and decent sound.

The stock Celestion red label speaker has a warm tone, but it's not for extreme styles or it will fart and break up. At low practice sound levels there will be no problems. It sounds best if you run it through a good 12" speaker cab, and it mates well with a 15 or 20 watt alnico speaker like those sold by Eminence. I use mainly the clean channel, as the distortion comes on suddenly and there is very little adjustment in the low end of the gain knob. It is best for roughly distorted gain, and the adjustment range is large enough for more extreme styles of rock. A low gain tube like a 12AY7 is what you need if slight amounts of distortion is what you are after. An Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 will work well for high gain styles. An Ei tube works the best on the clean channel for sparkle and high end. The JJ tube gives the most versatility on both channels for a well rounded sound, but the differences were not greatly noticeable between the tubes. Except for a high gain Chinese 12AX7, which is what you want for extreme metal styles, but everyone else will probably hate it. The roughest preamp tube I ever heard with extremely high gain.

The particle board cabinet is of low grade material that's soft and breaks easily. My baffle board was falling out when I got it, and there was very little material to sink a screw into, so I drilled through and bolted it all together. It developed the tube cover rattles which some tape took care of. Electrically, it has worked well and I installed a JJ tube that sounds great in it. You will have to put a bit of work into it when you first get it to make it bug free.

If you get a used one, you can't go wrong for the price. The 8" speaker is what upsets me, as the amp can cause it to break up too much. My favorite speakers are 10" or 12" speakers, so I have decided to look for a speaker cab with a good low wattage alnico speaker. I'm going to cut off the lower portion of the cab and make a little amp head out of it, or just switch the electronics box over to a good speaker cabinet and create a 1x12" combo amp out of it. Don't buy one of these new and pay close to retail when you can get a really clean Roland Blues Cube amp for around the same price in used condition. You'll like the Roland better for the money, but this Tube 12 is very small and that makes it extremely easy to carry to a practice session. The REAL value of the tube is that it allows the electronically challenged a cheap and no-brainer way to alter their sound. You can try any tube in the 12AX7 and 12AY7 families as long as they are compatible with AC heaters. Switching over to DC on the tube heater will get rid of some buzz at high gain settings. I tried a 12AT7A that was only made for DC heaters, and the amp howled like a banshee. 12AT7 tubes can work, but they are made for higher currents than the other two tubes, so they will have a current starved sound. Whatever that turns out to be. 12AY7 tubes will probably have too little gain on the clean channel only, but the 12AY7 tube works great for bluesy distortion when the gain is used. Basically a good amp, but it needs to be fitted to the player to get the most out of it. The latest amp I saw had a JJ tube in it as standard, and it is light years ahead of the Chinese tube for my tastes. Would make a great first amp for a beginner.

The features are covered elsewhere but it seems to have enough given what its real selling point: it's an amp with a TUBE that sounds like it has a tube. If you're looking for other features then you might be disappointed. Some of the reviewers sound like they weren't primarily after the tube tone and so didn't get what they wanted. I don't think that's the fault of the amp or the manufacturer. Don't buy a lawnmower if you want to use it as a rototiller.
I see the amp as having responsive, effective eq, with the added benefits of a line out, a headphone jack, a distortion option, and a filter switch that gives the amp an out-of-phase effect. I'm quite satisfied that I got more than I expected.

This amp responds best to hot pickups with plenty of sizzle. My Les Paul Custom is fine through it but my '68 Tele' with hot humbuckers is far better. If you want to get a sense of the sound, listen the Fender Champ sound Clapton had in the "Let It Rain" period, or what you hear on "Layla": bite, some grit, with spunk and crisp top end. Blues, country, pop, and any rock that doesn't beg for heavily distorted power chords:it's a great little amp. I've played through and owned a number of Fender Champs. I like the sound of this better.

I haven't had it for a long time. Common sense tells me a $100 amp might not last forever. With sound this good, it's worth the risk.

I haven't needed to find out.

I've been playing for 38 years. I own a Fender Vibrolux and Super Reverb, a Vox Cambridge, a new Traynor 2-12' (fine amp!),etc. I have a variety of electrics, the Paul and Tele are most often used.
It has a great small amp tube sound and though the distortion button doesn't give me a sound I want, it's not a bad sound.
I'd definitely buy another one and feel like I got a GREAT deal getting it used but nearly new.

The features are versatile enough, it has two channels; no footswitch, with a gain boost on the overdrive that adds more highs. I never use the boost because it sounds too bright but the preboost overdrive gets a remarkable vintage brit-rock sound. The clean channel is superb, it's very warm and bell like in tone and perfect for jazz or blues. The single tube in the preamp section really warms up the sound. It would be great if it had reverb but i understand why it doesnt; it's a practice amp and a great one at that, but most practice amps don't have reverb because this would drive the price up. Besides the digital reverb that is put in practice amps leaves much to be desired anyway. The thing's got plenty of power for what it was made for, 12 watts is quite enough, plenty of power without having to buy a 15 watt or settling for a 10 or 8 watt. The headphone jack is very efficient, nice and clear without breaking up through headphones.

I play a Gibson SG special and a Danelectro Danoblaster for brighter more surfy stuff. Several people have complained about the overall sound of the amp on here but if you actually take some time tweaking the amp and run a spring reverb pedal through it to compensate for no reverb, I've found that it sounds great. Remember guys it's a pracice amp not a gig rig and it works great as such. A good amp relies on good playing not the other way around. If you play heavy metal don't buy this amp, if you play punkrock don't buy this amp, but if you play jazz, blues, surf or good old rock-n-roll then pick one up because this thing is a steal.

I've had it awhile and so far so good, if you're someone who takes care of your belongings then you shouldn't have a problem.

Phenominal, my sis lives in Cinncinatti so when i was there i stopped in HHI headquarters which owns Kustom(and B.C.Rich by the way) and is also the location of the main Kustom warehouse. I was trying to locate some Kustom products that i couldn't find anywhere. The executive I talked to was great, he called all the Kustom dealers in the area until he found what i was looking for and even wrote out detailed directions for me and gave me his phone number in case i had any problem; it's a super company.

I have been playing for awhile and i have procured a great deal of Kustom equipment along the way, including the KPM8420 PA-system which is awesome and the smaller KPM480 PA. The new Kustom company is as good as the old and their products are top shelf and you can't beat the price. I use the tube 12 for what i bought it for; working out songs, quiet practice and recording and it stands up for all of those. It looks retro, it sounds retro, small enough to take anywhere, it's a workhorse and an all around great little amp as well as a fantastic value.

See the website.

Unless you are playing metal or some extreme style, leave the standard speaker in. It doesn't fart out unless shoving it hard in the bass. The standard speaker has a very warm midrange tone. That Chinese tube in mine was CRAP. I changed it out with an Ei tube I bought cheap at Angela Instruments, and the sound was immensely better. That Chinese tube is for high gain heavy metal styles, and has very raspy overdrive tone. A 8 with the original tube. For the price, it's a 10 with a decent tube because NOTHING else for $100 sounds as good.

I don't think I would gig it unless I had a spare. The particle board cabinet does NOT inspire confidence. This is something small for the bedroom that you can kick under the bed.

$100 for the amp and $10 for a better tube. That's chump change these days. Comes with a real Celestion red label speaker. Sure, it's a $15 speaker, but that's a lot of money to put into a $100 amp. If I was doing some high gain extreme styles, I would have probably kept the Chinese tube in the amp. The amp is so incredibly light and handy. It goes really well with a small 20-50 watt bass amp for practice sessions.

