Kustom Sound 20 Review

Discussion in 'Guitar Gear Talk Forum' started by jack_brown12001, Feb 13, 2010.

  1. jack_brown12001

    jack_brown12001 New Member

    well yeah i due to shortage of funds i got the Kustom Sound 20 cube from Mumbai. Could someone give me som reviews bout the tone and stuff.

    Flood man....the techie of all time....could i please have your view on this thing... my DIY projects are in progress but due to unavailability of the LM3886 Ic i was shit forced to but this.

    Well the setup is .. i managed to pick up a zoomG1X for cheap ....so gonna use this into the cube 20, lemme know man wats your take on this..advice would and is always appreciated.

    Thanks a ton guys
     
  2. unet

    unet New Member

    The Kustom 30 is the amp I use in the jam room where my band practices, so all i can say is : decent reverb and takes pedals fairly well on clean.
    Never tried the gain channel.

    What pedals are you building btw?
     
  3. flood

    flood New Member

    trust me, you don't want my view on the kustom 20.

    i honestly think that you could use another IC for the power stage. the 3886 and particularly the 3875 are scarce in lamington road, and more often than not you could end up with a shitty fake. for a guitar amplifier, i think you could get by with a TDA chip as well. do some homework on forums like diyaudio or something because you aren't going to find too much serious gyaan here.

    i've never built a solid state amplifier, so i can't help you further. i am thinking of doing a 3886 or 3875 for hi-fi or as a power amp for monitors though.

    the other thing that you must ensure is that all your distortion happens in the preamp stage. do not drive the power stage into clipping. it sounds horrible and is not too great for your speakers either. a well designed preamp will go a long way here - you could technically couple the sansamp gt-2 project from www.tonepad.com to a solid state power amp and have pretty decent tone for cheap (it's a very difficult project though, be warned).
     
  4. insatanity

    insatanity New Member

    check this hXXp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pgOzjKhXww
     
  5. insatanity

    insatanity New Member

    Some interesting calculations found on a forum:

    40 watts is 94% as loud as 50 watts.
    30 watts is 86% as loud as 50 watts.
    25 watts is 81% as loud as 50 watts.
    22 watts is 78% as loud as 50 watts.
    20 watts is 76% as loud as 50 watts.
    18 watts is 74% as loud as 50 watts.
    15 watts is 70% as loud as 50 watts.
    12 watts is 65% as loud as 50 watts.
    10 watts is 62% as loud as 50 watts.
    9 watts is 60% as loud as 50 watts.
    8 watts is 56% as loud as 50 watts.
    7 watts is 55% as loud as 50 watts.
    6 watts is 53% as loud as 50 watts.
    5 watts is 50% as loud as 50 watts.
    4 watts is 47% as loud as 50 watts.
    3 watts is 43% as loud as 50 watts.
    2 watts is 38% as loud as 50 watts.
    1 watt is 31% as loud as 50 watts.
    3/4 watt is 28% as loud as 50 watts.
    1/2 watt is 25% as loud as 50 watts.
    1/4 watt is 20% as loud as 50 watts.
    1/10 watt is 15% as loud as 50 watts.
    50mW is 13% as loud as 50 watts
    20mW is 10% as loud as 50 watts.
    10mW is 8% as loud as 50 watts.
    5mW is 6% as loud as 50 watts.
    1mW is 4% as loud as 50 watts.
    0.5mW is 3% as loud as 50 watts.
    0.1mW is 2% as loud as 50 watts.
    50uW is 1.6% as loud as 50 watts.
    10uW is 1% as loud as 50 watts.

    If this is true then an amp scalable to 10mW is what most people would be interested in...
     
  6. flood

    flood New Member

    ........but keep in mind that clean headroom reduces proportionately with power. very low power amps don't *always* sound good. and extreme attenuation is not really that great.

    also, losses are exponential with distance.
     
  7. insatanity

    insatanity New Member

    Check this - The Valve 105 "bimbo"

    hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7GSO2QlYSg
     
  8. flood

    flood New Member

    dude, why don't you post the URL with http? so much simpler than copy paste edit.
     
  9. insatanity

    insatanity New Member

    Get an error saying u need to have min 15 posts for that...
     
  10. jack_brown12001

    jack_brown12001 New Member

    hey well its me back again, yeah my kustom sound cube 20 arrived a couple of days ago...and here's my experience:

    1. The first day it sounded quite alright on the clean and with the proc going through.

    2. Day 2 and everything suddenly screwed up... the clean does not sound cleana any more and the proc sounds shit on the delay and comp effects.

