Kustom KBA Series 65-watt Bass Amp Review

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(More customer reviews)I'll start with the good,
For a combo amp, this had what i was looking for. Some effects, low impedance line out, footswitch in/out and ext. speaker option. For a 65W amp, the drive was good when using an external 15"/10" cab and was capable of putting me over my drummer during practice.
However, from day one the cabinet showed signs of poor craftsmanship. The entire box would buzz on certain notes, especially low B unless I had my external cab online and the 12" speaker bypassed. Bringing it back to the shop where i bought was unhelpful and it was up to me to tighten up the box the best i could, which is constructed of small screws and particle board.
The electronics consist of a preamp, power amp(TDA9274) and a back panel for accessories such as the footswitch and ext. speaker. after about 2 years the power amp transistor failed and took out several other components on the power amp board and i've been using my old Fender amp to drive my cabinet since. after looking online it appears the heatsink is a common cause of failure and Kustom mounts their heatsink on the other side of the aluminum chassis.
I'm currently looking up the cost of replacing the power board as a whole item from Kustom. If i can get it for under $100 i'll replace it. if not, it will join my list of electronic projects and i'll replace it component by component (the TDA9274 costs about $30) and save my money for a tube amp.
In hindsight, and remembering the Mesa-boogie and Ampeg amps on the showroom floor that were similar in price, i should have put my money on a different amp or even just a head. I dont even have the original speaker and cabinet anymore, just the amp.
Overall i'll rate the combo per the following:
CabinetD+
SpeakerC
Amplifier B+
I really did like the Amp (before it fried) but i wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is only going to use the speaker and box it came in. as a combo, it was pretty disappointing but i liked driving my own external speakers with it.

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