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32 Kustom Coupe [message #7231]

Mon, 24 July 2006 03:34

QModer
Messages: 413
Registered: June 2003

Senior Member

I just bought a 36 Kustom coupe. I know that Gene has one. Anybody else?

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7239 is a reply to message #7231]

Thu, 27 July 2006 11:12

chicagobill
Messages: 2005
Registered: April 2003

Senior Member

Q:
I read your praises of your new amp on the other thread, and I was wondering what the build quality was like.

I have not seen one of these new amps in person, and wondered what you and the others here thought about it.

Where are these being manufactured?

Bill

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7240 is a reply to message #7231]

Thu, 27 July 2006 13:00

stevem
Messages: 4739
Registered: June 2004
Location: NY

Senior Member

They are made in china, but designed here(USA). If they are made anything like the re-issue tuck an roll amps that I have, then the chassie is a little on the flimsy side(read screwed together with the normal loctite/nail polish on the head of the screws instead of a lock washer)but in any tube amp some of the most important items are the wiring and the componet layout and this amp is on a circuit board so the componet layout is a done deal.The tubes themseleves, the tube sockets, and the output transformer.If I had one heres what I would do.Replace V1, the first preamp tube with a N.O.S RCA 7025 tube,replace the 2 6L6GC output tubes with Groove tubes GE replica 6L6GC tubes in a number 5 to 7 rating, then if the output transformer is not a semi torroidal type then as soon as my warranty was up I would get a interleaved output from the folks at Mjotone.

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Re: 36 Kustom Coupe [message #7241 is a reply to message #7240]

Fri, 28 July 2006 11:08

QModer
Messages: 413
Registered: June 2003

Senior Member

It states on the back of my amp that it is made in the U.S.A. with some outsourced parts. Which I'm sure means foreign tubes. Its got a full three year warranty for the amp but only ninety days on the tubes.
I don't expect the tubes to last two long either. I had to get a complete set of four 6L6's for my Fender Twin when two died I replaced all four. I got a new Pro Jr and had a preamp tube go bad almost as soon as I got it.
I would have used the guarantee on it but I would have just gotten another one just like it so thats why I chose to buy my own instead of getting another Fender one. Thats not saying any thing against Fender really new Vox amps are the same thing as are most new amps. The tubes go pretty quickly.
The quality seems pretty good on my amp. The tubes are encased in a metal grillled box. So they are well protected but unlike some amps you can get to them pretty easily. The tuck n roll on the top looks as good as the old ones do. The Tolex in the other areas is not filmsy either.
Vox tolex is like toliet paper it tears so easy. I am not cutting down the new Vox amps because the old ones had the same stuff for tolex. I have a couple of Vox amps and I'm very careful with them.
The speaker has real spade connectors on it. Some new amps have their's soldered into place with no spades. Not fun if you have to change a speaker. The amp also has and output jack for the main speaker as well as and extension speaker with and impedance switch to match your load with what ever speaker cab load you use as and extension cab.
The old Kustom's did not have that. The internal speaker is also on a quarter inch jack so its easily disconnected too if you should want to just use external speakers only or if you wanna change the internal speaker.
It has a a line out for a second amp or to a Pa. That also has a ground loop lifter switch attached to it. This amp has a lot of features that my old Kustom's don't have. If you look at it a bit its easy to see its heritage.
If the tuck n roll on top is not enought to tell it by. Then it has the standard old Kustom badge on the front. It does'nt say Ross inc or any thing like that in small letters in it but otherwize its pretty accurate even down to the proper size just like my old Kustom's.
It uses the old Kustom style knobs. It uses the big style knobs for the master volumes and main volumes for each channel. The tone controls are the smaller Kustom knobs. It has a plexi control panel just like the old Kustom's.
It has jeweled pilot light too and not just and LED like a lot of new amps do today. It has the same type of grille as the old amps but its surrounded by silver cord that looks kinda cool. The emmience speaker has a chrome dome that looks like my old chrome dome speakers in my old orginal 2x12/2x10 Kustom 200. The silk screening is underneath the plexi panel like the old amps.
The foot switch is made in china. But its brushed aluminum, it is heavy, and looks cool. One of the features that I really like is that 10 Db boost. It works on the clean channel just like the gain channel. It really comes in handy when your playing a song thats clean and you can just hit it and get more volume but still be clean sounding.
The more you look at the amp the more things that you see that are like the old amps. If it were totally tuck n roll it would be prefect. But it is a step in the right direction.
If they are well received who knows we might get and all tuck n roll amp down the line a bit. Kustom of course never made a tube Kustom back in the day. So this one feels a need for guitarist.
If they were to make a bass amp in tuck n roll with simular features it would be a hit too. One of the things that nice about it is the reverb too. Lots of new amps don't have near the level of reverb it has.
My Fender amp's reverb is only slightly better. This Coupe's is way better than a lot of new amps I've heard though and some I own. If it has a draw back at all other than not being completely tuck n roll. Its too loud LOL..
You will need to use this puppy in a medium to large venue LOL.. I would like to see seperate tone controls for the gain channel though. I put that down for list of improvements where they asked fo suggestions on my warranty card.
Its not a Bud Ross amp. But it is the best Kustom to come along in a long long time.

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7242 is a reply to message #7231]

Fri, 28 July 2006 12:41

chicagobill
Messages: 2005
Registered: April 2003

Senior Member

Q:
Thanks so much for the complete review!

I'm glad to hear that they are made in the USA, or at least assembled here. It sounds like maybe they learned a lesson from the earlier Chinese made models, about build quality.