Good for a little practice amp.

This is the amp that some day will be bought by a lot of poor kids on the used market and they will learn to play rock, blues, or country guitar through it. There will be all kinds of mods listed for it because it is such a widely sold beginners amp. The distortion is a bit rough unless you are into heavy metal and such, but the clean channel is great for the price. The distortion can be smoothed quite a bit by using a lower gain tube. Haven't tried changing out the op amps yet, but I imagine that would improve the tone as well. No need to change out the speaker unless you play really bass heavy style, in which case it will fart out. Putting filtered DC to the tube heater would take out a lot of the hum. In short, this is a great amp for the price that can be made a lot better sounding with a few tweaks that aren't hard to do.

There are probably some pure solid state amps at this price that are more dependable, but they almost certainly sound like crap in comparison. The particle board used in construction is really weak, so you can't kick it around too much or let it get wet.

I think you had better plan on being your own customer support. This amp is available at too low a price to justify shipping back and forth for service.

I own three better amps: one cost me $350, one cost $425, and the other cost $550, so I guess I can't complain. For the price, it was a pleasant surprise.

Bought two of them, brand new at a local guitar dealership. Nothing to write home about but get good tones in stereo from a POD XT connected to them.

I use a Les Paul copy (dillion extreme) through a PODXT. Good tones through these little amps. As others have noted however, at higher volumes the 8" Celestions get a little farty.

I don't think I would use these to gig with permanantly without backup, after reading the existing reviews. I bought these mostly to experiment with, may put them in a rackmount config and power a small cab with them. Those are my plans anyway.

na

Amps sound ok. Fit right behind the seat of my 2003 Ranger extend cab. Also, had a buddy of mine come over and play my drumset with these set up right next to it and we were able to jam in the living room, no hearing problems whatsoever. Loud little boogers. If they were stolen, it would be much less heartburn than if I lost my Marshall 9200 and cabs.

This amp has 12 solid state watts and a lonely 12AX7 tube in the preamp all through an 8" speaker. 2 channels; headphone, line out and speaker out outputs; bass and treble EQ and a tone shift switch to scoop out the mids. Oh yeah, it has a jewel power light and slick metal control knobs. First impression - NICE! I can live without reverb on a practice amp, but I think it's ridiculous not to include a dedicated mid frequency control on a tube amp, even if it's a wanna-be.

The clean sound is great even with the stock tube and speaker. Very warm, ringing and all around very tube-like. You really start to hear the tube working when you turn the volume up past halfway. Great dynamics, good harmonics - I'm surprised this is all done with one preamp tube. The distortion, on the other hand is terrible beyond belief. What happened, Kustom?! Luckily, I have a bunch of distortion pedals or I would have been mad. This amp works great with all of them, from the Tubescreamer to DOD Death Metal. It also makes my Digitech RP200 sound like it's not just a crappy toy. Must be the tube. All these pedals can make the speaker fart out if you try, but if you don't exceed the volume that you get when you plug straight into the amp, it's fine. It's a nice speaker, people. If you want more volume, use the speaker out jack and plug it into something else. Even if you decide to upgrade the speaker it's still not going to be loud enough to play with a drummer, so why bother? This is a practice/bedroom amp for the tube-tone connosieur, nothing more.

I've only had it for a couple of months.

E-mailed them for the schematics and received them the next day.

Bought this amp because I didnt want to fire up my vintage Ampeg head without a good reason (like other people listening) and wanted more out of a practice amp. Since nobody around here sells them, I ordered one from Music123 based on the reviews below without ever playing it first. Thanks guys! This is a nice sounding, cool looking little amp and it's cheap. It does have its quirks though. It pops loud when you turn it on, it also hums about as loud as if you were playing with single coils in a bad environment, it even picks up a faint radio signal when volume and gain are all the way up. In short, it acts like an old tube amp in need of a little service, which is pretty cool in itself if you consider the price. I would definitely buy it again because of its clean sound, it is that good. You won't get real power tube overdrive out of it, but a TS9 will get you amazingly close. Any good distortion pedal will also sound good through it as long as you keep the pedal volume down to what the amp was designed to handle. If you want a cheap, small amp that you will actually ENJOY playing through, this is it.

The KING of the under $100 practice amps. The rating is based on PRICE, and not ultimate versatility.

It will work OK for what it is as long as you get the Czech tube in it. The Chinese tube is high gain but crap for anything except raunched out metalhead tones. The speaker WILL fart out when driven hard at low frequency. The Vintage 8 is no longer produced and almost as expensive as what you can get the whole amp for. A Jensen or Eminence Legend 875 is about the only logical speaker upgrade, and only at a discount price. A JJ, E-H, or Ei tube will give very noticeable improvements to the tone over that piece of crap Chinese tube. A 12AY7 type will give better blues distortion through the gain channel, but may be too low gain through the clean channel only. A 5751 is an intermediate gain tube, and a 7025 is a 12AX7 type with less microphonics and hum. I have tried them all, and the JJ, Ei, and E-H (premium Sovtek, aka selected Reflektor) sound as good as the NOS types I have on hand. The heater supply is AC and can cause hum. A 12AT7 JAN Philips type howled like crazy, as that tube requires DC heater supply. As mentioned below, this amp functions as a good preamp tube tester due to its use of a single tube and high gain when the gain channel is engaged. You WILL hear any nasties the tube exhibits, including any AC heater hum. This makes it a valuable and cost effective test instrument for me for selecting preamp tubes for my premium amp without subjecting that amp to possible damage from a bad tube. It would be a good idea to upgrade the op amp chips per another review if this is your purpose and you require fine reproduction of upper harmonics for testing high quality tubes to be used in clean amps. Do NOT buy this amp with the intent of dumping parts in it (other than another tube) for a better quality practice amp, because as another review stated, you would have been better off getting a used Marshall AVT20, Peavey Classic 20, or Roland Blues Cube 30 in excellent condition for the same amount of money. The stock speaker does OK until you drive it too hard. For low level practice, it sounds as good as any of the upgrade speakers. Running it into a separate cabinet is the real trick if you want to play it loud. To me it is just a test instrument for tubes first, and a backup for my Marshall amp second. I have a Vintage 8 speaker in mine, but only because I had one laying around doing nothing.

I would never depend on this thing for gigging or recording, unless I had another one handy. It's cheap and you will have to tighten screws on a regular basis, I would think, if you drive it hard. The particle board and tolex are really cheap.

Never used them

I have much better amps that I actually play through most of the time. This is my preamp tube tester so that I can have a stash of tested preamp tubes available that are actually tested for microphonics and hum under actual playing conditions. I don't buy selected tubes, but just buy a bunch and do my own testing. My tube tester only checks for shorts, opens, heater (cathode) degradation, and gassiness. For microphonics, hum, and gain tests, you need to put them into an actual amp and listen. Get a used B&K tube tester off of eBay for around $50, and you have your own personal tube testing setup for around $150 or less. Power tubes should be tested in the actual amp they will be used in, after you give them an initial check in a tube tester, so it doesn't matter they are not tested by the Tube 12. I NEVER pay for highly tested NOS preamp tubes anymore, as the Tube 12 will find really good tubes among standard production tubes that I get cheap. For instance, Angela Instruments sells Ei ECC83 tubes at 10 for $60, and once you test and select them they are the same tube that others sell for $15 each. Most of the tubes will pass testing. I am able to supply good tested preamp tubes to other musicians, so the Tube 12 is actually paying for itself, and I had a nice old B&K 667 tube tester given to me for free as part of another deal. It only makes a really good practice amp if you use it on the clean channel and use a pedal for any distortion you may need. The built in distortion sounds like simple diode clipping, which is useless for just about anything but heavy metal music. The other three amps I mentioned make much better practice amps if you can afford them, and you probably can. However, this is a decent little amp to start out on if you can't afford anything better. It allows you to get a really decent pedal with the money you save over those other more expensive amps and is loud enough for bedroom practice. I think that an 8 rating is extremely high for such an amp, and only give it in relation to the very low price.

