AquariumRock
Tele-Meister
I’ve been in the market for a new amp for home practice and recording for a while. I eventually bought a Katana 50 from my local guitar store, half on impulse. I knew I wasn’t going to really know for sure if it was for me just trying it out. I had to have the amp and live with the experience of playing through it for a while before I could really know if we were vibing. You don’t really know if your room mate is crazy until you’ve lived together for a while. That kind of logic.
I’ve had the Katana for about two months now and I’ve never been wowed by any part of it. Except for the price, I suppose. I paid for this what I paid for a Line 6 Spyder when I was in high school. And the “bad” presets on the Katana (anything above “crunch”) are still miles ahead of that freaking “insane” setting on the Spyder.
I’ve played with tone studio and realized how much I am just not about tweaking settings on a computer. That’s not how I like to interact with my instrument. Not a huge deal. I got “good enough” out of just the clean channel on the Katana, and loaded the sneaky amps models of the Jazz Chorus and the Fender Twin to two of my channel buttons and called it good.
That all changed tonight. My wife, lovely as she is, got me a very nice pair of headphones to replace some old Audio Technicas lost some months ago. Primarily for listening to music but also as a means for extra quiet late night practicing. I had heard tell of how underwhelming the Katanas headphone out sounded, so I was ready to be underwhelmed even relative to the otherwise “meh” attributes of the Katana, but holy mother of trout.
I cannot overstate how bad the sound through the headphones was. It was a nostalgia kick. It sounded like a low quality MP3 you’d pinch off LimeWire. It’s like the engineers at Boss went to the brass and asked “So do you want it to be as piercing as a glass seagull’s death rattle, or as muffled as a walkie talkie at the bottom of a pot of mashed potatoes?” And the big shots said “yes.”
A cooler head might prevail, but right now, I’m ready to call it and move on. I’m not going to stay married to an amp I didn’t even really get a honeymoon period with. It’s fine, I don’t despise it. It just isn’t a great fit for me. If anyone has suggestions, I’d be very interested in hearing them. My criteria:
1. Decent headphone sound. I will be playing a large part of the time through headphones. But not always, so the exclusive headphone amps aren’t for me.
2. Sounds good at low volumes. And I mean low. If I add any gain to the Katana, I switch to the .5w setting. An attenuator would be awesome.
3. I don’t care about models or tweak ability. I’m open to it, but I don’t want to have to get an app or connect to a computer to get the most out of it.
4. Stuff costs what it costs, so I’m not setting a super firm price limit, but I probably won’t be spending more than 1k anytime soon.
That’s it. Like I said, open to suggestions. I play mostly clean, some reverb and delay. I’m not precious about tone. I’m at the point where I’m after something that sounds of a certain quality, and acts as a solid base to build off of while I get better. I’ve recently had a Mustang LT25 that I didn’t get on with very well. Just didn’t care for the sound through the speakers so much. The Katana sounded better in the room than the LT but much worse through headphones. I also had an Orange Crush 35RT that was just way too loud to get an appreciable sound out of. I know they make smaller ones but I worry about speaker size at a certain point. Orange makes a really underrated clean amp sound, imo.
Before buying the Katana I’d been considering:
The Katana Artist. The additional knobs and improved speakers were big factors. I’m assuming it would suffer from the same headphone issues though so I imagine I can just cross this right off.
Fender GTX100. Was personally worried Id spend a little too much time in menus. Though the idea of lining up a bunch of presets that are just plain amps is kind of enticing.
Jazz Chorus 22. Love the classic JC sound. Bit worried the magic would be lost on the smaller model and speakers but the 40 ain’t tame able to living room volume.
Briefly considered the Iridium as well.
Any advice I’d appreciate. Sort of lost at this point but I’m 99% sure I’m over the Katana now.
I’ve had the Katana for about two months now and I’ve never been wowed by any part of it. Except for the price, I suppose. I paid for this what I paid for a Line 6 Spyder when I was in high school. And the “bad” presets on the Katana (anything above “crunch”) are still miles ahead of that freaking “insane” setting on the Spyder.
I’ve played with tone studio and realized how much I am just not about tweaking settings on a computer. That’s not how I like to interact with my instrument. Not a huge deal. I got “good enough” out of just the clean channel on the Katana, and loaded the sneaky amps models of the Jazz Chorus and the Fender Twin to two of my channel buttons and called it good.
That all changed tonight. My wife, lovely as she is, got me a very nice pair of headphones to replace some old Audio Technicas lost some months ago. Primarily for listening to music but also as a means for extra quiet late night practicing. I had heard tell of how underwhelming the Katanas headphone out sounded, so I was ready to be underwhelmed even relative to the otherwise “meh” attributes of the Katana, but holy mother of trout.
I cannot overstate how bad the sound through the headphones was. It was a nostalgia kick. It sounded like a low quality MP3 you’d pinch off LimeWire. It’s like the engineers at Boss went to the brass and asked “So do you want it to be as piercing as a glass seagull’s death rattle, or as muffled as a walkie talkie at the bottom of a pot of mashed potatoes?” And the big shots said “yes.”
A cooler head might prevail, but right now, I’m ready to call it and move on. I’m not going to stay married to an amp I didn’t even really get a honeymoon period with. It’s fine, I don’t despise it. It just isn’t a great fit for me. If anyone has suggestions, I’d be very interested in hearing them. My criteria:
1. Decent headphone sound. I will be playing a large part of the time through headphones. But not always, so the exclusive headphone amps aren’t for me.
2. Sounds good at low volumes. And I mean low. If I add any gain to the Katana, I switch to the .5w setting. An attenuator would be awesome.
3. I don’t care about models or tweak ability. I’m open to it, but I don’t want to have to get an app or connect to a computer to get the most out of it.
4. Stuff costs what it costs, so I’m not setting a super firm price limit, but I probably won’t be spending more than 1k anytime soon.
That’s it. Like I said, open to suggestions. I play mostly clean, some reverb and delay. I’m not precious about tone. I’m at the point where I’m after something that sounds of a certain quality, and acts as a solid base to build off of while I get better. I’ve recently had a Mustang LT25 that I didn’t get on with very well. Just didn’t care for the sound through the speakers so much. The Katana sounded better in the room than the LT but much worse through headphones. I also had an Orange Crush 35RT that was just way too loud to get an appreciable sound out of. I know they make smaller ones but I worry about speaker size at a certain point. Orange makes a really underrated clean amp sound, imo.
Before buying the Katana I’d been considering:
The Katana Artist. The additional knobs and improved speakers were big factors. I’m assuming it would suffer from the same headphone issues though so I imagine I can just cross this right off.
Fender GTX100. Was personally worried Id spend a little too much time in menus. Though the idea of lining up a bunch of presets that are just plain amps is kind of enticing.
Jazz Chorus 22. Love the classic JC sound. Bit worried the magic would be lost on the smaller model and speakers but the 40 ain’t tame able to living room volume.
Briefly considered the Iridium as well.
Any advice I’d appreciate. Sort of lost at this point but I’m 99% sure I’m over the Katana now.
