Kruse amps opinions?

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Holy-diver

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Don’t know much, how are his mods and amps? Any users?
 
He rips off people by selling power amps made from cheap Chinese/Aliexpress parts. His power amps also don't meet the wattage he claims.

vultures

Thread 'Kruse Power Amp: How to build yourself a Warm+Tube-Like 2x120W Power Amp for dirt cheap.'

So you want to have Warm+Tube-like Tone? It can be in your hands for under.. $60+/-


I had a friend talk me up on this Kruse power amp. He sent me the pedalboard version of the power amp. He bought two of them brand new. I got curious. What made this relatively unknown amp builders stuff just that good? What's the secret sauce? What do these sweet sweet guts look like? Well I'm surprised and I'm sure you will be too.

6WaMstX.jpeg



The first sign of serious engineering was EPOXIED SCREWS. How delightful. There must be some unbelievably advanced...
  • Wow




He's also apparently cloning KSR amps and calling them his own. His mods are pretty shitty. People have called him out for doing messy work inside, solder everywhere, dirty, hot gluing random inductors on the board, etc.. I'd avoid him at all costs.

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I had a V5 modded Marshall of his, tried his Quanah model amp and really didn’t like either in sound or feel. Brittle, disconnected, just not great imo
 
Very timely thread, as I was just talking to a guy on Facebook marketplace about buying his Kruse-modded Origin 50. He seems to be very motivated to make a deal. Maybe this is why
 
I got one of the single space rack power amps last year. First one was DOA. He sent me a replacement which has worked fine. It was cheap and looks and feels cheap. I just use it for W/D/W from time to time so it serves its purpose for me. Had I known about the info in this thread, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, but I have it now so oh well
 
No idea about his amps or mods, but I really liked the switcher of his I had for a few years- never any problems with it
 
Speaking of Cruise, I wonder where Jens Kruse obtained his electronics background? Church of ScienLOLogy?
 
I had a Kruse modded DMoll and a Kruse modded 5150 50w about 10 years ago?

Mods on DMoll included deKomp, power watt selctor, and tweaks to the clean.
The dekomp was very good if used sparingly, a nice improvement that could also be dialed out if needed.
The power scale watt thing was probably not needed as Diezel master volumes work fine as it, but if reduced to 5 or 10 watts, it delivered a nice 70s Led Zepp vibe.
The tweaks to the clean were amazing, best clean I ever played.

The EVH had dual pots on the gain and volume installed. This was before Fender same out with the same exact feature. In fact, I used this amp at a Fender event and had several fender people asking me about it and 1 year later they released it with the upgrades. I kind of feel like it may have spurred that idea, so that's cool because the amp was a bit limited before on the green/blue.
It had a "supersonic" option which was imilar to DeKomp, I dialed in a just a bit and it was an improvement.
I also had green blue red lights installed which looked amazing lol
Again, porbablky did not need the power scale option.

Customer service was outstanding, he was there by phone, text, email immediately, work was completed in days and shipped out.

Not sure what else is going on or the other products, but my experience was great. Prices were reasonable as well.
 
RedB4Black said:
I got one of the single space rack power amps last year. First one was DOA. He sent me a replacement which has worked fine. It was cheap and looks and feels cheap. I just use it for W/D/W from time to time so it serves its purpose for me. Had I known about the info in this thread, I probably wouldn’t have bought it, but I have it now so oh well
Click to expand...

Open that thing up. I'm curious to see the guts of others. Wonder if he can actually design/build a power amp or just uses cheap chinese parts for everything.
 
I have no direct experience with his amps or mods so take my opinion for what it is. I've never liked any of the clips I've heard of his stuff. It's either sounding like way too much ice pick top end or it doesn't sound right in general. Maybe his amps and mods generally suck or maybe they're just not to my liking. what I've seen from general feedback from users has been a mixed bag.
 
crankyrayhanky said:
I had a Kruse modded DMoll and a Kruse modded 5150 50w about 10 years ago?

Mods on DMoll included deKomp, power watt selctor, and tweaks to the clean.
The dekomp was very good if used sparingly, a nice improvement that could also be dialed out if needed.
The power scale watt thing was probably not needed as Diezel master volumes work fine as it, but if reduced to 5 or 10 watts, it delivered a nice 70s Led Zepp vibe.
The tweaks to the clean were amazing, best clean I ever played.

