Impulse purchased a Katana Air EX

[aamefford]

I just impulse purchased a Katana Air EX. Good ole FB Mktplace. Mint, $50 over half price and a couple hours driving.

I was kinda looking for one. I wanted a carry around amp that does quiet fairly well.

The good, after about 15 min: clean is nice, though it doesn’t seem to get to edge of breakup. Crunch is really nice and seems to respond to guitar volume knob properly. Works on batteries. Sounds big. Works as a LOUD music streaming boom box for my phone (this was actually a key feature). Wireless set up is nice, though the transmitter sticks out of a PRS in just the wrong spot. Can just use the amp - app is not required. It doesn’t have a million modeled amps. It has clean, crunch, lead and brown, with acoustic/bass also. Boss tone sharing platform I guess.

The bad: App is not required, but needed to access all tone and effects options, I think. The app. It looks like it is from the ‘80’s. It works I guess. It’s pretty big. Arguably (ok, it’s not even arguable) the Katana 50 is a better value proposition. The rechargeable battery pack is $150! Or you futz with 8 rechargeable AA batteries. It does plug in of course, BUT it has a power brick. It’s overpriced, but so is the Yamaha THR30 and the NUX equivalent. It doesn’t have a million modeled amps. It has clean, crunch, lead and brown, with acoustic/bass also. See same comment in positives. Boss tone sharing platform?

All in all, it has potential for me. It covers sort of the same purpose as the Kemper, but easy to carry room to room and use, plus it’s just a balls out Bluetooth stereo speaker setup. I think it might work for busking. I also think there are better choices for that. Busking isn’t my use case though.

Anybody else have one? Any set up or care and feeding tips?

 

[László]

Yes, children, I'm old enough to remember 1956. Deal with it. That's when the transistor radio came into its own.

My grandmother had a cool, shell pink Zenith transistor radio with two dials and a little metal lean-back leg like a Fender amp. It ran on batteries, of course. Transistor radios revolutionized going to the beach, or a picnic, or in my case, stuffing it under the pillow to listen to the rock and roll station that was verboten at my house, rock and roll being strictly for the Great Unwashed and/or Hoodlums.

It didn't pretend to be a hi fi.

This type of practice amp isn't pretending to be a gig amp. It's a simple, portable device that can sit on a table or head to the beach. I think that's a good idea, even if it doesn't have tubes.

That's my two cents.

As to care and feeding, what on earth could you do to feed it? It's not like you're gonna roll transistors like you would tubes.

 

[aamefford]

I aspire to great unwashed hoodlum. My lovely and ever patient wife believes it’s one of my few resounding successes.

As to care and feeding, I don’t know, it has a shitload of knobs, an app, a bunch of built in drives and effects. After playing around with it, I’ve found that finding a tolerable reverb and short delay, and using the crunch channel is where it’s at. It behaves relatively properly with the guitar volume, seems to go EOB to classic crunch, and sounds pretty ok. It’s also a gnarly loud stereo Bluetooth speaker. It does what I need. It still looks like an amp though, so it is banned from permanence in the living areas. It sits on my dresser, with a promise to move down the hall once the spare room is cleared out. I’ve got some rechargeable AA’s coming, and I’m considering the $150 battery pack, though I think the AA’s will be fine, and 8 of ‘em cost $22 with a charger.

 

[greyhatninja]

I have one. It’s what i bring to jam sessions. It sounds decent and lots of tone options. Doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as my tube amos but I don’t expect it to and perfectly find for oractices or gigs. I love streaming music to it and playing at the same time. It also has a quirky Youtube looping option thats worth figuring out, albeit a bit clunky. My one thing I dislike is I wish it could be plugged into a bigger cabinet if you wanted. The tone exchange is not very well supported at all so you basically have to find your own settings or pay just a little for others that have more time. Check out Juca Nery on Youtube. He makes a lot of music packs for Boss including Katana and does a good job.

 

[László]

I have one. It’s what i bring to jam sessions.

Is it actually loud enough to be heard over drums and bass?

