My KT-45 has Evolved! (Best Speaker/ Tube Setup)
Mar 25, 2020 7:44:37 GMT -7
Jaguarguy (Mike), Andy 67, and 4 more like this
Post by modernfiction on Mar 25, 2020 7:44:37 GMT -7
I've spent the last 2 years (slowly) trying to perfect my KT45 setup, to my preferences. I play everything from sparkly clean pretty songs to full gain heavy distortion stuff. I'm a huge pedal head as well so I need this amp to be able to work with a lot of different pedals that blend right into the amp. I used a lot of recommendations from the forum and also went with some stuff I researched on my own.
I tried out different rectifier tubes like the 5U4GB but did not like the result. Felt like my playing was on lag or something, think I got so use to the kt45's snappy response I couldn't go back. Finally stuck with the 5AR4 as its a nice compromise between the solid state rectifier and a tube rectifier. I also took a members advice and upgraded the EF86 pre-amp tube to a nice RCA NOS. That made a huge difference in the detail of the amp. I didn't try out any different power tubes and just re-tubed the JJ E34L's with a new matched pair. Overall, with those mods the amp was sounding great.
The icing on the cake and the biggest piece of all, I picked up a Scumback H75LD speaker. That is his Large Dust Cap version of the H75. I know everyone has they're own opinions about speakers but this speaker to me is THE speaker for a KT-45. I went from playing humbuckers through this amp to Some Bare Knuckle Supermassive p90's and the amp has never sounded better. It's huge, yet clear and defined. I can't not believe how crazy this setup sounds covering so much ground and just killing it in every genre. The Scumback brings out the bottom end and keeps the highs right there before it would sound thin and spiked in the treble.
Every pedal through this thing is right on the money. Fuzz to overdrive to high gain its knocking out every sound like its 10 different amps.
I know the amp world is moving on and these older models are now just floating around through the curious and collectors but I'm telling you. I went from trying to find different amps to find the sounds that were missing and instead I made the sound in the amp that I have and I don't know how many other amps out there can do that.
I tried out different rectifier tubes like the 5U4GB but did not like the result. Felt like my playing was on lag or something, think I got so use to the kt45's snappy response I couldn't go back. Finally stuck with the 5AR4 as its a nice compromise between the solid state rectifier and a tube rectifier. I also took a members advice and upgraded the EF86 pre-amp tube to a nice RCA NOS. That made a huge difference in the detail of the amp. I didn't try out any different power tubes and just re-tubed the JJ E34L's with a new matched pair. Overall, with those mods the amp was sounding great.
The icing on the cake and the biggest piece of all, I picked up a Scumback H75LD speaker. That is his Large Dust Cap version of the H75. I know everyone has they're own opinions about speakers but this speaker to me is THE speaker for a KT-45. I went from playing humbuckers through this amp to Some Bare Knuckle Supermassive p90's and the amp has never sounded better. It's huge, yet clear and defined. I can't not believe how crazy this setup sounds covering so much ground and just killing it in every genre. The Scumback brings out the bottom end and keeps the highs right there before it would sound thin and spiked in the treble.
Every pedal through this thing is right on the money. Fuzz to overdrive to high gain its knocking out every sound like its 10 different amps.
I know the amp world is moving on and these older models are now just floating around through the curious and collectors but I'm telling you. I went from trying to find different amps to find the sounds that were missing and instead I made the sound in the amp that I have and I don't know how many other amps out there can do that.