The EVH had dual pots on the gain and volume installed. This was before Fender same out with the same exact feature. In fact, I used this amp at a Fender event and had several fender people asking me about it and 1 year later they released it with the upgrades. I kind of feel like it may have spurred that idea, so that's cool because the amp was a bit limited before on the green/blue.
It had a "supersonic" option which was imilar to DeKomp, I dialed in a just a bit and it was an improvement.
I also had green blue red lights installed which looked amazing lol
Again, porbablky did not need the power scale option.

Customer service was outstanding, he was there by phone, text, email immediately, work was completed in days and shipped out.

Not sure what else is going on or the other products, but my experience was great. Prices were reasonable as well.
Click to expand...
Same. Had the DeKomp mod done on a VH4. Loved that amp. Could go from stock to mod and anywhere in between with one pot. Great communication and fast turn around times.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I have no direct experience with his amps or mods so take my opinion for what it is. I've never liked any of the clips I've heard of his stuff. It's either sounding like way too much ice pick top end or it doesn't sound right in general. Maybe his amps and mods generally suck or maybe they're just not to my liking. what I've seen from general feedback from users has been a mixed bag.
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That’s how they sound in person too of what I tried. Brittle
 
I think Kruse worked for Diezel for a short time, so it makes sense that he seemed to deliver on those amps. The DeKomp/supersonic dial sounded ice pick horrible if cranked up past noon, which I think is some of the reason there are so many bad clips- a lot of players lost their high end hearing and just went way too far with that dial. Put it at 9-10 o'clock and it is fantastic. Turn it all the way left and it was stock bypassed. I would get it again.
 
I knew Jens from when he first started working with the Diezel guys since I had been helping them out by bringing my Diezel amps and cabs to NAMM to save them on shipping costs, and answering questions at their NAMM booths about the amps.

He was a very intense guy, seriously intense, and very passionate about his work on their amps, and it was part of the reason his relationship with them ended (two sides to that story though).

I had taken Jens my modded Herbert to do a power tube change, and he started inspecting the mod.

The mod was a variac mod done by Bob Rissi (a very well known amp builder out here).

Jens started saying it wasn't done correctly but I think you could have 5 amp tech guys in a room looking at an amp and you would find they would say they could have built it better.

Interesting thing is that shortly afterwards, Jens was offering a variac mod for amps.

I felt he was very short/rude the last time I was emailing him about some possible mods.

I know these guys can get pretty busy so emailing people back can take away from the little free time they have available to them but I figure Jens owes me about 30-40 hours of my life back due to having him go on about what happened between him and the Diezel guys especially Stapfer 😂

Anyways, I had decided I wouldn't have him mod anything for me again, and I felt his amps always sounded too trebly based upon his audio/video clips, so I wouldn't be buying any of them.

Plus he is no longer local to me, so shipping would add to the mod cost or amp cost even if I had thought maybe he just had too much coffee that day 😂
 
grrr_me_scary said:
I knew Jens from when he first started working with the Diezel guys since I had been helping them out by bringing my Diezel amps and cabs to NAMM to save them on shipping costs, and answering questions at their NAMM booths about the amps.

He was a very intense guy, seriously intense, and very passionate about his work on their amps, and it was part of the reason his relationship with them ended (two sides to that story though).

I had taken Jens my modded Herbert to do a power tube change, and he started inspecting the mod.

The mod was a variac mod done by Bob Rissi (a very well known amp builder out here).

Jens started saying it wasn't done correctly but I think you could have 5 amp tech guys in a room looking at an amp and you would find they would say they could have built it better.

Interesting thing is that shortly afterwards, Jens was offering a variac mod for amps.

I felt he was very short/rude the last time I was emailing him about some possible mods.

I know these guys can get pretty busy so emailing people back can take away from the little free time they have available to them but I figure Jens owes me about 30-40 hours of my life back due to having him go on about what happened between him and the Diezel guys especially Stapfer 😂

Anyways, I had decided I wouldn't have him mod anything for me again, and I felt his amps always sounded too trebly based upon his audio/video clips, so I wouldn't be buying any of them.

Plus he is no longer local to me, so shipping would add to the mod cost or amp cost even if I had thought maybe he just had too much coffee that day 😂
Click to expand...
Interesting. Jens was really nice and polite with me and got my amp back with the mod in less than 2 weeks. I just don’t like the way his stuff sounds. Like you and others said, it was brittle in sound and feel. Just not as pleasant/enjoyable to play. He did seem very passionate for sure, which I liked
 
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