What do you expect in a low rent practice amp?

It is what it is. It is a small heavy metal practice amp on the gain channel, and a country amp on the clean channel. Depending what tube you have in it at the time. A low gain tube turns it more into a bluesy type of distortion.

The cabinet is not very tough. Things get loose rather quickly.

You want customer support? Buy a customer support jock strap.

I beat the crap out of mine. I like the sound it makes when you play the living crap out of it. It rattles, farts, and gives great buzzsaw distortion. It's a punk rocker's practice amp dream come true. When you play the crap out of it, it SOUNDS like you are playing the crap out of it. I love the sound of an amp screaming in distress.

Cheap little pracrice amp with some useful features. No reverb.

The speaker cone was torn, so I got it dirt cheap. That helped me afford to put a Celestion Vintage 8 speaker in it that cost me a lot more than the amp. With the Vintage 8, it doesn't fart out even with bass guitar. I use it a lot for bass practice at fairly low levels as I live in an apartment. For guitar practice, it really screams for it's mall size. The clean channel is fairly good, but the distortion channel is rather rough and seems to be voiced best for heavy metal styles of distortion. It sounds good through a pedal on the clean channel though. Change out the crappy Chinese tube if it came with one. Unless you like buzzy tone like bees in a jar. I put in Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 because they are tough and sound good.

It's about as reliable as any other dirt cheap imported amp, I suppose.

Huh?

This was bought to have something really small for taking over to friends' houses for jam sessions. My overall rating is with a Celestion Vintage 8 speaker. The speaker cost me more than the amp did. I use a Spector Performer 4 bass with alder body, bolt-on maple neck, and passive EMG-SSD pickups. I use a Hohner G3T guitar with active EMG's. Both sound good through this amp. I plan on upgrading the IC chips in the future. I upgraded the tube to an Electro-Harmonix 12AX7 and that made a big difference over the crappy Chinese tube. These amps are not being pushed as hard as they were a year or two ago, so they are often available at great bargain prices. My friend got one in like new condition with a JJ ECC83S tube for $65 in excellent condition. The only problem is that the Celestion Super 8 speaker will fart out when using a bass guitar or detuned metal guitar played loud. You have to change the speaker if you want loud bass without farting. I'll probably get another used one if I can find one cheap enough. If it came with a better speaker it would be a 10 for the price.

OK for what it is, a cheap practice amp. I only buy cheap gear these days, and this is the leader in under $100 amps.

You can't play heavy styles of music without the speaker fartng out. If you play country and pop, you will probably like the clean channel. Throw a Jensen 8" or Eminence legend 875 in the amp and it will rock out. Don't expect an ultra refined boutique tone, but it is much warmer than what you expect in this price range. If you have a spare high quality 8" speaker laying around, then this is a good buy. Otherwise, I would spend a bit more and get a much better Roland Blues Cube 30 that has a 12" speaker. If you want a really small size amp to kick under the coffee table though, then this amp is a winner. It is also small enough to crank up full blast and slide it on its back under your bed for a cranked tone without disturbing the neighbors too much. There is also the headphone jack that allows late night practice. The distortion channel is a bit rough like most people here mention. If you keep the distortion light and use a lower gain tube like a 12AY7 or 5751, then it isn't so bad. The one distortion it does really well is metal type buzzsaw distortion when a crappy high gain Chinese 12AX7 is used. If that is your style, this is your practice amp. I play mostly through cheap Asian guitars, and this is a really good amp for those types of guitars.

Don't trust anything this cheap too much. Buy two if you actually depend on it for gigging and recording.

Unless you are really poor, a Roland Blues Cube 30 or Marshall AVT20 is a much better practice amp if you can tolerate the extra size, weight, cost, and volume. You can get seriously heavy with those two amps without the speaker farting out. By the time you add the necessary tube, speaker and parts upgrade to get it sounding like either of those amps, you will have paid about as much as one of those and still not sound as good. It's a great buy at the price, but it is NOT a great amp. I don't pay over $300 for amps or guitars these days, and I've heard a lot of the cheapies. Nothing better for $80. Just remember that I am a connoisseur of low line gear. It's really great for a lightweight cheap rig for taking to your friend's house for jam sessions, and thus protecting your better amp. Works great with a $180 Oscar Schmidt OE30 (Gibson ES-335 copy) for playing country, blues, and blues rock. Musician's Friend has the Oscar Schmidts back in stock, and they are my kind of guitar......dirt cheap but still good playing and good looking. You can get a NEW guitar/amp combo for around $250 that is good enough for gigging a small club or serious student practice.

It now no longer has a gain stage. I'm pretty sure everything else is still working...

I finally got hold of the service manual for this baby and it tells you a few interesting things about this amp. As has been mentioned further down the page this isn't a full tube preamp - there is an opamp both before and after the tube stages. Also part of the reason the gain channel sounds so fuzzy and solid-state sounding is that the distortion is exactly that. It's a diode-clipping stage that actually in part bypasses the first tube stage. If you're looking for a overdriven sound out of this amp - this isn't the amp for you. Also no expensive tube is probably going to change much the sound of the distortion. Perhaps you could change the diodes and get a better sound - I don't know enough about that sort of thing to say.
However as mentioned below - you probably didn't buy this amp for the distortion. The clean channel is the true gem of this amp, and after a few simple modifications I'm much happy with the clean tone. With the advice of one of the other reviewers I removed the first half of the opamp and the distortion section so that the guitar now runs direct into the tube. The increase in warmth in the sound of this amp is audible even with the cheap stock tube that came with it. The other reviewer removed the opamp preamp section entirely - but I think this was a more complicated job than the one I did which just involved desoldering a bunch of components and directly linking the input jack through an appropriate resistor to the input pin of the tube. After making the mods I easily rate the clean channel on this amp a 9.

With very little skill I've taken bits out, rewired bits, and even added bits. I've already taken the valve out probably 20 times without any trouble with the socket. I still haven't got around to fixing the buzzing but it's still going. However I don't usually take it much past half volume so I can't comment on the build of the cabinet - no problems so far though.

I finally got a reply from Kustom when I asked for the service manual. Except they sent me the user manual. I had actually got the service manual a day earlier off a fellow owner of this amp. I guess at least they replied this time...

It's a 12 watt practice amp with the cheapest Celestion 8" speaker and an ECC83S tube in the preamp section. The headphone jack is nice and it has a funky retro look. If you need reverb and tremolo, this is not your practice amp unless you add an effects unit. If you're a beginner (even a grown one) on a tight budget, this would be a great first amp.

