Kustom Tube 12A Combo

The perfect amp to start with. it has all you need for a good price.

The sound with the original tube is great on CLEAN but only medium on
DISTORTION,but as some others mentioned already ,it is more a blues sound that??s good with this amp.
I bought the amp 6 months ago and today i changed the tube for a
sovtek 12ax7wb and i was surprised how the sound became more clearer
and warmer without those little disturbing noises i had before, with the
chinese tube. To have a good clean sound, i turned the volume of my CORT
Z42 a little lower and it sounds better and sweeter than before .By the way, on distortion it??s also mutch better.

After 6 months ,everything is still fine.

So far i had no need for a support.

It??s PERFECT after changeing the tube (just 4 little screws )
For a good distortion sound you better use a pedale , i use a Little
Big Muff.For home use there is probably no better amp for this price.
For all the germans like me , who will read this,,Das Ding ist der
absolute HAMMER, es gibt keiner bessern Amp in der Preis-Klasse,,.

I dont own it, but I have played it a lot and i like it. The features are covered by others. The best feature probably is the line out for speakers. Wish it had an equalizer or something, but for the price, its great, and with a pedal, im sure you can get a vide variety of tones from it.

This amp has a beautifull clean and a very good distortion. The distortion is great for blues, classic rock, jazz and with some adjustments, it becomes good for hard rock. I havent tried the switch, but I think its ok. They explain it as a UK/USA tone type switch. Overall, the clean is great, the distortion isnt muddy and its better than a lot of solid state practise amps.

I dont know, because I only played it in the shop :P ... I looks solid enough to last for 3-4 years. I would gig with it with a speaker or without it but in a small area.

I dont know... Eh, but the warranty lasts for 3 years, and thats awesome! Its actually a guarantee that you will have it for 3 years! What more could you ask for?

I've been playing for about 5 months and im kind off new, but I can recognise good stuff ;) . If it were stolen or lost, I would buy it again! When I learn to play guitar really well, im gonna buy an all-valve amp and hopefully a Gibson SG standard ;) ... I compared it to Marshall MG15CD, Marshall MG10KK and Roland Cube 15 and it has a better clean and a less muddier distortion than all of theese. Its so awesome, for the price! I love the bluesy/classick rock tone and hate nothing. I wish it had an equaliser, but hey, its like 100???. The best practise amp ever! Buy it, you wont regret it!

Others have covered the features... basically a little practice amp with a couple of nice features like a pre-out and external speaker output.

I got this because I wanted a little practice amp that I could play at very low volumes. For that purpose it sounds pretty good. Better tone than most little practice amps. Nice clean tones. To me the gain channel sounds crappy.... I have no use for it, and since it doesn't have a foot switch you're better off with a pedal anyway. The Shift switch does essentially what the Fat switch does on my Blues Jr. I plugged in the 12" speaker from my Blues Jr. and that opened it up a lot and gave it more volume... actually can get pretty close to the Blues Jr. sound, but of course adding an additional speaker sort of defeats the purpose why I got it. I changed the stock tube for a Tung Sol, which opened up the sound and seems to drive it better.

I like the way my single coil guitars sound through it better than my humbuckers. It seems to handle pedals OK. My rating of 8 is compared to other little practice amps.

Seems built pretty solid.

???

For a little practice amp, it does fine. It seems solid and less gimmicky than some of the crappy little amps out there. Has a usable range of tones even at low volume. For the money this is definately one of the better buys out there.

This is an update to my review - I should mention that you need to have the treble and bass knobs set at maximum on this amp - otherwise it sounds quite boxy and not very inspiring. With both tone knobs maxed, it sounds very nice.

I bought this new several months back. I like to think of it as a nice palette for all my effects, but it sounds great on its own. It sounds better now than when I bought it - due to 1) having broken in the speaker and 2) switching the Chinese tube for a Tung Sol. I'd recommend switching out the tube immediately. It's a big improvement.

