sleepingtiger Messages: 29 Registered: December 2015 Location: Northern Illinois
Junior Member
There is one on sale on ebay right now. Is this 1970's? Anybody got any info? I'd post links/pics, but it won't let me yet. It is called a "KUSTOM TRT100 TUBE AMP HEAD Blue Sparkle Tuck and Roll"
Tony
PS - It would be cool if you posted pics, seeing I couldn't!
stevem Messages: 4728 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
Those heads first came out in 1999 and like Bill posted they are made in China, and where around for some two years.
They where originally sold for over 700 bucks and I picked mine up for 450 when Mucisns friend was blowing them out of stock.
They are all tube but for the power supply rectifiers and the reverb section, and came in 50 and 100 watt models by there published info.
What I mean by that is the designers used a output transformer who's primary impeadance is designed for EL34 tubes, not the 6L6 tubes that come in the output stage.
The only reason I can take a guess at for this is that during the time frame these amps where made new manufacture EL34 tubes from all three major manufacturers where iffy in terms of life and the best of them where hard to get due to things taking place in the world.
Long story short this change in output tubes gives linger live, but the impeadance mismatch makes for the 100 RMS amp being only 65 watts and the 50 watt model having some 35 watts of clean power.
On mine I swapped out the power tubes and found I then had 92 watts of power as I would expect!
The amp does use what seems to be good simi Toroid type power and output transformers and good tube sockets.
Sound wise for me in both clean and dirty mod they lack a bit of shine on the top end, but they are easy to mod over build wise as compared to most tube amps that are made these days, but still the circuit board traces need to treated carefully !
The cabinet build on these is also not the best as they are not Dove jointed, as such I had to wood glue mine at the joints.