The clean is OK if you lay off the bass on the tone controls. The speaker has a warm sound, HOWEVER, it does not play loudly in the bass without farting out. The clean tone is warm without the sterility normally associated with cheap solid state. For that alone, it is well worth the price. The gain channel gives a limited range of distortion. It is preamp distortion and sort of buzzy sounding as you would expect. Could be useful when added to the sounds you get from an effects unit. If you want really good overdriven tones, you MUST use an effects unit. I would use one of the smaller SansAmp units, like a Tri-O.D. or Tri-A.C or Bass Driver DI. I already had an RBI I use for bass, and it sounds great, but at $300 it is too much for this thing. Celestion Vintage 8 speakers are no longer produced, and at $60-$80 were too expensive for this cheap little amp. I went with an Eminence Legend 875 for the warm tone and ability to go low without farting out. At $40 it is a way better deal than the Vintage 8. The amp + speaker set me back $120 plus a bit of shipping. There is some hum when the gain is used, but I use the clean channel mostly and get extra gain from my effects unit. A Korg AX-1G complements this amp nicely if you need lots of effects at a cheap price, but for just getting overdriven tube tones a SansAmp unit works better. If you play at low to mid volumes, there is really no need to change out the speaker. I would get something like a SansAmp Tri-O.D. pedal first if my funds were limited. You can get a good used one on eBay for the price of the amp, and you will be out half the price of a Marshall AVT20 with about the same range of tone available, minus the reverb and extra volume that 20 watts and a 10" speaker gives you. The Tube 12 really sounds good for the price, but it is a practice amp. Sounds good in your bedroom or small studio, but it does NOT have the volume for doing gigs unless it was some kind of quiet coffee house setting. It's a little amp for little rooms, PERIOD. There is a need for amps like that, and it's cheap as well.

I would not depend on this thing too heavily. It is OK as far as cheap practice amps go, but the particle board used in the cabinet is very weak and crumbly. The tolex covering is quite thin compared to better quality amps. I installed thru-bolts on the baffle board, per an earlier review. The short wood screws supplied easily strip when you try to tighten the baffle board down to prevent rattling. Just head for the hardware ware store and do it; black bolt heads will not show much against the black grill cloth and chrome bolt heads would give a funky industrial look. TIGHTEN THOSE SCREWS! This is the cause of most of those rattles noted in previous reviews. It ain't a Roland Blues Cube 30. If you need lots of reliability, LOOK ELSEWHERE. It's the most tone for the least scratch, and nothing more. If it stays in your bedroom or under your coffee table, it should work just fine. It's small size and light weight makes it easy to get in and out of the closet. You can easily set in on a top shelf out of the way, like I do. I think it would be great for somebody looking for a cheap travel amp for their camper or RV. No big deal if it gets trashed or stolen.

I seriously doubt that you would be sending something this cheap back and forth between the manufacturer. If you intend on paying a technician to fix your amps, buy something better. I suppose Kustom would replace the amp if it failed. Don't expect much after the warranty expires. I'll never return mine outside of warranty, so it's basically a "throw away" if I can't fix it myself.

I paid $120 not counting postage. That includes a better speaker. You can get used Marshall AVT20 amps in mint condition on eBay for less than $200 if you are patient. It sounds as good as the Tube 12 with the speaker upgrade and a SansAmp pedal added. Either way you spend about $200 and get a solid state practice amp with a tube preamp section. The AVT20 gives you a reverb and better bass, the Tube 12/speaker upgrade/SansAmp pedal route gives you a separate pedal you can use on other amps. If you are into overdriven tones and need the extra volume and don't mind lugging the extra weight, go with a used Marshall AVT20. If you need basically a clean tone and only plan on using it in a home type setting, then at only $80 this basically gets you as good a tone as the AVT20 played clean. Still, I would buy the AVT20 if I had $200 to blow, which I did. The AVT20 simply wipes it out as far as overdriven tones go (hey, it's a Marshall, what did you expect?), unless you spend an equivalent amount of money upgrading it with a better speaker and an overdrive pedal (but you would have the pedal for better amps later on. Decisions, decisions!). For the price you pay, the clean rates a 10 (at sane practice volumes) and the distortion rates a 6 at best. I'm rounding it out to an 8, which at $80 is still a very high rating. I only use this amp for traveling and where not risking my AVT20 or expensive 40 watt tube combo is the issue. If you only have $80 to spend, look no further. If you have more to spend, I would look elsewhere unless, like me, you need a cheap "throw away" amp for traveling and taking into harms way.

Bought new in 2003. It's the model with the tweed grill cloth and the line out/speaker out. I won't bother with the features - everyone else has already listed them. Spring reverb would be nice, but even more than that I'd like the gain to work on the clean setting so I could actually get a subtle overdrive...

I've tried this with a bunch of guitars but 99% of the time I run my unknown brand Les Paul copy into this - though it has two of the hottest humbuckers I have ever used. The Kustom sounds alright - the clean is probably the best feature, though after replacing the stock tube with a JJ ECC83s the distortion sounds better, I'd like to think the clean sounds better too but that's maybe cos I spent NZ$40 on the valve alone... It's still kind of more fuzzy than overdriven though. Sadly I have yet to get this amp to do what I really want - which is a really mild overdrive. It will do sparkling clean, and ultra fuzzy, just don't count on getting anything close to just breaking up out of it.
I even followed some of the advice further down the page and found myself an old Matsushita ECC82 valve to get the mild overdrive I'm after. I'm not sure these guys noticed but you actually get a pretty similar level of distortion. Correct me if I'm wrong but 20% gain just means you're getting 1/5 the output of the tube, not 1/5 the distortion when you push it just as hard.
Because of my super hot pickusp I now run a Boss LMB-3 (yes it's a bass guitar pedal) so that when I turn it on it cuts the volume to the amp - I use this as my 'cleaner' sound. By switching the pedal off the volume returns to normal and the level of distortion increases. It's partway to the sound I want...Still this is only a practice amp. Buy it for the clean channel, not the 'overdrive'.

After two weeks it started buzzing and humming away. Tightened the screws on the transformer and that got rid of some of the buzzing. Going to try moving it to the bottom of the box at some point to try and further cut the humming. Not really impressed - my other practice amp which I've owned for nearly the last 10 years is as quiet a runner as they come...

Emailed the company with a few questions after having owned it for a few days. That was about a month ago now and I still haven't received a reply.

Been playing guitar on and off for the last 8 or 9 years, though I'm still not really getting any better. I've owned a 1970s Jansen 50 watt tube amp which I should not have got rid of, and a bunch of solid state rubbish amps. Got effects pedals coming out my ears, though I've only just come to realise that the only pedal I really need is a volume booster sitting in front of a tube amp pushed to the edge.
I love the look of this amp and even in New Zealand for the price can't be beat new. This isn't a match for the Jansen (or virtually any other tube amp I've played through) in sound, but it sounds better than any other solid state amp the same, and definitely better than any amp new for this price. Rember though - just because it has Tube in the title, and one preamp tube inside, doesn't mean it is going to sound like a full tube amp.

