![]() I wonder how man y of those noisemakers he sold during that era. I don't know how Hartley Peavey wrangled Switchcraft to go cheap, but those "boards" were notorious for the XLR connectors to go bad and not release the mic cables! We'd just wrap the cables around the board (just like the AC cord) and roll with it. Too bad, because Bud was quite a visionary in his field, as well as a master promoter, a pilot (he flew himself all around the country in a Beechcraft promoting his products), and a really nice guy. Around the same time, sound reinforcement technology was rapidly increasing but Kustom did not keep up with it and lost market share. You do have to be sure that there's some sort of speaker load on the amp at all times or it will damage the output transistors.īud Ross went through a nasty divorce around 1974-75 and had to liquidate his companies (there is still a Kustom Electronics radar gun factory in Kansas, though). I still have a very nice 1971 blue-sparkle Kustom 200 PA head that I use when I want real surf spring reverb happening. That reverb used a larger Hammond tank with more springs than the Fender amps did, and it ROCKED!!! This would be the only reason to even consider plugging that beast into a wall socket! All Kustom gear, while it was built like a brick outhouse, was insanely noisey! When you powered up any amp, there would be this humongous THUMP through the speakers and then this steady roar of the ocean.Bud Ross has stated that the thump and hiss were intentional."Those amps sounded loud just sitting there idling!" And, yes, that is a VU meter, not a dB meter on the front, and it's probably as accurate as Helen Keller at a darts tournament. The PA gear was the only Kasino gear that had built-in spring reverb, the guitar amps were much less fancy than the Kustoms. Kasino PA consoles like yours came out a few years later, and were designed to compete with Sunn and Acoustic Control gear. Tonally, if you plug a Strat into one of those behemoths, it's like an icepick in your ear! The sales brochures from them show a wall of Kasino amps all interconnected to form a massive 2,000 watts of Kasino sound.YIKES!!! In Kustom tradition, the amps' internal electronics were built to be very reliable and easy to service. ![]() The "master" amp had 1/4" line outputs and AC power outlet receptacles on the rear panel to feed several "power modules". Then you could buy a "power module" which was the power amp and speakers, sans the preamp section. You started out with a one-piece monstrosity of an amp - preamp, power amp, and CTS speakers - in one cabinet. Kustom came out with the less frilly and lower-priced Kasino line in around 1970-71. The PA rigs were big with the travelling "showcase" acts of the day - Altec-Lansing speakers, a unique "anti-feedback" circuit design, and 1/4" Hi-Z mic inputs- as many as 16 of them - made them a hit. His unique upholstering of the amps with metal-flake Naugahyde (red, white,blue,charcoal, silver,gold, and "cascade"-a turquoise) as well as flat black, in tuck'n'roll made them hugely popular, unique, and expensive. Bud Ross started Kustom Electronics in the early-mid 60's to make RADAR GUNS !!!!! He got interested in the burgeoning rock'n'roll music biz and in around '67 started up "Kustom by Ross" to make solid-state (the transistor was his passion!) guitar and bass amps, PA systems, later on, combo organs and electric guitars.
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