Disclaimer: Although we strive to provide the best service possible for our customers, purchasing musical products via the internet lacks a personal touch. In an attempt to personalize the Hairball Music website, Mr. Hairball (Allan Harrison), in conjunction with the official Hairball Music Lighter Guy, will attempt to provide an honest monthly review of products that we feature. Keep in mind that too much pizza and beer may sway our judgment somewhat, but if we like a product, we'll let you know. Conversely, it may take more beer to convince us, but if a product is not up to Hairball Music Standards, we'll let you know that too. Who knows, we may even review the pizza and beer…..

Product:

• Kustom TRT100H 100W Tuck n' Roll Tube Head
  
• Kustom TR212 Tuck n' Roll Speaker Cabs
  

• TRT100H $599.99
• TR212 $319.00 (each cab)

TRT 100H Tube Guitar Head basic features-

• 100 High powered tube watts RMS.
• 4 power tubes (6L6), pre-amp features 4 vacuum tubes (12AX7).
• 2 independent switchable channels. A rhythm channel that provides the user the ability to produce refined clean to hard crunch sounds. A lead channel that provides super high gain and as much override as desired without compromising tonal quality. Each channel can be used separately or combined to achieve 2 different sounds.
• Large 3 spring reverb.
• Full function foot switch.
• Padded Tuck n' Roll finish.

TR 212 Speaker Cabinet features-

• 2 Jensen 50 Watt 12" lead guitar speakers.
• Cabinet is optimized for extended low frequency response and increased high frequency definition.
• Padded Tuck n' Roll finish.

Well, once again I will show my age on this review. I have played Kustom equipment since 1968. Of course, I was much younger then, real young, okay, maybe not as young as I would like you to think but I still appreciated top notch equipment. Back then, my main amplification standards were Kustom, Marshall and Ampeg, and surprisingly, Kustom gave me a warm sound with incredible overdrive for a solid state amplifier. Stacking heads to obtain 400 watts of Kustom power could really fill a large venue. In addition to tonal quality, my Tuck n' Roll Kustom amplifiers were much more comfortable to lean my head on after a tough gig than my other amplifiers. Well guess what? Kustom Tuck n' Roll is back with new tube heads and vintage style Tuck n' Roll Jensen speaker cabs!

Kustom has just released it's new series of Tuck n' Roll tube heads and speaker cabinets in red, blue, silver and black. Designer amplification for the musician who wants the warm rich sound of a tube amp coupled with the vintage overdrive of Jensen speakers. Kustom now features 3 new heads, TRT50H, 50 watts, TRT100H, 100 watts, and a new bass head, TRB400H, 400 watts. To complement their new heads, Kustom also features a variety of mix or match speaker cabs for their new heads. For lead or rhythm, the discriminating musician can now choose combinations of TR212, 2X12 speaker cabs or TR412, 4X12 speaker cabs. The bassist also has a choice of speaker cabs from the TR215, 2X15 speaker cab to the TR410, 4X10 speaker cab. Kustom has made it easy to have the right set up for practically any venue. Obviously, I'm excited about these new amps and can state from experience that water rings left by cold brews being placed on them easily clean off. That is a selling point that gets my attention.

Lets talk about the TRT100H with two TR212 speaker cabs. Make sure you feel strong before you decide to hoist these units around. The TRT100H sports a shipping weight of 50 lbs and each TR212 sports a shipping weight of 60 lbs. Since I am not as young as I used to be, I did request some help in building my red Tuck n' Roll stack. The handles on each side of the TR212 cab make for easy lifting and the stack seated together without fear of vibration rattling the stack apart. The TR100H head comes with a detachable power cord and if I have any complaints about this head, it was the lightweight power cord. Since it is detachable, this is the first and only thing I would replace. As with most amplifier head manufacturers, Kustom did not supply cords for the speaker cabs and I used (and highly recommend) Hosa SKJ-205 jacketed 5' 12 AWG cables. The TR-series speaker cabs are 8 ohm impedance and the TRT100H head gives you the option to use a single TR speaker cab (8 ohm impedance jack) or two TR speaker cabs (4 ohm impedance jacks). The back of the TRT100H head clearly identifies inputs and outputs and provides for a dual footswitch (supplied with cord) to change channels and add "gain boost", a jack for single reverb footswitch (not supplied), an attenuated line out jack for equalized output from the amplifier or a connect to a PA system, a pre-amp "out" jack for sending signals to a mixer, recorder, etc., and a power amp "in" jack for direct access to the power amp or to connect a signal processing device. In general, the back was clean and well laid out. The front of the TRT100H can be summed up in one word, SEXY. The black face coupled with the deep purple-blue power jewel light brought back many memories of late nights staring at the Kustom logo and jewel light after a gig. The separate channels are identified as rhythm and lead and indicated by lighted red lettering depending upon which channel you are currently playing through. Each channel has a separate reverb control as well as separate volume, gain, bass middle and treble controls. The face also has a channel select button, "gain boost" button, power switch and of course, a standby switch.