Features:

12W of power - it has plenty of volume, but it sounds good at low volume
8" Celestion speaker - Not as open-sounding as a 12" speaker obviously, but still very nice once broken in.
12AX7 preamp section - makes a noticeable difference!
Gain and volume controls - pretty obvious what they do
Selectable Gain and Mid Shift functions - having a gain switch is great - I never use the mid shift switch
Low/high EQ controls - effective
Headphone jack - Not the greatest - it works okay, but it sounds much better through the amp's speaker
Line out jack - sends a line level signal while not muting the speaker
Speaker jack - haven't tried it, but I'd love to hear this through a nice speaker cabinet

It's got a lot of features considering it's a tube amp and costs only $100. Many more features than the Fender Champ or Epiphone Valve Junior, for sure.

I'd compare the clean sound to a Fender Champ. I tried one of the new ones, and my Kustom sounded similar but fuller, and can go much louder, and has two channels, and has treble and bass controls. I'd recommend the Kustom - it's a great little practice amp.

Changing the tube improved the dirty sound. With lots of gain, it's a unique sort of sound. Kind of reminds me of a Supro. But, what I normally do with this amp is set it on the dirty channel, but back off the gain so it's 99% clean. I find that when I use my overdrive and distortion pedals, the amp reacts much more naturally on that channel than on the clean channel. In conjunction with some great dirt pedals, I've really gotten some fantastic sounds this way. This is also the optimal way to use it if you want to use a reverb pedal without the problems of running reverb into the front end of a dirty amp.

There is a bit of background humming, but nothing major. Could be because I live in an old house with old wiring.

So far so good. You could probably gig with it if you used an extension cab. It's not rock solid, but it's not flimsy either.

No idea

Well worth the $100. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat. I wish it had reverb and an effects loop, but for what I paid, I can't complain.

For the record, this is my current rig:

Fender Tele

Boss PS-5
Monte Allums SD-1
OLC Supreaux
ROG Tonemender
OLC Professor Tweed
OLC Umble
Modified Big Muff
Modified Electric Mistress
Multi-effect

Kustom Tube 12a

I realize that's a lot of pedals into a little amp, but I'm really getting some fantastic sounds with this rig. It's a great recording setup.

This amp sucks at everything. It was my first amp and when I buy it I was very happy with the sound and all that stuff but with time... it became to me the worst amp ever. Perfect for people that want to make some noise with a guitar cuz that is what this amp do, making loud and horrible noise

The sound if bad. Weak distortion and the clean sound is basic. If you want to play live with this, you just can't.

Never had problems

Don't buy this even if you are a beginer at guitars and amps. Save some money and get some info before

2 Channels - Clean and Gain, tone shift, Single input, Headphone jack, Line out, Speaker out, High and Low eq, 8" Celestion, 12ax7 pre-amp, 12 watts. Can be plugged into a quadbox if you want more!!!

Sounds fantastic if you have the 'shift' button turned off. Can do everything from spanking clean to hard rock. Metal heads will need pedals. Vibrating coming from the back, but i'm sure a decent screwdrive will fix that :)

I've had it for an hour so no idea.

No idea.

Great amp, great price, not a lot to hate about it :)

This review is just to update with a suggestion for settings. If using this amp as a standalone, with stock 12AX7 tube, the gain will sound a little harsh on almost any setting... unless you dime the bass and treble controls, just max 'em out. Then it sounds VERY nice. Note also that the line out feature makers this a GREAT amp for small stages; you can use it as a monitor while the sound guy ppicks up the same sound you get practicing on it.

Been using it alone and with a 112 Laney cab with Celestion speaker, and ZOOM G2.1u modeller on the front end. The Zoom has very nice clean sounds, but the built in gain is weak on any setting. By using the gain control on the Kustom, I can thicken and overdrive the clean settings of the Zoom, and it really sounds great. That means I have practice gear that I can carry to gigs on the subway or on my back. If using a modeller I suggest you set bass and treble to 12 o'clock then adjust according to setting. It's hummed a bit in some rooms, so one point off.

