| NAD: interesting bargain tube amp (Kustom Defender 15H) review |
Chuck King
IP:
Logged
Status: Preferred Member
Posts: 1,838
Join Date: 1/24/2007
 |
So, last week, Hello Music (a company that sends out e-mails every day with close-out bargains on music gear, often pretty good stuff) was offering the Kustom Defender 15H mini-stack for a ridiculously low price, and although the last thing I need is yet another amp, I couldn't pass it up. I figured maybe it will be something cool, and if not, I can sell it for what I have into it pretty easily.
It arrived on Monday. A few observations:
I remember Kustom coming out with the Defender 5H head a while ago, which was their entry into the Valve Junior market niche: a two-tube 5-watt single ended one-knob amp for pretty cheap. I didn't pay that much attention because I already have a Valve Junior. But apparently they expanded the Defender line to include a 15-watter, and 50 and 100 watt bigger channel-switchers with more features. In the last couple weeks, various dealers have been blowing them out, so they have probably been discontinued, but based on reviews, they sound like pretty good amps that were not marketed very well and just never really caught on.
The one I got is the 15-watt head and an open-back 1x12 cabinet. The head has three tubes: a 12AX7 in the preamp and two EL84s. Tube amp afficionados may realize what's odd about that complement: no phase inverter tube! The manual has a signal flow diagram which shows the two halves of the 12AX7 used for preamp gain, so the PI must be solid state. I'm not sure what effect that has---I would guess that you don't get PI distortion like you would in a full tube amp---but I don't recall ever seeing another amp with a tube preamp, tube power amp, but solid-state PI. (I have seen hybrid amps (Peavey, Music Man) that only had a tube power section (no PI tube), but the entire preamps of those amps were solid state.)
Controls are volume, damping, and tone. The damping control is a four-position rotary switch that goes from "American" to "British" and functionally seems to cut bass. I think it sounds best on "American" (most bass) or one click away. "British" is supposed to be "tighter" but to me it just sounds like there's less low end.
I've only tried it out through my open-back 1x12 with the Alnico Gold in it so far. Perhaps it would react differently through other cabinets.
Atypically for an amp in this day and age, it's a fairly low-gain affair. It has more headroom than, say, my Vox Night Train, which is sort of analogous. Even cranked up a bit, it doesn't get really fuzzed out---more crunchy. Anybody doing higher-gain stuff with this amp would need to get that from pedals. For me, who does not do high-gain shredding, it's refreshing.
Different guitars seem to have very different responses through it. I really liked it with my Strat with Lace Sensors. It did a very nice plinkety 80s quack tone---kind of like a blackface Fender, but with a little more hair than my Deluxe Reverb. But when I tried it with a humbucker guitar (SG), it was underwhelming. However, I want to try it again through a different speaker.
I also got the Defender 1x12 speaker cabinet with it, but I have not tried it yet. (I had it shipped to my office and I could only bring one of them home on the train with me at a time.) It's a nice looking cabinet, and I figured that at the very least I could use it as another speaker option. The speaker that came in it looks underwhelming---30 watts, small magnet, which is disappointing because I believe they put a decent Celestion into the combo version (not positive about that) and I know they put Vintage 30s into their bigger comobos. Now, after the Great Speaker Test, I am keeping an open mind about this speaker. You can't judge a speaker by what it looks like or the name (or lack thereof) on the back. But, I was/am prepared to put a different speaker into this cabinet.
However, one odd and annoying thing: this speaker has six mounting screws! I have encountered this before and it's a pain! Every "real" speaker I've encountered has had either four or eight, which makes them easy to swap. To mount another speaker in this cabinet, I may need to drill some holes, and I'm not sure if I could, say, install t-nuts without removing the grill cloth from the baffle, which I don't want to deal with. If (a) the stock speaker is underwhelming, and (b) it would require major surgery to mount a regular speaker, I may cut losses and sell the cab.