I agree with what you say about most Vox amps. Even the Thomas Organ era coverings weren't very roadworthy. I can't wait to see how well the Chinese made stuff holds up in the long run.

As far as your Fender tube problem goes, I think that you should have returned it for warranty service. Fender does a reasonable job of quality control, and if there are problems with a supplier, they will change who they purchase from. Tubes are probably the weakest link in modern amps, so a bad one sometimes does get through QC. As we all know, it's all about numbers now. If they don't know about the tube that failed in your amp, they might not find out about a problem that should be addressed. I work for a Fender dealer, so my views are biased, but I think that any manufacturer should be allowed to fix their mistakes. Or at least know about them. If they don't know how good or bad something is performing in the field they can't be expected to update or redesign faulty products.

Oops, my nose is bleeding from being up on this soapbox. Sorry about that.

Thanks again for the great review.

Bill

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7247 is a reply to message #7242]

Sat, 29 July 2006 00:08

QModer
Messages: 413
Registered: June 2003

Senior Member

The people that I worded for before my retiring sometimes assembled Peavey and Yamaha amps. Teh QC on them was very strict too. So those were assembled here despite the Yamaha name.
As far as tubes are concerned. I kinda feel that most of the makers of tube amps are using the cheap chinese tubes rebadged. Maybe not but thats how it looks to me.
But then again tubes are not made everywhere like they used to be so it is a bit of a weak link. The preamp tube in the Pro Jr did not really last very long. But that is a hot running little amp.
The Twin's tubes lasted a lot longer so I can really beef about them too much. Lots of people change tubes as soon as they get a new amp. They feel that they can make the amp sound better. Maybe they do. I just wait until one goes bad before I start yanking them out.
But there really is no comparing tubes made today with Nos tubes made back in the day. A buddy of mine has a later sixties Silver face BandMaster. He recently has his main power tubes go and he got so upset LOL.. It really tickled me. I told him here you are with tubes that have been in this amp for over thirty years and you are upset about buying new ones now LOL..
I really should have realized that the Kustom 36 Coupe would be this loud. After all it is a tube amp. But I got it to fill a gape in my wattage line up from the 22 watt Deluxe Reverb to my 50 watt Bassman.
Thats what I tell folks anyway LOL.. It will give me a good excuse to a Vox AC30CC too. The real reason probably is that its a cool Kustom. Its my seventh Kustom amp and I did'nt have a red one. So I specially ordered this one to be in red.

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7422 is a reply to message #7247]

Sat, 02 September 2006 08:28

Optyk
Messages: 125
Registered: August 2006
Location: Texas

Senior Member

I have been looking at those Kustom Coupes myself. It's nice to see some "real world" comments on it.

The main reason I commented was because of the discussion about tubes being the weak link. I have an old Peavey Classic that I bought used from a friend back in '82. The tubes (6L6GCs) had already been changed, i suspect, since they weren't matching. Well, at least one of them had. About 3 weeks ago, that amp finally gave up the ghost. Since I love the tone I get from it, I took it to my local tech for a rework. The first thing he did was check the tubes. Both of them checked out perfectly. So that's 24 years worth of playing and they're still doing great. He got the amp fixed and it's working fine. I had blown the two 12's in the thing years ago and cut the thing down and made a head out of it, so it's resting comfortably on top of an old Fender Bassman big body cab.

In case you're wondering, yes, I'm a Kustom fan, too. About 6 years ago, I bought a K200B-5 head. I had it for about 4 months when someone broke in and stole it. I bought another one on eBay that wasn't working. it sat around here for years, but when the Peavey went south on me, I took the Peavey, the Kustom and a Heathkit TA-17 (which I had also bought no-working) to the tech.

The Heathkit used the same 40409 and 40410 transistors as the Kustom and were bad, just like they were in the Kustom. I'm waiting on those parts to get in now and am SO looking forward to having both of those amps to play through. The tech did some calculations and figured that Heathkit should be cranking out around 137 watts max. All I have is the head/chassis, so I'm going to build a combo box for it and mount it in there. I haven't made up my mind if i want to use 2 12's or 4 10's on it. Should make a fairly decent little combo amp, though.

In the meantime, I've located a pair of Kustom cabs, with two JBL 15's and a 15" HF horn in each of them, in good shape. So that should give me a fairly decent Kustom rig to play on, don't you think? Smile

There's only two kinds of music. . . . blues and zippity doo dah.

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7425 is a reply to message #7231]

Mon, 04 September 2006 02:13

QModer
Messages: 413
Registered: June 2003

Senior Member

Sounds like a very loud setup to me. I cranked up the 36 Coupe last night it seemed real loud thru the gain channel and was blast once you learned to control it.
Afterwards I figured that I had its volume control wide open LOL.. I always turn the master's wide open and had mistaken the 2nd channels for a master. I had a 72 Tele reissue running thru it and man did it sound good with those big humbuckers.

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Re: 32 Kustom Coupe [message #7431 is a reply to message #7231]

Tue, 05 September 2006 07:49

stevem
Messages: 4739
Registered: June 2004
Location: NY

Senior Member

Those JBL cabs will sound killer, nice find!
I the small heahkit 1-12 combo amp that I built back in the late 60s and latter for my organ player I built their larger amp with the seperate 2-12 and horn cabinet. That cab had jensen C12n drivers and was great for electric piano also.
You couldn`t` beat heahkits prices on that stuff and they where made with all good components!

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