Hi, I bought a (late 70's?) Kustom Head. A Kustom III L (?) Could anyone tell me how many Ohms it is? I can't figure out how to insert a picture, so I'll briefly describe it...it has the script Kustom logo, no foam and tuck, 4 inputs, and has tremelo and reverb.
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
Your amp needs a 4 ohm load to get its full 130 watts of clean RMS power and should not be run at a lower impedance like 2 ohms unless played at low home type volumes!
It will be fine driving a 8 or 16 ohm load, but at 8 ohms it will only output some 70 watts of clean power and at 16 ohms half of that 70 watts.
Enjoy your baby!
by the way, does anyone know much about these heads. I've just hooked it up to a cab and my god the thing is loud. The tone for a guitar is ok, not great. Does anyone know if you can use it for a bass?
Kustom_Bart Messages: 601 Registered: October 2010 Location: Greenville, MichiGUN
Senior Member
Yes you can use it for a Bass, However if you want to use it for guitar, put a multi processor pedal in front of the amp and you will like the sound...Kustom has a LOUD clean sound and they take pedals very very well.
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
Yes ,pedals and such work well in front of them but be sure to let the amp provide the volume otherwise if you drive too hot of a signal level into the preamp you stand a chance of popping the input IC chip and or having bad distortion when you hit a hard chord or note!
That's funny that you mention getting distortion when hitting a hard note or chord, as that's exactly what's been happening! I've just put new speakers into my cab, so I'm now trying to work out what's happening. Thanks for all your comments
here's the problem. I am getting a distorted sound when hitting a hard chord when plugged directly into the head! I'm wondering if the input ic chip has already previously been damaged?
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
To relate it to let's say a V6 motor in your car why would you want to have 3 of the 6 spark plugs unplugged if you had to drive up a big hill ?
Or ask yourself why solid state stereo home or even surround sound units have no master volume?
To me the only use for a master volume on a SS guitar or bass amp is to cut back on the amps wattage if it happens to be driving speakers that can not handle its wattage!
Exactly, every amp is different and some sound great when the preamp is really cranked and some don't sound so great.
I think that the amp has two input jacks per channel. One is a lower gain and one is a higher gain. Try both and see if the distortion is better or worse when using one or the other jack.
Also try working with the tone controls, they can make a big difference in the overall tone. They may not work the same way that your other amps tone controls work, so experiment and see what you can do to make the sound better to your ears.
Yeah, Chicago Bill is right, mt head only has two input jacks per channel. The Problem is the consistency, sometimes it works fine and I get a nice tone, and then it will just start to 'fart out'. Very frustrating. Channel Two seems to work fine, but I don't like the sound without a bit of reverb and tremelo. I'm not sure if it's worth getting it fixed or not. I might have to throw it back into the ebay pond!
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
It worth opening up the amp and un-plugging all the white Molex connectors two or three times as I am just thinking that it could be a bad connection making for you issue also
Right, I gave that ago and I've just played it for 30 mins and no problems. The difference, so far, is that the volume goes up gradually rather than go from zero to blow your head off. I hit the strings really hard and no troubles, but I didn't put the volume past three as I'm at home! The proof is going to be in the pudding of playing with a full band, if the amp keeps going as it is I'm going to try the amp at a gig I'm playing next Friday (with a back up amp near by!)
I find I can get a really nice tone with my strat, but I'm struggling to find a tone I like with my 12 string, will keep trying.
Kochens Messages: 80 Registered: April 2009 Location: Denmark
Member
Sorry, I mixed it up with a Kustom Studio 2 valve I got, channel 2 was sounding bad. As I recall(dont playing it for years) the Kustom lll Lead only have one issiue, the distortion is bad (clipping)But I love it for the tremolo and the clean