NAD: The members spoke...

[Phil]

...and I listened.



Pretty chuffed with it so far. It sounds good, takes pedals well, and the 0.5 watt mode is surprisingly useful. I'm liking the built-in effects more than I was expecting - the reverbs sound better than the Hall of Fame I sold to help offset the cost of this.

I didn't realize each effect on the panel can bank three different actual effects - the LEDs are buttons that change colour as you cycle through them. I'm a fan of this - it's just enough customization to be useful for me, without a bunch of menus making me angry.



I just spent the better part of this evening playing through the headphone out, and it seems decent. I'm looking forward to plugging this straight into Logic and seeing how it sounds recorded.

All in all, really happy with this so far. I don't know how bad I'd want to drag this to a metal show, but it seems like it would be a great fit for coffee shop/patio gigs, and seems pretty perfect as a home/office amp.

[Chris]

Gahdamn that Gretch is fucking aces man.

[Budda]

Hell yeah.

Record, then send shit to me .

Headphones with small humans ftw.

[Iron1]

Sweet. Love reading how excited you are with it.

Now, you know the rules, post some clips or it didn't happen.

[JJ Rodriguez]

You're doing it wrong, you're supposed to ignore all advice and tell us why we're wrong after offering advice you asked for, and buy something else then complain about it.

[Webdood]

Gahdamn that Gretch is fucking aces man.

Yeah i really have gas for one of those.

[Flexkill]

Great little amps, Glad you are happy with it. I was shocked at how natural they sound. You can not beat these things for the price, it's pretty insane.

[Jeff]

Great little amps, Glad you are happy with it. I was shocked at how natural they sound. You can not beat these things for the price, it's pretty insane.

Yeah they're great. The MkII versions are even better, if only because the concentric knobs are great, and make things easier.

[Phil]

I dug into the editor... it's pretty great. Some of the effects parameters made no sense to me, but setting up presets was a lot easier than I was expecting.

I still can't get over how this sounds for the price. It's ridiculous seeing this lumped into the same lists as Spiders and Marshall MG amps.

[Iron1]

I dug into the editor... it's pretty great. Some of the effects parameters made no sense to me, but setting up presets was a lot easier than I was expecting.

I still can't get over how this sounds for the price. It's ridiculous seeing this lumped into the same lists as Spiders and Marshall MG amps.

Totally agree. The Spider & MG don't touch this thing. My Katana mini blows away anything in its category too. Great bang for the buck.

[Darren]

People used to think BOSS modelling sounded like shit. I always thought it was pretty excellent.

[JJ Rodriguez]

People used to think BOSS modelling sounded like shit. I always thought it was pretty excellent.

I had a GT6 back in the day and it was alright for the time, but the shining star of that thing was it's acoustic sim, I haven't heard anything that matches it in all my years of gear whoring.

[Toshiro]

People used to think BOSS modelling sounded like shit. I always thought it was pretty excellent.

The real star of the Katana is the power section, it adds just the right amount of color. The BOSS stuff has always sounded decent through an amp, it's the direct tones that suffered, IMO.

[Soopahmahn]

I am suddenly interested in these. Sell me or sway me.

[Mike]

I saw a band on Friday where one of the guys was using the head version of this. Sounded fine in a metal band setting.

[Jeff]

I am suddenly interested in these. Sell me or sway me.

Cheap and decent. How's that?

[Phil]

Cheap and decent. How's that?

That about sums it up.

I have pedals and wasn't interested in the baked in effects, but after owning it, they've grown on me. They're surprisingly decent (on the Line 6 Spider effects <---> Boss pedals spectrum, they're probably like 75% Boss-leaning). I usually run my pedalboard into the amp, but it's nice to know I've got some half decent effects in the amp if I want to go straight in or pack super light.

The other thing I'm really happy with is the power scaling (or whatever it's actually doing). I'm not worried about "pushing" the power amp section or anything, but the 0.5 watt mode makes the useable throw of the master volume way longer, so it's a lot easier to dial in living room/office volumes.

Edit: I just got a Boss RV-6 last night. Haven't had time to play it yet, but I'm interested in comparing it to the reverbs in the Katana, which is supposed to have "official" Boss effects.

[Soopahmahn]

[Phil]

Update: The spring algorithm in the Katana sounds almost identical to the RV-6. I'm not sure if that's because it's close, or if it's because it's the same algorithm and the back-end settings of the Katana reverb are just slightly off whatever's baked into the RV-6 (I think the Katana editing app gives you more parameters than the knobs on the RV-6).

There are some really slight differences, but that could just be because I'm running the RV-6 into the front end.

The ODs and such don't sound anything like the actual pedals I've got, and the chorus sounds a lot more muddy and dead than my Julia, but I'm impressed with the reverb.

[Tom]

You asked this forum what amp to get and got an answer other than 5150?

[Soopahmahn]

Hey Tom!

btw I just found an Axe-Fx Ultra for sale for $600 locally. I bet I could get it for less.

[Soopahmahn]

Katana ordered

[desertdweller]

People used to think BOSS modelling sounded like shit. I always thought it was pretty excellent.

Lots of things used to sound terrible. They got better. Yay modern technology