Whatever happened to the Katanas? *edit* now NAD

guitargeek62

I haven’t been able to find a thread that explains why they seemingly lost favour, so bear with me please.

I’m interested in the KTN-50 as a simple home practice amp, so I suspect it’ll be perfectly good enough anyway, but what was it that stopped them being flavour of the week here?

Paul_C

I'm still using mine (at home), very happy with it.

I think that some people felt they didn't cut it live and went back to valves, others are still gigging them.

digitalscream

I think a lot of folk bought them as backups, which is why you don't hear so much about them these days - they sit mostly unused, until an emergency happens.

I also think that quite a few people who bought them as a replacement for their primary amp seem to have shifted them on, or moved them to backup status.

Teyeplayer

It’s my main home practice amp -I’ve never felt the need to rave about it though. It is very good at what it does and I find it great for nipping to friends for writing sessions if I want an electric and effects.

Bottom line is: it is very practical and great value for money -is it as good as your valve amp and preferred pedal board -not a chance.

Grumpyrocker

I play my 100 combo all the time. But we've talked lots about the amps. They still work. Nowt to say now really.

darthed1981

I think all the "it's the best amp you can buy for £170 especially for home use" talk remains fairly valid.

Probably some of the "it sounds as good as valve amps costing four times as much" sheen has come off.

Depends what you want though, if your playing style requires the response of a valve amp, no digital modelling amp will ever get you quite there.

I like to have a load of different sounds to noodle to so it's great for me.  If I were in a band I'd probably go out and buy a valve amp though, because I'm still young enough (just) to lug one around, and I'd like one.

kennedydream1980

I still use 2 50 watt combos in stereo with my covers band, I love them. I run them clean with pedals. 

p90fool

I tried and failed to get in with them in a gigging situation with very specific requirements, and posted a long and detailed thread about them a few months back. 

As a home or quiet rehearsal amp I think they're fantastic, and only sold mine because I'd spent so much on the whole amp/footswitch/cover I wanted to recoup some of the cost before it lost any more resale value. 

For your requirements? Go for it, they're excellent. 

grungebob

For a home amp where your not expecting to play much louder than a TV I don’t think you can beat them, I use mine daily , late night at very low volume levels and it sounds huge. 
The problems start when you turn them up louder, they thin out very quickly and go a bit fizzy. 

I mainly set  mine up for the classic smashing pumpkins Siamese dream sound and I love it. 

dazzajl

I’ve still not had the chance to play a Katana, would very much like to. When I was on the lookout for something to do this kind of job, I came across a Mustang 4 mk2 for a silly price and took a punt on that. 

Its a great bit of kit and being a 2x12, you loose a bit on the easily portable side but as you raise the volume to raise roof, it still sounds huge. 

Like all these ‘do anything’ amps, most of it sounds awful to me. There is a great clean, crunch and dirty sound in there though and used lightly, the effects are
workable too. 

monquixote

Still got mine, still really like it.

Given that they are cheap most people who wanted one have got one and they are fairly easy to use so you don't get a lot of how does it work theads.

nick_s

I run a 1x12 100w Katana.  It is an incredibly versatile amp, particularly if you find the time to mess with Sneaky Amps (a liveset of patches that mimic popular big name amps).  It's got plenty of grunt and is a superb value for money amp.

Jez6345789

Still have my 100 and use it everyday at home and odd jams its all fine for me.
I do understand a few people have lost faith in them but I think that's a sort of expectation thing and people like P90fool who have very specific jobs for them and in that they have come up short but as a straight forward amp for me they hit the spot nice enough cleans , crunch and drive with a few effects make it easy to dial in. 

JayGee

Still got mine, still the thing I’m most likely to fire up and plug into at home, still does rehearsals every Wednesday, still sits in the boot of the car at gigs in case of breakdown, will undoubtedly do more gigs as and when we’re booked into a tiny venue or we need an extra fast turnaround.

Still the most useful piece of music kit I’ve bought in 20 years or so...

Flink_Poyd

Had one, kept it for about 3 months and sold it. Its a good home amp but I was moving towards an ampless setup anyway. It was far too easy to be messing around editing configurations and messing around with stuff than playing. One thing that started to annoy me was it was difficult to understand when youre using the settings on the panel or a patch when you turn it on, it seemed to be a bit random sometimes.

guitargeek62

Cool, thanks chaps. I was hoping it was still doing the job for home use. My other option is to go for something more compact like a Vox Adio, THR or similar, but I like the relative simplicity of the Katanas on paper. Hopefully I’ll get chance to swing over to Andertons next weekend and try them out in person

Legionreturns

My katana head is my workhorse. It does nearly everything I do, from jams, to home practice, to my kids music sessions, to writing and recording and live stuff. Through a cab, powered speaker or PA or just on it's own using the little internal speaker. In fact, I'm writing this, sat in my tent in the Lake District, and it's plugged in a few feet away with my Trio+ in the fx loop. 

Many other amps can do one or more of these things better than the Katana, but none of them can do it all! 

There seem to be a lot of people selling on the 50s, but many of those have upgraded to the 100w variants. You rarely see a second hand head or 212 for sale, people are keeping them. 

thecolourbox

I think maybe the problem with perception of their presence etc is that, whilst I'm sure they're good at what they do, they just aren't that editing they just allow you to get on with the playing and enjoying that rather than messing about faffing trying to fit something fun in to what you're trying to do when really it's too quirky or awkward to do so. It's a bit like why people might buy a Ford Focus or a Skoda instead of a little convertible or whatnot. So once people have found out that they are useful and practical they don't need to keep talking about it

Duppy03

As an alternative to the Katana have you considered a Vox AV series? I have the AV30 and loving it.

Great sounds, simple to use and really portable. No digital business or patches and all that lark, just good old fashioned analogue circuits and channel switching.

I took it to a practice last week and was expecting the shine to come off a bit in a band situation, especially as it only has a 10” speaker. But it sounded really good, I was very impressed.

midlifecrisis

im still gigging my ktn 100 combo. been a year now. a couple of weeks ago i was feeling it was sounding a bit thin and fizzy but then saw a video someone had made of our gig and i was really happy with it.

guitargeek62

Duppy03 said:

As an alternative to the Katana have you considered a Vox AV series? I have the AV30 and loving it.

Great sounds, simple to use and really portable. No digital business or patches and all that lark, just good old fashioned analogue circuits and channel switching.

I took it to a practice last week and was expecting the shine to come off a bit in a band situation, especially as it only has a 10” speaker. But it sounded really good, I was very impressed.

I haven’t really - I’ve lost track of the product lines with Vox these days, we seem to have had so many generations of valvetronix, valve reactor, etc series from them that I don’t pay much attention to the new releases.

That said, I tend to use Vox AC models as my core sound (with a high gain model for ch.2) and have liked earlier VT generations, so I also have my eye on the Adio for practicality reasons, and will now add these AV ones to the demo list too, thanks!