Hmmmm....now I'm confused---are you saying that the $229 Katana 50 sounds the SAME as the $499 Nextone? I believe that the Nextone was the one in the comparison--eh?
Clearly, I'm the one who's confused.
I do think that's at least partly because, based on the video clips, I don't think I could tell the Katana from the Nextone by ear alone:
Katana: YouTube
Nextone: YouTube
I don't particularly trust the world of marketing, so my suspicion is that Roland (Boss' owner) was shocked at the huge hit they had on their hands with the Katana, and wished they'd priced it higher from the start. So they hastily stuffed Katana innards into a more conservative-looking box to appeal to older guitarists, added labels like "Artist" and "Stage" for snob-appeal, took out a few software features, added a few others, raised the price, and there you go, the "New and Improved!" Boss Nextone...
-Gnobuddy
Clearly, I'm the one who's confused.
I do think that's at least partly because, based on the video clips, I don't think I could tell the Katana from the Nextone by ear alone:
Katana: YouTube
Nextone: YouTube
I don't particularly trust the world of marketing, so my suspicion is that Roland (Boss' owner) was shocked at the huge hit they had on their hands with the Katana, and wished they'd priced it higher from the start. So they hastily stuffed Katana innards into a more conservative-looking box to appeal to older guitarists, added labels like "Artist" and "Stage" for snob-appeal, took out a few software features, added a few others, raised the price, and there you go, the "New and Improved!" Boss Nextone...
-Gnobuddy
I apologize if this sounds rash but I don't know what a katana 50 is and really don't care to know.
I build (diy) my own eqpt including reverbs.
I played on a Roland Blues Cube (pre Katana) at an open jam in a club, and what JM was saying about playing alongside a drummer seemed to be true..it didn't quite cut it as a combo for me. Mind you it was playable and sounded alright, but playing the same venue with a tube amp felt better, it it had better dynamic response. I played a Katana 50 in a store, it sounded pretty good on its own, bit better than the Blues Cube (IMO) but no idea how it would hold up in a band setting..probably fine for small venues. One of my amps is a solid state analog Traynor Bloc 100 from the 80s, and truth be told that thing sounds great and holds up live with a band. Pretty comparable in volume to a Fender Blues Jr, but better cleans and reverb.
Honestly, why say anything at all then..................
I for one would never of known about the Katana series of guitar amplifiers had it not been for this post. Now I have something to research and look for to try to build my own version of it. So yes, this knowledge has been beneficial to me as well as others.....
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I believe you and JM. These types of amps model the amp sound in the preamp. But then the power amp has to deliver that sound without distorting it audibly, and the speaker has to turn it into sound waves also without distorting it audibly.
So if you turn up any of these modelling amps loud enough to clip the built-in power amp, or overdrive the built-in speaker, the carefully crafted sound will start to fall apart. That's the nature of the beast.
No matter how much power and SPL capability is packed into an amp, somewhere there will be a guitarist shouting for more volume over the ringing in his soon-to-be-deaf ears. That also is the nature of the beast.
So I'm quite sure the Katana 50 (or the louder Katana 100, or the 100 with the 2x12 cab) won't be loud enough for everyone. But I think it's pretty amazing that a solid-state guitar amp that sells for under $250 (USD) actually sounds good for a change. I know that I've spent more and got less - much less - too many times to contemplate (Line 6, Digitech, Zoom, rinse and repeat again a few years later. Yuck, yuck, yuck. What does the song say, "Still yucky after all these years"?
I also think the Katana's will get loud enough to meet the needs of a lot of guitar players - there are probably a hundred guitar players who only play at home to every actual gigging guitarist out there.
Just to be clear, I don't own a Katana, don't have any connection whatsoever to Roland / Boss. Like many of us here, I DIY much of my guitar electronics. But none of that makes the Katana series any less impressive to me.
It will not be easy to DIY a Katana-alike. The hardware isn't impossible - one can buy DSP chips and class D power amps and rotary encoders. The truly difficult part is the all-important software running on those DSP chips. It is surely secret, proprietary, copyrighted, and legally protected to the hilt. It took smart engineers at Roland at least twenty years to develop it to the point where it actually sounds good, so it's not very likely that a hobbyist working alone with minimal technical tools will be able to independently create something equally good.
This thread being about reverb, the Katana series has digital reverb built-in. Along with a few other basic effects. And, incredibly, a virtual FX loop into which you can stuff digital emulations of dozens of different Boss guitar FX pedals, if that's the sort of thing that frizzes your hair. (I have no idea if those virtual FX pedals sound good, bad, or indifferent.)
-Gnobuddy
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