Kustom Defender V-15 Owners club

[dgr888]

I have one and it's a great amp for the money. OK who else?????

[dqami]

I'll join! I've had mine for only a month now. First thing I did was swap out the Chinese tubes for some oldies. Sounds much better. I mainly play it on the 4 watt setting through a B52 4x12 at around 10 o'clock. If it came with a separate gain control and reverb it would be perfect. I used to have the 5H which I sold in order to get the 15H as I wanted the tone control. That one I rarely played past 9 o'clock as it was very loud at that point.

Best deal on a tube amp and great sounding as well once you change the tubes. I was tempted to buy the 50 watt combo when they were being blown out but I knew I would never use that much power so I talked myself out of it.

[Arbiter]

Where'd you folks pick 'em up? I'm thinking about the combo in a very serious way.

[dgr888]

goy mine off ebay from soundcitystudios as an open box for $225.00. Seen one recently there for $199.00 from some other outfit but I don't remember who. Can't go wrong with this amp especially if you find one at the price or less than I did. I actually was pleasantly surprised and still use it with my 66' Fender princeton reverb. great combination..BTW sounds good even using the stock tubes it came with.

[dqami]

got mine off Ebay. You can find them on Amazon.

[Arbiter]

Ordered. I need a small amp that is just loud enough for small gigs, hoping this will do the trick.

[littlericky]

I'll join. Much better built than the AC4TV. Wish the cab wasn't mdf, that adds a little weight to it. There is a nice range of sounds in the box. On eBay from $200 to $400. For $400 I'd rather have an AC15 or Blues Jr, the Kustom is limited in comparison.

[Arbiter]

Got it. NAD posted. It can be made to work real nice.

[dqami]

Originally Posted by Arbiter

Got it. NAD posted. It can be made to work real nice.

Read your post on the other forum and glad you are bonding with it. I own the head and find it interesting that yours distorts quickly. Must be the Celestion as I have to turn mine up to a loud volume before I get breakup, especially w/ single coils. I'm running into either a B52 4x12 or a single Legend (not the Brit version).

Congrats on your purchase!

[Arbiter]

Originally Posted by dqami

Read your post on the other forum and glad you are bonding with it. I own the head and find it interesting that yours distorts quickly. Must be the Celestion as I have to turn mine up to a loud volume before I get breakup, especially w/ single coils. I'm running into either a B52 4x12 or a single Legend (not the Brit version).

Congrats on your purchase!

Thanks! Not the speaker that's the issue, but the preamp tube. I tried it with my other 12" speaker, somewhat better but the same basic problem. Going to also try a better flavor of 12AX7 in it, but I'm convinced the lower gain tube is the way to go. I'd like to try one of the heads sometime.

These are, with a bit of work, great amps.

[Arbiter]

Turns out that if you like clean, the 12AY7 is the preamp tube to go with this amp. Getting a real neat tone with it that I can only describe as very "American". Doesn't sound like any other EL84 amp I've heard.

Tried a 5751 - too much gain and very brittle sounding. The 12AT7 works and would be good for those who like a fatter, more on-the-edge-of-breakup sound. The 12AU7 was, as I suspected it was going to be, too lo-gain to do any good.

EDIT: Oh yeah, also got JJ power tubes. Use those in everything I've got.

[Tee1]

Hey, what's the 'British' bass response like?

Is the bass response selector any good?

And what's this amp like through its own 10" speaker? (a Celestion G10N-40?)

[Tee1]

So i ended up getting one of these, soon after. I'm slowly breaking it in. For the price, it's pretty good. Decent Celestion (G10N-40), supposedly designed to be a chimier version of the G10 Greenback, according to Celestion. Simple, but also versatile, with the bass response switch, 15/4 watts, 2 speaker outputs (switchable to 4,8 & 16 ohms). So i guess you can run the combo with an 8 ohms extension cab for example and set it to 4ohms. I haven't tried the direct out yet.

Sounds great with a good OD/distortion pedal. I currently like running a DOD OD 250 or my new MXR CSP script Distortion+ with my Tele. I swapped the out the Chinese valves for a Tung Sol 12AX7 and 2x JJ/Tesla EL 84s.

[Tee1]

I had a spare Jensen P10R, so i decided to install it. The amp has taken on a much more tweedy vibe now. Pretty cool. There was too much clean headroom for my liking, with the Celestion (cool if that's what you want), but i prefer dirtier amps. The alnico speaker really adds more to the break up tone now. It's now brighter, but sounds awesome on my Tele's neck pup. Still awesome with the Dod OD 250.

[20721]

Got two of them a while back, run them as a stereo pair. I was looking for decent cleans, as I use stompboxes for the dirt anyway. Had the same issues that Arbiter above did. Tried the 12AY7, just a touch too weak. Got a pair of 12AT7 NOS, use the Sovtek "M" military-grade EL84s and that is the ticket to ride. Sweet, tubey goodness, stays clean but really sweet sounding.

Two things of note: these amps can get giggably loud, in spite of them being pretty small and very light - what's not to like, right?? Also, the four-position bass control is a single most useful tone switch I've ever run across on any amp, anywhere, at any price. The guy who designed that - a gentleman from Peavey whose name escapes at the moment - is a genius.

[Tee1]

Ok, so i put the Celestion back in and i think it is actually better. I think this amp is a bit like a mini Fender Band Master.

[Tee1]

Actually, the more time i spend with it, the more it reminds me of a Hiwatt, particularly when cranked up a bit and using my Les Paul Jr. It has a chunk and grind to it. Also the cosmetics of the combos, like the grill cloth used, is a nod towards Hiwatt imo. YMMV.