The speaker's still fine, the pots are fine, it starts up when you start it. I use it without a backup amp, but hey, my modeller is a backup.

Wrote to them and they never wrote back. But the product is pretty suppportive.

See my review below. This amp is so much value for the price that I may buy another to have a spare. Easy to use, sounds good alone and great with modellers, line out for small stage work.... any solo blues or jazz player is advised to check this device out. It has a more distinctive, tubelike sound than the Roland Cube series (which I think are great), you can mod by changing tubes if you like, you can practice AND perform on it, it's inexpensive, it's incredibly light.

Hybrid 12 watt guitar combo featuring 8" Celestion speaker and 12AX7 tube preamp. Controls Gain (and switch on/off), Low, High, Shift (on/off), Volume and Power (on/off). Connections: Input, Headphone, Speaker Out and Line Out. An effects loop would have been nice, but can't grumble at the price.

Using with various guitars, Yamaha SG500T and SE350, Hamer double cut, Jackson Professional Dinky, DeArmond Jetstar, old JV serial Squier Strat, Gibson Ace Frehley Les Paul.

I bought this little amp as I was fed up using amp modellers (Boss GS-10, V-amp etc.) and wanted to go back to recording mic'ed up guitar amps in my demo studio. It might just be me, but this little monster of an amp really delivers fantastic tone. The clean and slightly overdriven sounds it is capable of just confirm to me that no amp modeller can ever truly capture the sound of an amp/speaker moving air.

I use it with a Boss GT-3 effects unit and am capable of achieving a vast array of sounds, which when close mic'ed with a dynamic mic sit really nicely in the mix.

Haven't really had it long enough to comment, but it seems very sturdy.

No need to contact Kustom.

I have been playing guitar for 22 years, amp wise I also own a Vox Brian May Special (nice for a one trick pony) and a marshall 50 watt solid state combo which has been my main amp for about twenty years.

This amp really allows me to record some excellent authentic sounding guitar tones without upsetting the neighbours. I would definitely replace this if something were to happen to it.

http://www.myspace.com/jonpaulallen
http://www.jonpaulallen.co.uk

see my previous review - regarding mods to this amp

after my last modding it is really getting there

as standard it is FINE for practice etc

they sent me a schematic - bet they didn't realise i was going to tweak it though!!

I have placed an extra GAIN control in the power amp section as it is basically a power op-amp (fits in the hole left by the daft blue LED lens - which then rests against the chrome swith button and still indicates ON-ness). I have a 4 way rotary switchable set of 3 clipping diodes and an unclipped overdrive position. The shift button now also introduces a cathode bypass resistor to the second triode stage (100nF) to boost all freq above about 1kHz. And when the GAIN swith is out the first triode stage cathode load is reduced (ie gain increases a little so it's easier to overdrive) by adding a parallel resistor. BUT !!!! the best mod I think was adding a switch to allow the speaker to be put in series with a string of little (3 or4) low voltage low wattage bulbs e.g 6V 0.18A.

With the bulbs in series with the speaker you can crank gains etc up full to get real valve overdrive (as opposed to diode clipped nastiness) and still have a quiet low / level so as not to disturb neighbours etc.. AND remember they are non-ohmic so they pose low resistance until they heat up and then as they get hotter their resistance increase - giving a nice soft compression type of effect

IF anyone is interested in getting info on what I did (i can't promise instant reply!!) contact me on rush-home-mike@ntlworld.com BUT please remember playing with HV powered stuff is only for those people who have the necessary experience / knowledge and can pose severe risks. Alternatively anyone who has modded their TUBE 12A and wants to re their finding drop me a line as I don't think I can have scratched more than the surface of what you can do with these amps "mod-wise"