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NAD boss katana air

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  • NAD boss katana air

    Hi ppl, merry xmas,
    Today I spent several hours with the headphones on, and the sounds are amazing. I can dial tones dead easy, I can nail a decent metal tone in no time. The android app is bad and buggy, to save (wrongly) a patch from my panel, it takes going via mars. 1/10 stars for the librarian .. I can not understand, in boss me-25 I could save my own patches easily ... what happens to the programmers ... year after year situation growing worse.
    The question is, ok so it does its job I would say it is useful, with headphones ... why does it sound so poor and crappy with its speakers?

    What do I do? return it and get the yamaha thr30iiw ? Or keep the boss and also get a real amp with real speakers ? I miss that tone via real speakers, I have been living insidle my headphones for quite some decades now.

    Another option, get the yamaha thr30iiw, and maybe opt for the bigger katana as well? (like the 50) ?

    I like rock music, old metal, thrash metal, nu metal, modern metal, generic old rock, etc.... so I want all tones, but when it comes to scooped tones I want at least metallica and pantera covered.

  • #2
    so this will be new return day tomorrow .

    Comment


    • #3
      The Katana air has two 3 inch speakers - it's designed for quiet practice. I dunno what you're expecting out of the teeny speakers . . . but they're probably always going to sound a little off if you're hoping for regular 12 inch guitar speaker sound.

      The Katana 50 will definitely sound better due to the speaker.
      Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

      Originally posted by Douglas Adams
      This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by GuitarStv View Post
        The Katana air has two 3 inch speakers - it's designed for quiet practice. I dunno what you're expecting out of the teeny speakers . . . but they're probably always going to sound a little off if you're hoping for regular 12 inch guitar speaker sound.

        The Katana 50 will definitely sound better due to the speaker.
        Thanks, but
        How can katana air sound decent with headphones? even then the richness of amp models and effects with me-25 (which costs 1/10) are much much better. Where is the r-fier, where is the ultra metal amp? nowhere, only this "brown" supposedly 5150 amp, which sounds inferior to me-25's 5150. So I am deeply disappointed. I played with my me25 today to re-discover what I was missing for a week.

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by greekdude View Post
          Thanks, but
          How can katana air sound decent with headphones? even then the richness of amp models and effects with me-25 (which costs 1/10) are much much better. Where is the r-fier, where is the ultra metal amp? nowhere, only this "brown" supposedly 5150 amp, which sounds inferior to me-25's 5150. So I am deeply disappointed. I played with my me25 today to re-discover what I was missing for a week.
          As far as I know, all the Katanas use the same amp modelling software. The amp models should sound pretty good, and can be tweaked a good amount using the software. You should also be able to add gain pedals to the amp models to get gain levels similar to the presets on the boss me-25.

          When you listen on your headphones you're putting Boss' amp modelling into a cabinet simulator and then into your (wide range speaker) headphones. When you listen on the speakers you're hearing Boss' amp modelling going direct into a speaker without the cabinet simulator (and with kinda underwhelming speakers). The little speakers aren't awesome, so it's not surprising you like the sound through headphones a lot better.

          Speakers make a huge difference to an amp. I liked the 2x12 100 watt Katana better than the 50 or 100 watt 1x12 combos . . . simply because of the sound of the two speakers - even though they've all got exactly the same amp modelling.
          Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

          Originally posted by Douglas Adams
          This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

          Comment


          • #6
            Thanks GuitarStv , the modelling on the katanas is not the same as on their multi-effects boxes (as far as I can tell judging from the me-25), on the katana there was no Rectifier and no modern metal amp. I'll try to explain. Regarding the me-25 (2010 technology) :
            10 amps simulation ranging from clean, crunch, (some I dont remember), marshal vintage, marshal modern, 5150, r-fier (Rectifier), and an genuine Ultra Metal. All of them usable, from very useful to perfect. The gain on each of them is realistic and good sounding. One has to play a little until he/she nails his/her tone.
            You want EVH tone? You just select 5150 with 95% gain, all other knobs left to 50%.
            You want Crazy Train tone? You select R-fier at 85% gain , all other knobs left to 50%.
            You want nu-metal, perfect scooped tone? You select Ultra metal at 70% gain , all other knobs left to 50%.

            No extra distortion (and the box has TONS of them), no extra tweaking.

            With the katana air, it was a fight even for the basics. I finally nailed some thrash tone (think Exodus Bonded by blood) but it was done via.... mars. The katana air has 5 amps, acoustic, clean, crunch, lead and "brown". The brown went unused, it sucked no matter what. Little use for lead. The way I managed to get the Exodus tone was via:
            Crunch Channel with gain at about 30%, Overdrive again at 30%, Noise Gate to zero, EQ with boosting lows and highs and taming the mids. And this ONLY with headphones. The built-in speakers just sounded absolutely awful, but you explained way.

            Also the mobile app was and buggy. The design of the menu on the me-25 was *perfect*. Flawless. The control of the katana air was a fight. How about memory slots: about 60 on the me-25, only 6 on the katana ? This amp is not for me. I don't know about other modern Boss products, but I was severely disappointed.

            Comment


            • #7
              Yeah, the Katana stuff isn't an ME-25 and wasn't designed to be one. It runs completely different software.

              If you like the ME-25 better, maybe you would have better luck just amplifying the headphone out from it? That way you get exactly the tones you're used to without needing to put headphones on your ears.
              Join me in the fight against muscular atrophy!

              Originally posted by Douglas Adams
              This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movements of small green pieces of paper, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by GuitarStv View Post
                Yeah, the Katana stuff isn't an ME-25 and wasn't designed to be one. It runs completely different software.

                If you like the ME-25 better, maybe you would have better luck just amplifying the headphone out from it? That way you get exactly the tones you're used to without needing to put headphones on your ears.
                I dont know what it was designed for exactly. Shouldn't the "brown" channel be as usable as the 5150 both via headphones? The quality of the tone between those two was chaotic. And in addition 5150 was considered moderately "high gain" by me-25 (2010 standards), while on the katana it is the dirtiest channel.... I got a crappy amp (crate 40xl) which sounds ok with the me-25, I just had hopped that at my age (53) and playing guitar 40yrs I deserved an amp some time in my life before I die! I will keep the research and next time I hit the buy button (or better in store) I'll have done my homework.

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