 

[greyhatninja]

Is it actually loud enough to be heard over drums and bass?

Oh by jam sessions I mean with other guitarists. No it will have difficulty keeping up with a drummer imo. Like when my son and I play in our loft with he on drums I was originally using it to stream the audio of the song in the background but it kind if gets drowned out. You can still hear it yes, but no where near where you could here the drums and my guitar.

 

[aamefford]

My one thing I dislike is I wish it could be plugged into a bigger cabinet if you wanted.

Check this out.

I’m sure it would be essentially the same for the EX. I thought about it for a hot second. I have other better options to use with external cabs. For me the air is a smallish carry around for home, and a biggish Bluetooth speaker.

 

[RickP]

I bought a Spark 2 and, unsurprisingly, still sound nothing like Nuno Bettencourt. It’s a handy little amp, rechargeable battery, wireless footswitch, etc, etc, but Les hits the nail on the head… it’s a handy amp to take wherever you want, play where there’s no power, and sound passably good doing it. It’s no tube amp, for certain, but I think I’m going to like it for doing what it does.

I agree with your wife @aamefford , good buy on that one! Have some fun with it and revel in the “it didn’t cost me a kidney” factor. I think you did good!

 

[greyhatninja]

Check this out.

I’m sure it would be essentially the same for the EX. I thought about it for a hot second. I have other better options to use with external cabs. For me the air is a smallish carry around for home, and a biggish Bluetooth speaker.

Yea basically same for me. It’s also what I use if I kind of need to be whisper quiet and I don’t want to just hear the strings and I like that I can plugin headphones. Though for that latter purpose now Id probably consider buying that new fender headphone amp. This mod is cool but i have a combo amp and a couple other amps and cabs now so I don’t really have a need anymore.

 

[aamefford]

I bought a Spark 2 and, unsurprisingly, still sound nothing like Nuno Bettencourt. It’s a handy little amp, rechargeable battery, wireless footswitch, etc, etc, but Les hits the nail on the head… it’s a handy amp to take wherever you want, play where there’s no power, and sound passably good doing it. It’s no tube amp, for certain, but I think I’m going to like it for doing what it does.

I agree with your wife @aamefford , good buy on that one! Have some fun with it and revel in the “it didn’t cost me a kidney” factor. I think you did good!

I thought about the spark 2, it seems like a “fixed” spark OG, and seems pretty awesome. I really didn’t want a slew of modeled amps and an app. I frequently look at my Kemper and then flip on the Mesa for ease of use. I need to just go back to 3 profiles on my Kemper. I was happiest with that. The Katana Air EX and the Yamaha THR were kinda the two contenders for me because you can do most of what you need without the app.

 

[RickP]

I thought about the spark 2, it seems like a “fixed” spark OG, and seems pretty awesome. I really didn’t want a slew of modeled amps and an app. I frequently look at my Kemper and then flip on the Mesa for ease of use. I need to just go back to 3 profiles on my Kemper. I was happiest with that. The Katana Air EX and the Yamaha THR were kinda the two contenders for me because you can do most of what you need without the app.

Forgot you had the Boogie! Yep, you’re set.

I’m just learning the Spark, it’s my first one. You can set up and save 4 presets on the amp itself, but I’m not sure if you can do the effects there too. I’ll figure it out when I have time! These little amps, with aux in or BT for practice tracks or listening to music, are pretty slick. I also looked at the Boss and Yamaha amps, and liked them. My brother has the OG Spark, so I thought I’d give this one a spin. It wasn’t as much of a preference purchase as a comparison one. I see it getting a lot of work on jams and impromptu singing. And like your video shows, you can run an output to something else if you needed more juice. Like you, though, I’d just grab a “real” amp for that.

 

[Rod/]

Yes, children, I'm old enough to remember 1956. Deal with it. That's when the transistor radio came into its own.

