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I have 15 tube amps currently. Two of them were purchased a few years back right here. I'm talking my Kustom Defender 5H as among my favorite tube amps. Yet I only paid $109 brand new right here. I have owned the Marshall JCM 900 MkIII with Full stack 1960a and 1960b cabs. I have owned the Marshall JTM45/2245. I own a Fender Bassman '59 LTD and 12 other tube amps. I use the Kustom Defender 5H at 4 ohms through a 212 and a 410 cab. Great tone and loud! If ever you see one of them on sale I recommend you purchase it.

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Best Inexpensive Tube Head Extant!

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Hear what I talked about... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlSCsDTbi60

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Ordered this head for the purpose of having a low-volume tube tone for small venues. To be honest, I was frustrated by how loud this thing truly is. I unfortunately cannot turn the volume up enough to push the tubes to where they start to sound saturated and warm. This isn't a knock on the amp, but more a problem with the size of the venues I play, which are small and require low volumes. There are so many good things about this amp. Exceptionally small and portable, but built solidly. All metal housing is nice, and it doesn't get super hot. It is cathode biased, so if you wanted to change the tubes (which I recommend, since the stock are not great), all you have to do is drop in a new set. It is frustrating to get to the tubes though, as Kustom has literally put 15-20 screws in the housing holding this thing together. It would have only taken about 5, the thing is only the size of a shoebox! Minor issue, but still an irritant. 3 different outputs give you flexibility to go to any cab, 4 8 or 16ohm. Tonally, this thing takes a little work. Changing the tubes helps warm it up (I went with JJ's in both the pre and power section), but that's about all the adjustment you can make without actually modding it. It is what it is, and so your guitar, cab, and pedalboard need to create your tone. Fortunately, this thing takes pedals pretty well, dirties up nicely with a Jekell/Hyde and delays are fairly smooth. The cab you play out of makes a world of difference. Terrible cab will not be made better by this amp.Overall, this is what it says it is: cheap, tube tone with little adjustable features. Be sure you have the gear to make it sound good.

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Kustom Defender 5H Guitar head is a great product for the price when used as a stand alone item without special effects pedals etc. Really good clean tones and distortion as advertised when used by itself. Plug in special effects and it loses it in a hurry. So much so I was going to return it because I always play with effects pedals. The great news is their is a quick easy fix well worth the gig. The problem is the cheap Chinese tubes. Before I decided to send it back a gave it one more college try and replaced the Chinese tubes with Soviet (Sovtek) tubes and the distortion cleaned up with my pedal and I got the tube burn I was looking for. This all tested from quality Gibson and celestion speakers. I have the Defender 15H with J&J tubes replacing the Chinese ones and the Sovteks may sound even better and you can get them for less. The 15H played better out of the box that I recall but much better burn with the J&J electronics tubes. Thinking of getting a Tung Sol 12AX7 tube however for both. They are the best you can get. After being used to the tone controls on the 15H I can say the 5H works fine without them. Would prefer the ohm switch of the 15H but I found ways around it. The XLR out is great on the 15H also but for $100.00 less the 5H is awesome for practice and with good tubes recording quality tone. Here again if you do not use effects pedals the product is fine out of the box. My issue with the star rating is complicated because I give it 5 stars with new tubes and only 3 stars without. But again as a stand alone i'll give it 4.5 stars! Great bang for the buck! Well recommended. Kustom please replace the tubes! Cheap fix, otherwise people will be returning this thing and not giving it's due!

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great little amp. have been for years attempting to find replacement for early 50's fender champ that went away. the 5h into an 8" open back cabinet is very close. i am very pleased with this purchase. it works exceptionally well in the bi-amp applications i historically prefer.

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I needed a small practice amp so I could leave my main amp at the Church building so I wouldn't have to tote it back and forth several times a week. This thing is so small and compact but still sounds great!!! I took the advice of everyone else and ordered new tubes when I purchased the amp... THIS IS A MUST... The original tubes are the only bad thing about this amp.... but for another 30 bucks I put some Tung-sol tubes in it and it sings! I am considering buying another one of these and running in stereo. I am pushing this thru a old Traynor 2x12 cabinet with Celestions and it is very loud. I love the fact that this head can be played thru 4,8 or 16 Ohms cabinets.This is a no - brainer for the money! Easily worth twice what I paid for it. At a 109.95 it is a steal... (The only reason I didn't give it perfect 5's across the board is due to having to swap out the tubes)

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Well, after waiting two years for my amp to get 'repaired' from Mr. THD himself, Andy Marshall, I just had to get my hands on some tubes. The torture was over, sweet bliss from the 5 watt Kustom Defender head (still haven't recieved my amp from THD). With only one knob, volume, and nothing else. No inputs, but the one guitar in, and no outputs, save the speaker out, of course, and loving it. simplke good looks to. Jet black with white writing. All this at a sonicaly low price. It screams, it sings, it cries. I beg for more. this amplifier is just right. Record, practice with a quiet drummer, or practice by yourself. All works well with the Defender. I haven't played out yet, but the thing will reach a small club, or bar with ears ringy. Get it.