But here's what I think should be the lesson from all this: look around for Kustom tube amps being blown out! There are (or at least, have been very recently) some great deals to be had on them, and from what I've heard, they seem to be good amps!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My music blog: http://chucksmusicblog.blogspot.com
| Post Date: 6/27/2012 @ 10:23 am |
|
|
|
RE: NAD: interesting bargain tube amp (Kustom Defender 15H) review |
BlueMan
IP:
Logged
Status: Preferred Member
Posts: 1,131
Join Date: 1/06/2004
|
Chuck,
I'd be interested to hear your opinion of the cabinet once you get it home. I have to say that I am always amazed at your knowledge of "all things guitar" and impressed with how thorough you are in your comments.
| Post Date: 6/28/2012 @ 10:54 am |
|
|
|
|
RE: NAD: interesting bargain tube amp (Kustom Defender 15H) review |
Chuck King
IP:
Logged
Status: Preferred Member
Posts: 1,838
Join Date: 1/24/2007
|
I will report. Oh, I should also mention that the head I got has a 15w/4w switch.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My music blog: http://chucksmusicblog.blogspot.com
| Post Date: 6/28/2012 @ 12:39 pm |
|
|
|
|
RE: NAD: interesting bargain tube amp (Kustom Defender 15H) review |
Julia_343
IP:
Logged
Status: Sr. Tube Nuker
Posts: 3,058
Join Date: 9/08/2007
|
Interesting. I'm seeing a lot of these mini-amps on the market. Too bad there were almost none 5 years ago that sounded decent. I haven't blown a tube since I went full solid state w/ modeling when the POD HD came on the market.
-------------------------------------
--- Soudru�ka Julia of the Vocal Assassins
--- Disclaimer: pay no attention to tonal advice from this poster if you are under 30 and play thrash.
| Post Date: 6/29/2012 @ 1:16 pm |
|
|
|
|
RE: NAD: interesting bargain tube amp (Kustom Defender 15H) review |
Chuck King
IP:
Logged
Status: Preferred Member
Posts: 1,838
Join Date: 1/24/2007
|
BlueMan said:
I'd be interested to hear your opinion of the cabinet once you get it home.
===================================================
Okay, it took me a while to get around to spending some time with this cab, but: it's an okay cab. The other cabs I compared it to cost about double (or more) what this one would, and way more than I paid for it at the blowout sale price. So, it's not in the same league as my bigger Avatar cabs with the Celestion Alnico Gold or the G12H-30, but that would have been too much to expect.
On the other hand, the cabinet itself is smaller than the Avatars, so it's the most easily portable 1x12 cab I have.
The stock speaker is a little light on low end, and has a high-mid peak that I couldn't dial out with the one-knob tone circuit on the Defender 15H head, but whether that is a problem might also depend on what guitar you are playing through it---I didn't try a whole bunch of different ones with the stock speaker cab; just mainly my SX Tele with humbuckers and my Strat with Lace Sensors (red-silver-blue). It might be a different story with, say, a 335 style guitar.
I'm thinking of putting a Scorpion in the cab, to see how that works. I have not yet dug into it to see how much extra work would be required to install the four-bolt speaker in place of the stock six-bolt model.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My music blog: http://chucksmusicblog.blogspot.com
| Post Date: 7/6/2012 @ 7:57 am |
|
|
|
|
RE: NAD: interesting bargain tube amp (Kustom Defender 15H) review |
ax_murder
IP:
Logged
Status: Eh?
Posts: 1,706
Join Date: 4/11/2004
 |
Nice score, Chuck!
It is possible (although strange) that there simply is no phase inverter, and both power tubes are run in class A. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any production amp that was designed that way, but I'm sure I heard someone modding an amp that way at some point...
Also, to my recollection, it was never particularly desirable to produce distortion from the phase inverter; something about crossover distortion being unpleasant.
Send Comments or Complaints to:
The Coalition of Anti-Feminists
C/O Ax_Murder
Toronto, Canada
"He's French Canadian. Somedays he's Canadian, and perfectly pleasant....Today he's French." 
| Post Date: 7/9/2012 @ 10:32 am |
|
|
|
|
|
|