All listed before, there is confusion however on the line out and speaker out features, Kustoms web site and online manual shows these features. I ordered mine from musicians friend in July 2003 and got one without any line or speaker out. Called musicians friend and they were clueless about the missing features on my amp, to be fair their web site listed the features and it did not have the line and speaker out listed and they offered a refund/exchange so I?m gonna have to dig Kustom for this confusion

I expected the sound of an $80 practice amp and that?s what I got. Cleans ok, heavy gain channel is nothing that I will be able to use either, didn?t respond well to playing dynamics etc.. think the tubes a whole lot of hype. (I like hard sounds similar to heavy VH distortion, SRV & Hendrix-ish gain, and clean with a bit of rough low dirt distortion. I played it with an SG Special and Carvin SC90). But it seems well made and gets very loud. I?m going to keep it and use it for my portable ?rack mount? system, basically a sans-amp psa 1, boss vf-1 and the amp, the amp will replace lugging around the mesa 20/20 power amp (tube, I think this is where tubes make the most difference, at least for me) and heavy speaker cabs. So I love what it does for me, reproduces my rack setup sounds very accurately at low volumes, is light weight and can crank very very loud. On it?s own though as a tone generator I would give it a low rating.

Don?t know yet, the ?powered by celestian? sticker fell off right way.

haven't delt w/ them yet

For using it as my portable poweramp and speaker cab practice box this is a great little amp. I really like it so far and would give it a 10 for this. But for tone generation which is average and the confusion over the missing line out and speaker out features I have to lower it.

Not alot of features but very adequate. mine does not have the line out speaker feature which blows. I have a system worked out to wire the amp to different speakers through 1/4 inch jacks. All other features mention in reviews below.

The clean is my fav. channel. The distortion/gain is not the greatest. I have an old Marshall Gov. dist box that really compliments this amp well. I also use a J-station and the Tube 12 sounds great through the J-station. The tube really adds dynamic tone and sound quality over many solid state amps I've heard or owned. The celestion really can't handle high volumes or a really low end with out major vibration and sound problems. I wired my Tube 12 to a 12 inch no name speaker, and it sounded 10 times better. running through the bigger speaker, it handled the lows and volume a whole lot better than the Celestion in that little crappy cabinet. I plugged my bass into the tube 12 and wow,when running through the 12 in. speaker it sounded superb. Nice tight bass sound with a very nice punch, I was very pleased. With the sound diverted out of the tube 12 cabinet and inro am another, the hum and vibrations stop.
I did also replace the stock pretube with a Sovtek 12AX7LP. I did notice a difference between the two. I like the Sovtek better.
One more thing, I hit the mid shift and it is only a fraction of a difference in sound. With both tubes neither of which showed much difference in the mid shift button. Is that normal?? E-mail me with any info about the mid shift, I know what mid shift is suppose to do, butt the amp doesn't seem to respond.

No problems so far other than possibly the mid shift button does not work.

Haven't dealt with them yet butt may about my mid shift button concern.

Great amp, great price. I've been looking around for a hybrid for a long time. I wanted an amp that had tube tonal qualities without having to turn it up to high volume levels to get a good sound like all tube amps. this Tube 12 is perfect. I was looking hard at the Marshall ATV's witch sound great,butt not worth all the dough they are. I've been playing for 22 years and this is a super great amp for home practice and recording purposes.

Has exactly everything I need, which is not much - I admitt. I wanted practice amp with the smooth and warm sound, and without a bunch of half-worthless DSP effects. Has a (half?) tube preamp, with 4558 op amp which I replaced immediatelly with AD OP249 (National LM6172 would be even better), and 12AX7 double triode. LM1875 integrated power amp at the output, rated at 30 watts at 60V Vcc and 8ohm load. With 40V power supply (non-symmetrical), it's rated to be around 17 watts according to National's datasheet (I wonder why is this amp rated as 12W?). Celestion Red 15W/8ohm speaker. Metal caps for pots, nice overall looks.

I am using Ibanez RG270, but I am not doing metal. I play clean sounds mostly, blues, pop, rock. Amp used to rattle and hum at first, but while messing around it and after moving the transformer to the bottom of the box, it's now silent like a grave. Lots of different sounds, clean, warm and cozy. Distortion is nothing to write home about, but I don't think it could be easily beaten by budget pedals like zoom 505 II.

Seems pretty reliable, too early to tell. From the glimpse at the inside, not much can go wrong there. So I would say 10.

Excellent! I sent them an e-mail asking for Service Manual and got it within 24 hours! Now I can really tweak this little buddy!

Amazing practice amp, closest to tube sound you can get under 250 bucks. Very light, nice looking and sounding.

Not much features, but about everything I need.

I am using Ibanez RG270, although I do not do metal. A bit of hard rock occasionally, but mostly jazz, pop. I voided warranty as soon as I got home, and went ahead to replace cheap 4558 op amp in preamp section with faster Analogue Devices OP275. Sound is very warm and clean. You can vary it a lot with just few pots on the top. Rattles a bit with deep bass, but I'll try to get to the bottom of that in the next few days. There was also a hum which I reduced by moving the transformer to the bottom of the case.

It looks reliable, from what I've seen inside.

Don't know. Warranty is void anyway...

Warmest clean sound I heard for the money (and above). Nice looks, sturdy pot caps, cool blue led on top of nicely crafted box. Throw in a Celestion speaker and a bit of tubes, and you got a winner. I was just about to buy Cube 15 when I saw this baby.

Nice, simple amp setup - but huge range of possible sounds with just a two band eq (with optional eq shift), pre and post gain. Many people mention the lack of reverb, but that doesn't bother me as I run through a ZOOM 505II.

This amp is really exceptional! Let's not forget that it's a budget practice amp and as such it excells. Clean or distorted, you get a lovely warm tone - great classic valve sound, well suited to blues and rock styles. It sounds much more than 12 Watts - especially with an external 12" speaker connected.. more than enough clout for practice, recording and even small gigs.

My only complaint about the sound is the loud buzzing from the mains transformer. I've not read this from any of the other reviews so perhaps it's not present in all amps. I've isolated the buzz by actually disconnecting the mains transformer from the main circuit board and powering it up... still hums away quite loudly. I guess the transfomer is a cheap part and the hum isn't enough to spoil the overall sound of the amp - I wonder if anyone else has seen this problem?

No problems as yet (apart from mains transformer buzz mentioned above). The circuit design is elegant... the power amplifier is implemented in a single integrated circuit, keeping component count down and thus reliailty should be good. The valve is hidden well out of harms way too which is a nice thought (it must have been tempting for the designers to put it on display as it's the main feature of the amp!)
.. I'll give it an 8 because of the transformer problem.

No idea yet!

I've not played a huge range of amps. My main amp is a Peavey Bandit 65 (with excellent Scorpion speaker). I bought the Tube 12 for recording, as for all it's up-front klout, the Peavey sound is a little thin for my liking.

On value, though, the Kustom Tube 12 rates 10/10 - there's just nothing else to come close for a budget practice amp.

AS previous reviews. This is the updated model with external speaker and line out. No reverb. But as others have noted this would increase the price and a poor reverb would compromise the sound.

Bear with me. I'll get around to reviewing this amp. I play at home just for fun and have no need for a gigging amp. For many years I used an 80s Sessionette 75 (British ss well regarded for sounding tube like) which was fine but not too good for high gain saturated sounds. I like to play any style which takes my fancy so I bought a J-Station which unfortunately just sounded muddy straight into the Session or in the fx loop. Lately I've started recording to hard disk and had been using the J-station which was extremely flexible and sounded great (I thought). However like many players I've been looking for that cranked tube sound in a package that delivers at a volume level that can be used at home. Recording is also a bonus. Having looked around there were a small number of options (Laney LC15R; Blues Junior; Cornford Harlequin etc). Cornford probably offering the real boutique tone but at #500 with no reverb - too rich for me. Also reading the reviews on this site consenus opinion was that even little amps like the Laney are too loud fof home use. In fact I've seen some knowledgeable comments that half a watt is about ideal for power stage tube distortion in a small room.

