Koch Twintone II Head

Koch is a company based out of the Netherlands and has been building great quality amps for musicians around the world. They have a good reputation as a simple guitar amps that are full of tone. These are high gain monster and they aren't sweet innocent clean amps. Koch is somewhere in between with their gain style and voicing structure.

This amp is a 50 watts blues style amp. They don't market it as a blues amp but that is the tone I hear when I hear this amp in action. You can definitely get a decent distortion from it but the voicing is just blues. I don't think it can be dialed out. Not that it is a bad thing just a particular thing.

What I like about this amp over the combo version is that the combo sounded very boxy and the head didn't. You could hook it up to a 4x12 and really get some air pushing. It could be the cabinet the combo is in more than the amp is self.

UTILIZATION

FEATURES
• 4 x 12AX7 Preamp & 2 x EL34 Power tubes, 50 watts
• Normal & Bright Clean inputs
• 3 channels (clean, overdrive & overdrive +)
• Passive bass-mid-treble tone controls for clean channel
• Separate presence-bass-mid-treble for overdrive channels
• Solo/Rhythm facility providing two controllable volume levels for all channels and settings
• Koch VG12-90 12” speaker (combo only)
• Accutronics long tank reverb with level adjust and foot switchable
• Parallel or Serial effects loops
• Recording and headphone outputs
• Built in ‘Power Soak’ (0, 25 or 50 watts output power)
• 5-way footswitch included
• Combo Dimensions 50 cm x 28 cm x 47 cm (h,w,d)
• Head Dimensions 50 cm x 28 cm x 28 cm (h,w,d)
• Weight Combo 25 kg, Head 15 kg

SOUNDS

This is a three channel amp one dedicate to clean and one for the distortion. What is different to this amp is that it has a middle EQ for the clean channel. Most amps I come across and especially Fender has only volume, bass, and treble. There usually isn't a middle control knob for the clean. That is a simple but great features to have.

The distortion on this head was fare more superior than the combo version. I have begun to really understand the importance that the cabinet makes for an amp as well as the speakers. For the combo the distortion sound boxy but the head is able to bloom with a nice cabinet.

OVERALL OPINION

At new these amps are at around $1599, not a bad rice for a three channel amp rated at 50 watts. They are great for the clean tone but I wasn't that impressed with the distortion channels. I would recommend this amp to a blues based player and not a hard rock player. It will sound good in a pop or mild rock setting and do fine. This amp is much better than the combo.