I’ve had the KII for many years now and it has been my main amp pretty much the entire time. Dozens of other amps have come and gone in that time, including the KR55. That’s not to say that the KR55 isn’t as good, it’s just it’s own thing and although I think it has the same signature Rivera sound, it differs greatly in options and flexibility and mostly how it is EQ’d. The KR55 has more gain available, but not as much low end, and doesn’t sound as big overall, perhaps due to it being 55 watts rather than 120? It’s also a 3 channel amp versus the KIIs 2 channels. The KR55 uses the midi footswitch, which can be a huge pain in the ass if you don’t like messing around with that sort of thing. It also doesn’t have the functionality I expected of it. The KII has a much more conventional 3 button footswitch. Much simpler for an impatient 52 year old geezer like me. I think the KR55 would be a great amp, especially if you were willing to put the time in to figure out how to really dial it in. I admittedly didn’t really spend a lot of time with it, simply because I preferred the KII, and was much more familiar with it. I think that Riveras by nature take some time to figure out. They tend to have so many tonal options, and such a wide spectrum of settings available, that they can be frustrating. I also think that a boost up front is pretty much mandatory to keep them tight. I unfortunately have no experience with the K-Tre, but I agree that the architecture (at least from the outside) is almost identical to the KII and it would make sense that it is an evolution of the KII. From what I’ve heard, the Tre is very similar to the KII, but with slightly more gain, a few less tonal options, and even more bottom end (good God why?). So yeah, these things have a LUDICROUS amount of low end. The KII for example, has a pull bass boost on the bass EQ knob, which is honestly absolutely pointless. Without the bass boost, and the knob set at noon, the amp has a ton of low end. Kyle did a video recently on the Tre, and I recommend watching it. He also mentions how the amp has more low end than any other amp, by far. I am still on the lookout for a K-Tre at a decent price, because I’d really like to compare them for myself. Either way, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Rivera amps, as long as you’re willing to spend some time getting familiar with it.
I was just curious for my own tinkering which is almost always simple vintage type stuff. I bought some of those Vishay but haven’t used any yet.