The solution? The Hughers and Kettner Tubeman three channel pre-amp. Like the Kustom Tube 12 this uses a 12ax7 pre-amp and can be used in front of an amp (again didn't work well with the Session) or for its real purpose as a direct recording device. Happy with the J-Station sounds? Not any more. The difference is like night and day. The Tubeman sounds like a real amp. Compared to the J-Station recordings now sound alive with every track sitting beautifully in the mix - very professional. The only downsides were the price (approx #250 sterling) and the fact that it doesn't work well for me in front of my amp although other reviews of the Tubeman suggest it is great direct into a pa. The other drawback is changing the tube which is a major operation which after a lot of practice I've managed to get down to 15 minutes - still a lot of hassle though. Again after reading reviews I sent off for some replacement tubes (Phillips nos and JJ Tesla 12ax7) which I tried in the Tubeman but wasn't impressed (loss of highs etc). I reverted to the orginal Ruby which the unit may have been optimised for. Like the Kustom Tube 12 the Tubeman has no reverb but I now route the Tubeman through the 'no amp' patch on the J Station but using the compression, noise gate, fx and speaker models to taste. The result is incredible for everything except for rectifier high gain (which I'm not that interested in and which the J-Station can provide anyway).

Finally to the Kustom 12. With the line out facility the Kustom can do just about the same job as the Tubeman. Again just route it through the J-Station giving you your compression, reverb and noise gate etc and you have a great real tube recording sound straight to disk. Its also so much easier to tinker with the valve. Simply loosen the two side screws holding the electronics module and remove the two top panel screws. This allows you to simply rotate the module giving direct access to the tube. First time you will need to crack the green paint sealing the aluminium tube shield. I can mow swap in my Philips and Tesla tubes in a matter of seconds giving me a variety of tones and distortion characteristics (Phillips rounder and smoother; tesla higher gain, sharper). One word of warning if you do this is the tube shield will ratlle unless secured again. As I only use this at home I just leave it off.

As an amp I would only repeat what others have said. A nice warm clean tone and overdrive tones which is great for blues and classic rock but won't get you Santana of metal. I have to admit that I don't even miss reverb that much with this little amp. Finally I appreciate what others have said about about swapping the speaker but I haven't as yet experienced any rattles of buzz.

Volume wise this li

Nothing to report. I've voided the warranty (within hours) but can't imagine much could go wrong with the solid state bits and replacing the tube is a breeze.

Haven't tried.

Overall I would rate this at 9 to 10 given the sound price and potential. If you record and have access to a J-Station (or POD) you might just be amazed at what this little amp can do for your sound at a much lower price that a H&K Tubeman. You also have the added bonus of a great little standalone amp which is ideal for home practice. What do I love about this amp? I think it was designed by (in the US I believe) by people who like to tinker. By removing a few screws you can experiment with swapping tubes and tailoring our sound within seconds.

Finally I wish we could get US gear (Fender, Gibson or this) at the prices you can in the states. $100 dollars rather than #100 Sterling is a steal.

All it needs is a good reverb.

OK. This is the rating that matters. The sound is good. I'm not ecstatic & not disappointed. The clean is warm. The OD/distortion is a little brittle & congested, but it beats your average transistor in the pre. I'll likely stick with the clean. The sound is fairly tweakable, so you can get something that works. You'll experience the shakes if you push it (not you, the amp). I'm not a big basshead so I'm not worried about speaker fartiness. The stock Celestion seems adequate. I may put in another tube at some point.

This is my initial reaction. I've used the amp once for a few hours. It feels well-built & worked as expected---good start. I think that problem with hiss others have mentioned is either a) tube needs replacing or b) a lemon. I had a Mesa Subway Rocket with really bad hiss on the clean channel. Mesa was kind enough to give me replacement tubes (& a tour of the factory!) but something possessed me to never change the tubes. I just sold the amp. I think if I bothered this hiss might've subsided, but the same voodoo that made me not change the tubes made me decide to get rid of it. I don't think I'll have this problem with the Tube 12.

The documentation is sparce. What do you need to know? Plug in, twittle a few knobs & play. It works, so no need for customer support so far.

The distortion is somewhere between most solid state amps & what you'd deem acceptable, but I'd never expect a <$100 amp to be perfect. For this price the amp is a gift. It's more question of why NOT buy one.

this is a very versitile amp. solid state amps are typically more versitile than tube amps and this one is no exception. no, i didn't forget that it has a tube, which adds some warmth to the tone, i'm just saying it is still very versitle for all types of music. it has a headphone jack, which is nice, but no cd in. i've never heard of using the cd in on amps anyways so it doesn't matter to me. i use this amp in my bedroom and it is VERY powerful. don't get caught up in people saying that, "it's 12W therefore it's weak." THAT IS COMPLETELY UNTRUE. the way it works is that you have to multiply the wattage by 10 to double the output. therefore to double the output of this 12W amp you'd need a 120W amp!!! trust me this amp is LOUD!

i use this with my telecaster. i was really surprised by the high end this amp has. pressing the "high shift" button and turning up the treble produced highs i had never experienced before. with the high eq turned up all the way it hurts my ears at low volumes. it wasn't until i started adding more bass eq (i keep it around 8) and pulled back on the high eq (around 4) that i was able to create a really beefy tone even from the treble strings. turn on the gain and you really got a heavy metal tone! this amp also produces killer clean tones. blues sound really good from my telecaster with the clean channel (amp doesn't have a clean channel per se but you can un-push the gain button to make a clean tone). i've had no problems with noise from this amp.

never gigged with this but it is definitely loud enough and since only its pre-amp is solid state it you don't have to worry about output tubes breaking, which are usually what bust before pre-amp tubes. typically you should replace your 12AX7 ($12) once a year but it really all depends on how much you play and how hard you drive the amp.

this amp is very reliable-- i've never had to take it to customer support!

if this were lost or stolen i'd definitely buy it again because this is the best amp i've ever had and it's value is second to none. this product is analagous to the marshall valvestate line, which also feature a tube pre-amp and solid state output stage, except they cost upwards of $300.

Apparently Kustom has been paying attention. The model I bought about a month ago from Musician's Friend HAS a line out jack, an external speaker jack, headphone jack. I noticed a lot of reviews said that theirs just had a headphone jack. Like others, this would be the perfect little practice amp if it had spring reverb. As far as the power, it is great for practice or certain recording applications. It looks retro-cool and it is very light weight. I think that by its self, it is well suited for You really couldn't ask for more for less than $100.00

I play a Hamer Echotone Custom electric(ES335 type) and an Ovation Celebrity Deluxe shallow bowl. Since I play mostly blues and pop-rock, the amp is well suited for such. Because of the tube in the preamp, it is great for that thick warm bluesy tone. Though the gain is relatively smooth, it will not satisfy most heavy metal players because the gain is more a "crunch" than "shred". If you like seventies rock, it works great. It will work great for metal heads too if you use a good pedal. I did replace the cheap tube that came with it. I chose the Groove Tube 12ax7r, even though it too is a Chinese made tube. It still has a warmer less brittle tone than the stock one. I will eventually replace the celestion speaker with something like the other reviews listed below. By the way, THERE IS A LOT OF GOOD ADVICE LISTED IN THESE REVIEWS! Some talked about the amp casing ratling when used at high volumes. I didn't have the rattle but I did have the speaker break up and get muddy. The clean is good and vintage sounding. I have a fender as well and you really can't compare the two. The Fender can't be beat on the clean channel. I bought this little amp because I wanted a "tube" sound for blues playing and seventies style rock. For that it deserves an 8. As one person suggested in an earlier review, turn the gain on and move it back from the 10 o'clock to 2 o'clock and crank it up to about half way and it really sounds good. If you play clean and turn the volume most of the way up you will get a mild distortion. The amp is not especially noisy if you play at moderate levels.