The Tuck n' Roll, or as I used to say, the upholstery, was nicely appointed and very well done. This finish would look at home in a '57 Chevy as well as the fine crafted cabinets Kustom has produced.

Now that I have finally gotten through that, lets talk about sound. In order to get the right flavor, I used my Leo Fender signature edition G&L Skyhawk guitar to set the mood. A vintage guitar for a vintage style amp. As for the sound, this could also be summed up in 1 word, FUN. The rhythm channel gave clean crisp sound with a hint of overdrive as you really cranked the amp. When "gain boost" was added, the sound remained clean with incredible highs. The 3 spring reverb delivered the clean familiar echo as expected. The lead channel was unbelievable. Warm overdrive was easily obtained at low volume. This was a tube amp at it's best. The more power that was cranked through the amp, the warmer and distorted the sound. It's amazing how loud 100 tube watts can be when you're standing 10 feet away from the amplifier. I did notice some hum but not at levels that would interfere with a performance.

Now that I have gotten this far into the review and feeling pretty good about it, a knowledgeable musician friend of mine pointed out that I had not included a benchmark for comparison. It is amazing how you can miss the obvious. So with that in mind, I set off on a mission to find a comparable tube beast and settled on a Marshall JCM900 4100 series with a 4X12 Marshall cabinet. I won't go into the memories that this amp brought back but I plugged my G&L in and began to acquaint myself with this workhorse of an amp. I started on the clean channel. The first thing that I re-discovered was that the amp only had one set of high, mid and bass controls for both channels unlike the Kustom which has separate controls for each channel. Played at low volume, the sound was clean and the reverb sounded good. As I cranked more volume, the sound remained clean with just a hint of overdrive. With minimal adjustments to the bass and mid range, I was able to duplicate the warm rich sound I had obtained from the Kustom. Maybe I should say that the Kustom was able to duplicate the clean Marshall sound. I then switched over to the dirty channel and was surprised to find the Kustom had much more overdrive (lead channel) at low volumes than the Marshall. At higher volume, the Marshall also had less overdrive and exhibited a mellower warm sound. At full volume, the Marshall and Kustom were close to the same distortion levels although the Marshall appeared to have more maximum volume than the Kustom (had to repair a few windows after that test). I noticed that the Marshall also exhibited a low level hum that was not a show stopper.

The Marshall JCM900 4100 series is an industry benchmark and an amplifier worthy of that distinction. The Kustom TRT100H is a newcomer, but one with serious potential. I personally preferred the clean rhythm channel of the Kustom to the clean channel of the Marshall, but liked the mid-volume sound of the Marshall dirty channel over the Kustom lead channel. At full volume, both amps cranked but the Marshall had the volume edge. The Kustom was surprisingly similar to the sound and tonal quality of the Marshall. A cost comparison found the Kustom to be the better buy. A Marshall 4100 head with a 1960 cab (4X12) suggested retail price is $2338.00 and has been discounted as low as $1429.99. The Kustom package (TRT100H head with two TR212 cabs) suggested retail price is $1897.00 and is discounted at Hairball Music to $1237.99, making the Kustom a very attractive package.

Now that I have re-discovered a great tube head and speaker cabs, I need to go find a gig and show it off.

And now for the official Lighter Guy rating of the Kustom TRT100H head and TR212 speaker cabs: 8 lighters out of a possible 10 lighters. A great retro sound with serious potential and a good buy for the buck, not to mention SEXY!