Anyone tried a Boss Katana 50?

Christophe

Really fancy one of these but would be interested to hear the thoughts of folks who've hand their hands on one.

professorben

Yep, lightweight, sounds brilliant.
for the money I can't say I know of a better amp.

Christophe

Thanks @professorben that's the sort of feedback I was hoping for 

scarry67

YouTube demos of Roland Blues Cube Hot sound excellent to me, but can the much cheaper Katana compare? I can't work out how digital costs vary so much...

professorben

scarry67 said:

YouTube demos of Roland Blues Cube Hot sound excellent to me, but can the much cheaper Katana compare? I can't work out how digital costs vary so much...

Tried it, didn't like it, woolly and a bit bland.
the Katana was a far better tone, but I think that might be due to my preference for more modern tones, or at least the Katana's ability to reproduce modern tones.

menamestom

I've got the 100, sounds pretty good so far, although only used it on the 0.5w setting at home. I prefer the clean setting with the built in drive pedals over the driven amp settings, but so far so good.  Some good built in effects and sounded good with my pedalboard.    

Nikko

Yeah, I've got the 50 and love it. Best £165 I've spent in a while. Lovely warm clean tones, appears to take pedals well, and with a little tinkering has a very nice driven sound.

usedtobe

Only seen demo and read opinions on here. Very tempted, myself, I must say..

longshins

Will the 50 do pub gigs?

GrahamG

longshins said:

Will the 50 do pub gigs?

Also interested in this.

andyoz

I'm just about to order the 100w head. A few peoples who opinion I respect are raving about them.  Also thought this video was funny/impressive.

cbilly22

GrahamG said:

longshins said:

Will the 50 do pub gigs?

Also interested in this.

Easily. I used the 100 for a few gigs before Xmas and never had it past about 4 in a relatively loud 5 piece, with a very amped up harmonica, bass, 2nd guitar and crisp but not deafening drummer. 

andyoz

Why does 100w head cost more than 100w combo?

monquixote

andyoz said:

Why does 100w head cost more than 100w combo?

It's also a combo as it's got an internal speaker and it's got MIDI.

That being said it does seem a bit steep.

andyoz

Didn't realise it had Midi as an extra.

Nikko

I'd definitely agree with the pub gig comment above. This is a very loud little Amp.

andyoz

I saw some pictures of the 5" driver they use in the head...it's a chunky little thing and they run it at 30w so not a token gesture at all by the looks of it.  Would do me for quiet practice.

GrahamG

Nikko said:

I'd definitely agree with the pub gig comment above. This is a very loud little Amp.

I think the Pub Gig comment was about the 100,but i'm very often wrong.  

Nikko

Yes, it was, but the comment was that the 100 wasn't pushed anything past number 4 on the volume, so the 50 should do it easily.

cbilly22

Nikko said:

Yes, it was, but the comment was that the 100 wasn't pushed anything past number 4 on the volume, so the 50 should do it easily.

My comment and if I was being honest I don't think I actually got it to 4, maybe 3.5. The 50 would have been more than enough even given the reduced cabinet size.

Interestingly (and @ICBM would probably explain this better), the power consumption of the 100 is 77w while the 50 draws 47w, I imagine (guessing tbh) this would make the smaller amp closer to its claimed output than the 100, meaning there is even less of a difference in perceived volume than the 50w and 100w claims suggest.

Apologies in advance to all amp/electrical types who have just slapped their forehead in disbelief at my stupidity

ICBM

cbilly22 said:

Interestingly (and @ICBM would probably explain this better), the power consumption of the 100 is 77w while the 50 draws 47w, I imagine (guessing tbh) this would make the smaller amp closer to its claimed output than the 100, meaning there is even less of a difference in perceived volume than the 50w and 100w claims suggest.

No, because there is a fixed draw for the preamp and a small fixed loss in the power supply. At a guess it looks like 17W, with the '50W' power section using 30W and the '100W' using 60W, which would give those figures with the same relative exaggeration.

Or is it? I always assumed that the power consumptions were correct (because I thought they had to be to comply with regulations) and the outputs were exaggerated (because it's a good marketing approach), but when I measured my little 200W Ampeg that claims to draw only 150W, I found it was the other way round - the power output was genuine, and the draw was actually 288W.

So without measuring the Boss, I don't know. It's possible they're allowed to rate the consumption as an average in normal use, or something.