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Koch Studiotone
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Koch Studiotone

Tube Combo Guitar Amp from Koch belonging to the Studiotone series

nickname009 nickname009
Published on 02/17/12 at 20:09
The Koch studiotone is an interesting piece of equpiment. All tube amp with a clean and dirty channel, shared EQs. One of if not the only little combo amps out there that can ACTUALLY go from a fender clean to balls out death metal distortion sounds. REALLY.

2x EL84s in class A
20 Watts
3 Channels:
Clean
Overdrive
Overdrive-Boost
Passive Bass-Mid-Treble tone controls
Two Voicing switches:
Mid shift (2-way)
Bright (3-way)
Single 12", newly designed VG12-60 Koch speaker
4, 8 and 16 ohm speaker outputs
Speaker on/off switch
Power Soak
The next 4 outputs take the signal from the Studiotone's speaker output:
Direct Line Out
Guitar Amp Clean Input (to drive another amp)
Recording Output (with mic placement voicing switches)
Headphone Out
Effects loop
Accutronics spring reverb
Footswitch input jack (footswitch included!)
Size: 17"W x 9"D x16.5"H (44W x 23D x 42H cm)
Weight: 33lbs (15 kg)



UTILIZATION

Quite easy to use just like every other amp you got your bass middle and treble knobs, the usual. There's a mid shift voicing switch that GREATLY affects how things sound and you'd have to re-EQ your knobs after switching it so be warned.

SOUNDS

I am still, to this day very surprised by the sounds of this thing. The cleans are GREAT. They can get very bright and have that chime that everybody loves in a clean channel and still not break up, unless you want it to depending on how you set the gain and what you set the channel at (clean, od, od+)

The distortion is amazing. I still can't really believe that I'm hearing this when I play through this amp, it just looks like a little combo amp for blues/jazz clean and light rock but the truth is the gain can go ALL the way to death metal territory depending on how you set it and you can go nuts on this thing!! I know this amp has gotten popular for blues and rock but it can do death metal very well. The gain is thick and raunchy and VERY VERY tight. Crank the mids and you get a sweet raunchy, saturated 80s-like EVH tone. Very cool, no need for overdrive pedals to boost this baby. It's definitely got enough on it's own and sounds great on it's own. Did I mention you can get this much gain and still sound great at LOW volume levels? Amazing...


OVERALL OPINION

Great amp. One of the only amps that offer a spectacular clean and spectacular dirty channel. The most versatile combo amp I've seen to this date! Sounds GREAT at low volumes too! How is this all possible in one amp? The only set back is of course the price, you gotta convince yourself that it's worth the $$$. I think it is, after playing through it all the time!