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I modded an old Kustom 2x10 cab to wire each speaker independently to the two inputs, and put a couple of Jensen MOD 10" speakers in there. Then I purchased two of these little heads, one for each speaker.My setup is a BOSS GT-6, with a HOSA dual instrument cable (search zzounds for HOSCPP20) to go from the stereo output of the pedal into the two heads.This is really an ideal setup for me -- I'm a fan of the pedal but playing through a regular single-channel guitar amp really limited the sounds, so I needed to go stereo -- hence the two heads. Also, these BOSS digital modelers, rich as they are, really sound best warmed up with tubes. Plus, I didn't want two regular guitar heads, or even a fancy stereo head, because they always have so many controls and EQ settings, etc. These amps are simple -- POWER, INPUT, VOLUME, OUTPUT. That's it, nothing more. It always felt extraneous to have all these EQ settings and shaping ability on the effects pedal, only to go through a whole extra stage of EQ and shaping on the amplifier's preamp which in my mind decreases what I call "the sweet spot margin". That's got a bit to do with the way I work I suppose.I haven't played live with it yet, but it seems REALLY LOUD to my ears in the basement here. I figure the undulation of stereo speakers will help it cut through, but if not, I'll probably try swapping out the tubes for some more clean headroom.I don't look forward to explaining to grumpy sound guys that they need to mic my cab twice and pan, but my band's setup isn't too over-the-top so I'm confident it will be worth it.

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I wanted something that would give me the warmth of tubes without the volume of a stack. I found it. Turn it up the whole way to heat the tube then turn down the volume from the guitar and it is plenty loud (depending on your guitar of course).

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The Amp has a clear gutsy defined sound. Similar to a 1968 original Kustom amp head. Overall the amp reminds one of an original Roland 120 Chorus Amp.The perfect canvas to layer tones until the desired killer one is achieved.The amp is super nice for portability- With 5W it's obviously efficient, loud, Tube warmth leaning towards the Fender and Vox tone articulation. Fender 1962 early 90s reissue with the recommended Kustom 1x12 cabinet were used to test amp. All you dudes rock on.

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I wanted an inexpensive tube amp I could experiment with different sounds by swapping out a variety of tubes without having to bias the amp each time. This is perfect. The original tubes sound great but I put a 5157 tube in the preamp section for a cleaner sound and an old EL84 from my aunts old German shortwave radio. Sounds great especially with my Fender Strat. I have since ordered a second Kustom Defender that I plan to use dirtier sounding tubes. I cant wait!

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Great head & would buy another if needed.

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I like mine so much I just purchased a second 5H. I have the Kustom Defender 12" speaker cab and with the 5H it's nice sounding and loud. My second 5H will be run through an old Fender Delux cab with 2 original Jenson C12Q speakers. I tried my 5H trough tis cab and it can get very loud, hence the reason for a second 5H. I can now run 2 Kustom Defender 5H heads through the Kustom Cab and the Fender cab so that's 10 watts through 3 12 " speakers. Loud and also good tone. Not bad for $418 total expenditure. Name another rig with 3 12" speakers and 10 watts of EL84 tube tone/power for that price. I sometimes use a Fender Champion 20 as a pre-amp and pedal board because it has 16 different effects and 12 different amp simulations as well as a gain knob and Treble and Bass knobs. That adds another $99 to bring the grand total cost to $518. Now I have a versatile rig tone wise and also for transport. All the individual components are under 15 lbs each. I can use the single 12" cab, or the double 12" cab or both for a 3 x 12" sound. Ten watts of EL84 is very loud through all those 12" speaker cab's BTW.

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Hi, I like my Kustom Defender 5H so much I purchased a second one within a few weeks. I am using it connected to a 212 cab at 4 ohm's. My first 5H is connected to the Kustom 12" - 16ohm cab. The sound is good from both. Believe me they are very loud and to drive them into distortion you would need to be using them in a fairly loud band. At home just enjoying my everyday play I don't normally play very loud. I use a Champion 20 as a pre-amp and control the vol, gain, treb and bass with it and I like to set it to Metal 2000 for really high gain and distortion-when I want that sound. I am using a Galaxy Audio JIB/S 4-way splitter so I can run both 5H heads into two cabs with 12 " speakers in each. I don't normally go beyond the 8 o'clock position and it's loud. & o'clock is silent so 8 o'clock is just a little past that and it's good for playing alone in your house. 12 o'clock is loud, the volume dial can go all the way to the 5 o'clock position and that is insanely loud. I think it starts to distort at around the 2-3 o'clock position. It's an versatile rig. I also just play clean and the sound and tone are good. It's a tube amp with all the characteristics of a tube amp. Only it's louder clean than 5 watts normally is associated with. I'd put it at 7-10 tube amp watts. Running two means I can play anywhere with anyone, except Yankee Stadium. So at $109 each I'd say I am getting my money's worth. The compact size and light weight is a boon. Also it has the option to select 4-8-16 ohms so you can match it to many cab's. That is so useful. I may even get a second Kustom 12 " spkr cab they are only $99 each. All in all carring these smaller components can save hurting my back. I have has a Full Marshall JCM 900 stack including JCM 900 1960A and 1960B cabs at around 77 lbs each and the amp was around 55 lbs. I hated moving it. The Kustom gear is smaller, very loud and easy to move around and set up.

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Probably wouldn't replace it as I seem to be looking for the unattainable all the time.

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