Forge Messages: 41 Registered: February 2005 Location: In car trunk in Danville ...
Member
Has anyone (more looking at the people that use the old 200's and 250's) had any experience with the newer 90's TRB400 heads?
How do they sound?
I really can't find any info on it online so if you can fill me in on what they are, who made them, will they stand up to a k200 and your own kind of review on them
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
Hi, I have one of the TRB400 heads along with the 4-10" and 2-15" Jensen speaker loaded cabinets.If you have a fax number I will fax you a copy of the owners manule if you like on thursday, but I will give you a quick review just for now.
The head has 2 inputs, one for active pickups, and one for non-active.It has 2 channels that are foot switchable, one tube(yes a real 12ax7) and one solid state(IC chip) The tube channel has some hiss for some reason, the other is dead quite.Both channels have a conture controls that acts like a overall tone control that sweeps thru the EQ range you set from the 7 band active EQ.
The head has built in foot switchable chours, and compression, the amp has a master volume.It has a built in adjustible crossover on the back with hi and low frequency outputs, it has effects patch in and out jacks on the back, and 2 speaker out jacks 1/4 inch style.The head is designed here and built in china so the cheassie is not quite as strong as the vintage stuff was made(this has screws holding sheet metal plates together so they may eventualy come loose) but its has a built in fan, nice size heat sink for the outputs, and a relayed startup circuit.It has a 8 amps fuse! for protection and should be able as stated to output 400 watts RMS into a 4 ohm load, but mine can only output 270 watts into 4 ohms, but still the amps sounds better than any of the vintage kustom gear and has a tonal palet that non of the vintage stuff can come close to, and the channel switching and built in effects and compression are just what I needed.I just wish it had a built in tuner, and even with only 270 watts I have never had to play it above 3 on the channel volume with the master wide open, in a LOUD band.
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
The new cabinet with the Jensens drivers sounds ok, but not as good as a vintage cabinet with CTS drivers although the cabinet goes down a little lower in responce since its 1 inch taller than a vintage cabinet and its OK for recording, but since the 4th month I have owned it I pulled out the jensens and put altec 421A`s in it.
John01 Messages: 6 Registered: May 2006 Location: Hershey, PA
Junior Member
Stevem,
What is the story of the TRB400 heads? I assume they were made during the 90's. But, were they imported by Kustom and then sold to a 2nd party that added the T&R as this web page suggest?
Or are they a Korean / Chinese knockoff with T&R? Or are they actual Kustom designed and built using some of the classic circuitry? Lastly, who owned the Kustom name during this time? As a previous owner of Kustom products, I know their history pretty well, but this particular amp has me puzzled.
stevem Messages: 4733 Registered: June 2004 Location: NY
Senior Member
Hi, the reissue T&R series, model trb400,tr50, tr100 and the tr12 of the late 90s where desinged in the USA and made in china.
These are termed plexie face amps, the late 80s metal face kustom shown on that site was recovered by someone from its orignal tolex to a poorly done T&R job!
Now as in the 80`s the company was called Kustom Amplification, and is owned by HHI industrys.
All the reissue T&R amps came from china with there T&R all ready on, none of these amps use any of the classic circuitry from the 60`s or early 70`s models before Baldwin Organ company purchased Kustom electronics.
John01 Messages: 6 Registered: May 2006 Location: Hershey, PA
Junior Member
So the company that currently operates the www.kustom.com website is responsible for the TRB400? When I searched thru their archive and support site, I could find no reference to the TRB series heads. Possible there were other changes within their operating structure over the last decade.
C4ster Messages: 686 Registered: June 2001 Location: Mukwonago, WI (Milwaukee...
Senior Member
Hi,
My son bought a TRT100 amp and 2x15 cabinet. Not too bad overall but he had to send the cabinet back twice because of shipping damage to one and very poor T&R covering on the other. Kustom got beat up pretty bad on that attempt. To produce that level of amp in the US would have put the price way out of the market of the companies target customer. And the quality issues made it impossible to sell the remaining stuff. There are still unopened boxes of the stuff around and it shows up on eBay now and then.
Conrad