My grandmother had a cool, shell pink Zenith transistor radio with two dials and a little metal lean-back leg like a Fender amp. It ran on batteries, of course. Transistor radios revolutionized going to the beach, or a picnic, or in my case, stuffing it under the pillow to listen to the rock and roll station that was verboten at my house, rock and roll being strictly for the Great Unwashed and/or Hoodlums.

It didn't pretend to be a hi fi.

This type of practice amp isn't pretending to be a gig amp. It's a simple, portable device that can sit on a table or head to the beach. I think that's a good idea, even if it doesn't have tubes.

That's my two cents.

As to care and feeding, what on earth could you do to feed it? It's not like you're gonna roll transistors like you would tubes.

Omg. My Dad had the black Zenith version. I was fascinated… I had a big old Philco tweed flip top tube radio that sounded awesome

 

[László]

Omg. My Dad had the black Zenith version. I was fascinated… I had a big old Philco tweed flip top tube radio that sounded awesome

Cool coincidence!

I had a Heathkit tube table radio. The metal case was sort of a greenish-gray color that looked vaguely military, but it wouldn't have been terribly out of place in a hi fi rig of the day.

It had a band designed to pick up signals from Europe, or so I was told, but all I could pick up in Detroit were local AM and signals from Toledo, Ohio and Windsor, Canada.

As far as I was concerned, both Canada and Ohio were the exact same thing: foreign countries. So they were just as exotic as signals from Europe to me.



I'd guess if it had been hooked up to a decent antenna, I could've picked up Europe. Or perhaps Cleveland.

I did manage to appropriate a little transistor radio my parents had, to do my sneaky listening to rock and roll under the pillow from time to time.

 

[Rod/]

Cool coincidence!

I had a Heathkit tube table radio. The metal case was sort of a greenish-gray color that looked vaguely military, but it wouldn't have been terribly out of place in a hi fi rig of the day.

It had a band designed to pick up signals from Europe, or so I was told, but all I could pick up in Detroit were local AM and signals from Toledo, Ohio and Windsor, Canada.

As far as I was concerned, both Canada and Ohio were the exact same thing: foreign countries. So they were just as exotic as signals from Europe to me.



I'd guess if it had been hooked up to a decent antenna, I could've picked up Europe. Or perhaps Cleveland.

I did manage to appropriate a little transistor radio my parents had, to do my sneaky listening to rock and roll under the pillow from time to time.

Wow, I remember the Heathkit Transistor radio kits… great stuff…. the Philco wasn’t very portable so Dad drove me into Boston where there was a very large Radio Shack (next to Peter Fuller Cadillac where my Grandad worked) and they had many electronic kits. At any rate Dad bought me a crystal radio kit.. it received 1 station and it powered an earphone. I built it and thought it as pretty cool…

 

[László]

Wow, I remember the Heathkit Transistor radio kits… great stuff…. the Philco wasn’t very portable so Dad drove me into Boston where there was a very large Radio Shack (next to Peter Fuller Cadillac where my Grandad worked) and they had many electronic kits. At any rate Dad bought me a crystal radio kit.. it received 1 station and it powered an earphone. I built it and thought it as pretty cool…

The radio I had was tube, but yeah, all the Heathkit stuff was pretty cool. My bass player in college built a Heathkit transistor bass amp. Honestly, it sounded really good. It helped that he was a great bass player.

 

[Rod/]

The radio I had was tube, but yeah, all the Heathkit stuff was pretty cool. My bass player in college built a Heathkit transistor bass amp. Honestly, it sounded really good. It helped that he was a great bass player.

My friend built a Heathkit guitar amp that sounded pretty good as well. Great high quality stuff!
And they looked pretty cool with that blue grill cloth

 

[László]

My friend built a Heathkit guitar amp that sounded pretty good as well. Great high quality stuff!
And they looked pretty cool with that blue grill cloth

Yeah, they were very modern-looking for the time. I think the bass amp and cab were squared-off and covered in something other than tolex, with aluminum edging; maybe melamine or similar? The thing always looked new despite banging around for weeks at a time in our band van, whereas my then-new black panel Bassman looked like it had been dragged behind a pickup on a gravel road, pretty quickly!