Since I have only had it a month, who knows. I think if you play it for what it is intended, it should last.

I have been playing off and on for years. I play mostly as a hobbyist and enjoy playing different styles of music. So what I paid, this is a great amp. It is simple and not flashy. I love the metal knobs instead of plastic. If it were stolen, I would replace it because it is a good balance of size/sound/price. It doesn't sound like a 4x12 cabinet or anything but if you buy one based on what it is suppose to be, you won't be dissapointed.

New Kustom Tube 12, I hear actually made in China through American company Kustom. Suits my needs very well...it's a smallish, 12-watt hybrid tube/solid state amp that almost sounds like someone miniaturized a Marshall tube combo. It's got a quasi-second channel that is activated with a push of the "gain" button, plus controls for bass, treble, and a mid shift switch that boosts your mids signal. Eight inch Celestion speaker, open back, big cool blue jewel light to signify power on.

As it is, the features are very good, but a completely controllable mids knob would have been nicer.

I play through this amp with an Epiphone G-400 with '57 Classic pickups in it, and it sounds great. Unlike pure solid state practice amps, which tend to get crackly when you turn the gain up, the gain on this sucker is real smooth and easy, the product of the 12AX7 tube residing within. At the highest gain settings, it sort of lacks that real heavy metal bite--it's not an amp well-suited for the heaviest of the heavy unless you run an extreme distortion pedal through it...but it's very well suited for hard rock. Think AC/DC! It's not hard at all to get that smooth, overdriven, hard rock tone with this baby.

A lot of reveiwers say that the gain "channel" on this amp is pure crap, but that's just not true. Or maybe I just happened to get an exceptionally well-built model of this amp...but when I was still using my old solid state practice amp, I could REALLY feel the difference between it and a full tube stack. It was crackly, with the bad kind of broken-up sound. But with the Tube 12, though it's definitely NOT in the league of a full tube stack (what do you expect for less than a hundred bucks?), it emulates a full tube stack a LOT more closely than any other fairly low-wattage solid state I've ever heard. Push the gain button, roll back the gain knob to about 11 o'clock, crank the volume, and experience that feel-good rock n' roll sound that kicks so much ass.

So far, while I haven't taken the liberty of beating the hell out of this amp, it's withstood everything I've used it for. It also withstood the bumpy ride over and played great right out of the box...I wouldn't be afraid to take this thing with me anywhere I went.

No opinion.

I bought the amp during a big clearance sale at Music123.com, hence the $65 price tag on it. Since it was only $65, there's no way I could give this less than a 10, because it really was a FANTASTIC value. If I had paid the street price of $99, I probably would give this amp a 9, and if I had paid the list price of $149, I would give it an 8. But if you're on a tight budget and want that tube sound, you cannot go wrong with the Tube 12. Especially if you're a novice who hasn't yet been able to fully appreciate the sounds of a full-blown big-ass tube amp, because then this amp will REALLY sound good to you. The bottom line is that this is not a Marshall stack, which is what I think a lot of people expect of it because it's got one tube in it (okay, slight exxageration, but still). However, it's a great little amp that will give you as close to that tube sound as you will ever get for $100 or less brand new.

The metal knobs on this thing are really cute and seem high quality compared to the plastic knobs you usually get. The controls feel real smooth when you turn them. It has a cool retro look and is a better bargain than a vintage Fender Champ that is usually well worn. More compact than A Vox Pathfinder which also comes with the same kind of Celestion speaker. If it had a spring reverb and an external speaker jack on the back, it would be just about perfect. Add about $45 to the price I have listed if you want an Eminence speaker installed. I listed the price that I paid for the amp in the box, not even counting postage, which was about $8.

It's definitely not a Fender Champ. The sound falls somewhere between a Vox and Marshall sound. It sounds more Marshally than Marshall's own little MG series low wattage amps when you use the gain knob for distortion. It sounds much bigger than what it really is. If you sat it behind a curtain and played it, few guitarists would guess that it is a little 12 watt amp with an 8" speaker. I put an Eminence Legend 875 in mine because it has a really good low end for an 8" speaker, and stays clean as the power is raised until clipping of the output transistor occurs. That makes it good for a chunky fat country sound which is mainly what I use it for. It now stays cleaner than a Fender Champ as the volume is raised, and much tighter in the bass. I have a mint used Rickenbacker 660 in Fireglo with 6 strings, which is similar to the Tom Petty signature model but cheaper and doesn't have the 12 tuning key headstock or 12 saddle bridge or Tom's signature on the pickguard. It came standard with the scatterwound vintage reissue pickups and it is better than any Telecaster I ever owned. It also cost a little more than any Tele I ever owned, but the sound and quality is from another planet compared to most Fenders or anything else I ever owned. The Kustom amp is good enough for practice with even a Rickenbacker, I am not embarassed to be seen with it because the sound is fine. My Champ is spending a lot more time in the closet. The Rick and the Tube 12 have a retro look that goes together quite well. I am looking for a little reverb tank I can install in the bottom, then it will be just about perfect for practice. I gig with a Fender 65 Twin Reverb reissue which is way too big and loud for a practice amp. This thing is better than any Fender practice amp they make now until you get up to around the Blues Junior which is in another category entirely since it is all tube, bigger, heavier, too loud for in the house, and more expensive. The reverb on it is junk compared to a Deluxe Reverb, so I decided to get this and try to add a little spring reverb that would be at least as good as the Blues Junior's, and still have a smaller amp better suited to practice in a home situation. The Tube 12 goes plenty loud for me at home and at practice sessions. Really easy to carry around.

I did a stint in the military as an electronics tech, so I fix things like this myself. Replaced the speaker, snugged everything down tight, and no problems so far. I cannot rate this as I know you must play an amp about 5 years to really know what it will do in the long run. One more thing, I soldered the speaker leads to the Eminence speaker, since they felt a little loose and that is a common area to have problems and can make a good speaker sound really crappy when loose.

I'll probably never use them. I think I could fix it without a schematic. It only had one tube and one output transistor that I could see. There is nothing simpler than that in a guitar amp.

This gets a 10 for what it cost. It is really about an 8 compared to the expensive boutique practice combos you can get (when you upgrade the speaker). I prefer not to spend that kind of money on a practice amp. I had hoped that somebody here had tried installing a spring reverb tank and telling what it sounded like. I'm not into the digital reverb found on most cheap practice amps. Rather do without it than go that route. I guess I will just have to order a little reverb tank and find out for myself. The Marshall AVT20 was also a bit too heavy and loud for what I needed, but reasonable at around $300. I think it's better than the Blues Junior and cheaper to keep going. It has a better reverb than the Blues Junior, for sure, but weighs even a bit more in spite of being mostly solid state. The Crate VC508 just has a painted particle board cabinet and costs almost as much as the AVT20. This is the only amp that sells for less and is smaller than the AVT20 that I find acceptable. Kustom really needs to make it available with a spring reverb then it would be serious competition for the Marshall AVT20 in a smaller package at a lower price. What about it, Mr. Kustom Man??? A plywood cabinet option would be nice also, making it tougher as a small gig amp.