    3. Day 3 same ol shit.

    Flood and techie guys can you help me out on tryin to get this to a decent sound, the prob with this cube is when some distortion is played, is sounds quite alright but when its just delay and clean sounds, it sounds SHIT..

    The speaker kinds jarrs or distorts on the clean its usually strings 5 and 6 and give this sound. Any idea what is causing this.

    One more thing,, this cube has high, mid and low equalizer, now th prob i noticed is when the mid is turned off, the sound is the worst, and when on full its barely usable.

    And the strange thing is that the distortion effects sound pretty decent compared to the clean and delay effects.

    Can I add a preamp stage to improve the performance..

    All help will be gladly appreciated guys... Thanks a ton
     
  11. jack_brown12001

    jack_brown12001 New Member

    flood the DIY man.. is there a DIY preamp available to fix this thing..thanks mate
     
  12. flood

    flood New Member

    yes. it's a shitty amp!

    no. even if there was i wouldn't waste my time on it because there is nothing, and i mean really nothing, redeemable inside the kustom cube 20. IMO it's pointless to even bother - the golden rule is "you can't polish a turd".

    with the time and effort i would require to upgrade an amplifier like the kustom cube 20, i could easily build myself an all tube head from scratch. even after that effort and upgrades, the kustom would remain a substandard amplifier.

    i don't really mean to come off as harsh or condescending, i simply am presenting the reality of the situation to you.

    you had asked for my review of the cube 20 earlier. here it is - the cube 20 was one of the first amps i ever played back when i was an acoustic newbie (this was around 99-2000). [b the way you described the amplifier is exactly how it sounded in the store. kustom and stranger put me off playing electric altogether until i could afford something that sounded acceptable. i got to germany and 2 years later bought my squier and a peavey rage 158 there for about 10k together. the peavey sounded a lot better, to say the least.

    i won't pull any punches - the kustom cube 20 is a lousy piece of whale shit. and there is nothing lower in the world than whale shit. my advice to you is live with it till you can afford something else or do the doorstop mod on it. that way, it'll at least be useful for SOMETHING.
     
  13. thehundredthone

    thehundredthone Well-Known Member

    Giant squid shit is probably lower. We could go into microflora but that would defeat the purpose.

    The first day it sounded alright because you'd just brought it home and your mind wouldn't let it sound bad.
     
  14. flood

    flood New Member

    incisive, accurate and to the point. i salute you!

    that is actually very true - from amps to FX to recordings, when i listen to something after a couple of days with a "fresh pair" of ears i'm often surprised at how different things sound. unless, of course, they're excellent to begin with.
     
  15. thehundredthone

    thehundredthone Well-Known Member

    It's why they say you should never mix and master your own recordings, you need a different pair of ears to hear it how everyone else is going to hear it.
     
  16. jack_brown12001

    jack_brown12001 New Member

    thanks flood for that awesome advice, well heck yeah i guess i will just have to live with it for a while... have no option till i can save up cash to buy something good... till then the kustom is just gonna kill me..........

    Well hundred honestly... the amp did sound better atleast on the first day.. not critizing your point or anything.. but that freaking jaaring sound was definitely not there... honest... dont know how it changed on the second day..but wat the fck a shitty amp is a shitty amp and there's no changing that...

    So thank you people for that advice..
     
  17. thehundredthone

    thehundredthone Well-Known Member

    There might be a problem with the electronics. Can't you return the amp and get your money back? Maybe buy a tuner for the same amount, it's a better investment for sure.
     
  18. jack_brown12001

    jack_brown12001 New Member

    thanks guys for responding...yeah hundred i contacted the music supplier.. but he says to courier the amp back..which sucks......coz i had alot of problems when getting it by courier.. not sure how would it work out to send it back.

    Flood... i opened the amp to check the electronics and guess what the thing uses the TDA2050 IC which instead of being mounted on a heatsink is mounted on the back plate which also happens to be the ground for the unit.

    What i was wondering is will it make any differece if the ic was mounted on a separate heatsink.

    Also is it possible to use another IC of the TDA family in place of this to improve the performance, if yes which one....

    Thanks guys for your replies... appreciate it
     
  19. flood

    flood New Member

    no idea. not too well versed with the TDA chips; like i said, i've never bothered with solid state at all.

    bolting it to the chassis *may* be causing a ground loop, but like i said, i actually have no experience with these amps in terms of modding or opening them up, so i cant be sure. since you've already opened it, your warranty is possibly voided anyway. you could try a separate heatsink but you must make sure the size is adequate and that it can dissipate well - else the chip will fail.
     
  20. NiyantGala

    NiyantGala New Member

    LOLZ...tube amp from scratch...haha..man you really mean it...you need some reality check...dude the a good output transformer will cost you half the price...gee
     

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