12 watts of power driving a little 8" Celestion speaker. You don't get any reverb, which is a bummer since I am an old chicken pickin' country player that doesn't do those pedal things like the young kids do. Maybe I will find a cheap reverb unit on eBay that I can hook up to it. Somebody said I could get a little one for about $40 on the internet, but I forgot the name.

I have owned a lot of guitars over the years. Most of them cheap and not worth mentioning. I have an old beat up Gretsch hollow electric that can outdo them all, and that is about all that I use these days. Other than that, I just use acoustic guitars. I needed an amp that I could carry around easy and didn't cost too much. I like the sound of good tube amps, but I don't like changing all those tubes when they get old. A bad tube amp can really aggravate you. I remember years ago when the bands would start up their old tube amps and all kinds of noises would come out of those things. It was real common to see an amp fry itself if a person that was ignorant on amp maintenance owned it. I paid a bit more for this thing than most of these young kids that write most of these reviews, but I got it from a dealer I know that fixes tube amps and he put in a new old American tube and went through the amp before he sold it to me and now it's as tight as a tick. It doesn't use power tubes, so my dealer said not much trouble out of it since those are the ones that cause the most trouble. No rattles or bad noises. I don't play it turned all the way up, and I don't use the gain button. I just turn the gain knob all the way back and use the volume knob because my Gretsch sounds just the way I like it without distortion. I can make the speaker give a distressed sound if I play a lot louder than I normally do, but that was just to test it and I haven't done it since. I am real pleased with the sound for what I give for it. A friend of mine has a Fender Deluxe Reverb that sounds nicer, but he gave an insane amount of money for it also. I can buy one of these every couple of years and still come out ahead, I figure.

I have had no problems, but I know that you have to change the tube every couple of years or so.

I lost the warranty card. I think my dealer could fix it cheaper than pay postage both ways to the company.

I've heard better, but not anywhere near this price. I really like the small size and that it will play loud enough without having to get a heavier amp. At my age I have better things to do than carry around an amp that weighs over 40 pounds. For what I paid, I think this is a fine little amp. But remember mine did not come straight out of the box and was checked out by my amp dealer that put in one of his recommended tubes. I forgot the name of the tube, but it is an old American one and it sounds good.

Finally, a cheap practice amp with serious tone. Everything else you get at this price is just icing on the cake. My oldest brother said that Saul Marantz of the famous Marantz stereo gear of the 60's was involved in the design of the old Kustom amps of the 60's and 70's. They were used by Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Doors, I believe he said. I doubt if old Saul helped design this new Chinese amp that Kustom has surprised me with, but it is nice and warm sounding in the same way that my old Marantz solid state integrated stereo amp from the 70's sounds so much better than most other imported stereo amps from that time period. Plus, it lasted while most of the others died a quick death at our frat parties. I only buy old Marantz stereo amps from the 70's. A friend of mine majoring in electrical engineering owns them also. We find them dirt cheap with problems and he fixes them up. Sell most to fellow students, but kept a few of the best ones for ourselves. He helped me modify my Tube 12 amps, and said that while they are cheap and have some minor problems, they are really killer for the prices you can find them selling for. No, they do not have the tuck 'n' roll styling with colored padded vinyl coverings like the 70's amps, just a thin black tolex covering over particle board. Nothing fancy, but rather dead acoustically and no rattles. I like the cool retro look that Kustom gave this little blaster.

This is where it gets interesting. I had bought an old 4x8 cabinet from my oldest brother that was used for country music gigs. It was beat to hell looking from being hauled all over the place, but had solid plywood still, and he had recently loaded it with different models of speakers since he said that blended speakers sounded better than using all the same type speaker in a cabinet. He had installed two Eminence Legend 875, one Celestion Vintage 8, and one Jensen P8R-8 then decided to stop gigging due to job demands and sold it to me at a cost that was too good to pass up. I had remembered that SRV was rumored to have used several amps at once in his recordings, and I was wanting to give the concept a try. I decided to look for small amps with good sound that maybe had blown speakers and I could pick up for a song. The Marshall AVT20 was too expensive for my project, but it was the yardstick for tone since one of my jamming partners owned one. None of the really cheap solid state amps compared to the AVT20, but the Kustom Tube 12 held the most promise after visiting every music store in the local area. They are both hybrid designs. The Vox Pathfinder had good tone but less volume than the Tube 12. I also read in the HC reviews that some Pathfinders suffer from bad chips in the tremolo circuit which affects the loudness, plus it is not as compact as the Tube 12. My jamming partners and I accumulated four Tube 12 amps over the next couple of months while my Marantz tech played around with circuits, speakers and tubes. He made a low cost DC filament circuit from a rectifier bridge, a 470uF 25V electrolytic cap, and a 2W dropping resistor that dropped the DC voltage to 12 volts exactly (the filter cap charges to near peak AC volts, and must be dropped down to RMS or DC value according to my tech. You could use a 12V DC regulator for the ultimate mod, but a resistor will do just as well since the load is constant plus it's cheaper and less likely to fail and provides slightly reduced voltage at turn-on when the filament is cold and drawing heavy current. Trust me, my tech is a whiz on these things and a little guitar amp is like Stone Age to a good Marantz integrated amp.). It cut the hum from the heaters down tremendously and allowed high gain/volume settings without that annoying hum some people have mentioned. A remote speaker jack was added to each amp on the back panel. Each amp got one of the speakers from the 4x8 cab installed in it, and all the Celestion Super 8 speakers were mounted in the 4x8 cab for added boost at live gigs, usually in a corner for max bass effect. I always hated that guitar cabs come in a square speaker arrangement. This is for transport ease and making the sound project efficiently to the front, sort of like a telephoto lens on a camera. That is all wrong for a smaller club or frat house where you want to spread the sound horizontally while maintaining tight vertical spread. PA columns or audiophile speakers like those made by the Magnepan company in Minnesota are vertically oriented to achieve the right effect. My brother has a pair of their tall Magneplanar panel speakers, and they are AWESOME. The acoustic term is "line source" for this arrangement. I wanted that quality they had in the guitar amps, so we stacked them on top of each other. Also we put them near a wall corner in the frat house to bolster the bass and keep them from being knocked over as easy since this whole arrangement is top heavy. Pulling them away from the wall gives a more open sound. To gain access to the control knobs, we had to turn the amps on their sides for stacking. All those knobs running down the side look funky cool. We put wide strips of velcro on the sides to keep everything in place while the amps were playing and vibrating away. We sat them on a 2' tall heavy duty speaker stand that was filled with lead shot and sand owned by one of the frat bros, then threw a 20# bag of lead shot on top of the top amp

Ron can fix anything, and when he mods something, it rarely breaks down later on. Except when he says, "Hey guys, I've never tried this before, but I thought you might want to give it a shot..........". Watch out for the fireworks!

Customer support? We don't need no stinking customer support!!!

This is the most fun we have ever had with an amp. It's our own special design 4 channel/4 flavor Tower of Power. For our Christmas and New Year's gigs we decked it out in flashing christmas tree lights and set it on a beer keg. The beer had lots of fizz, and people tended to NOT want to hang out too near the keg for long periods of time. We got lots of comments on the look and sound of our stack. Our bass player has recently begun to look into small bass amps as well........

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.