Krank Krankenstein Review.......

Alright guys, I've had a few days with it, and had done my homework before I got it, on how to set it up for different tones etc.....SO,

1. This amp is solid as hell, well built. looks nice. No complaints whatsoever.

2. Clean channel, the clean is alright, nothing special, not bad either. Better than the 5150 for sure, but not a fender clean. when you get the volume up quite a bit you'll get a little break up, but it is VERY usable.

3. Dime Channel. now for all the haters out there. forget what you heard trying it out at GC, and forget all the Bullshit hype from a few years ago. This head has some serious tones in it. Granted the Sweep control is just like it is on the Revo, it'll make or break your tone. The thing has a TON of gain, sounds good and thick, also the mids are really nice, you can dial down the gain and get some nice "vintagey" tones out of it, the whole "balls to the wall" tones are in there, and the eq is very flexible, so much so, you can dial in a WIDE range of tones, (Marshall type, or Mesa type, not dead on but close enough). This thing is LOUD!!!!! AND that the key. playing it in the bedroom without a hotplate, or at GC where you cant "Krank it up" just does NOTHING for this amp. Once it's turned passed at least 3, this thing REALLY starts to breathe, and come alive.

O.k. for the skeptics, I did not get this to try and sell the "krank" name to the non believers, or haters, I was genuinely curious. I've heard it all including my own run in with former Krank employees. But I really wanted to try it out, and give it an honest review, and give the company another shot.

I recommend this amp to anyone who's looking for an amp that'll do MORE than just one tone or style. The thing is nice.





feel free to ask questions......

SgtThump":b62c0 said:

Very cool! Are you gonna keep it around a while? I tried it once in GC and hated everything I heard. It was sizzly and just downright bad. Then I tried it again and got much better tones out of it. I seem to remember setting that "sweep" control in an extreme position (almost all the way counter-clockwise?) to get rid of that sizzle, but it sounded pretty good to me.

I'd like to check one out again.

Chris

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He's an amp flipper, I suspect this review is a primer for getting ready to sell/trade

To get a thick sound without a lot of sizzle you do have to keep the Sweep REAL low, I'm at 1 on my Revolution. Keeping the Presence down below 4 - 5 will help with that too. I know guys who play Flotsam & Jetsam kind of stuff who go the opposite way with the Sweep. Juggy is right, there are a lot of different tones in there, and the Sweep and Presence are very sensitive to dialing the amp in to do what you want it to do.
Playing it with the gains below 3 and the EQ's, Sweep, and Presence all hovering around 12:00 will make it sound like crap. The KRANK heads are unlike anything else I've owned, in respect to what the controls do to the tone, and the degree of sensitivity of the Sweep. I feel they get a bad rap sometimes because it really takes a little time to sit down and dial your sound in, and if you are unaware about what is going on with the rest and just play with the EQ, you won't like it at all.

Great, fair review Juggernaut, I'm very happy a well known person on this forum such as yourself gave this head a decent chance!

yep, it's not staying.


It's just NOT my tone, I even had my drummer tell me that the XXX, 5150 and my old Mesas were more my tone, and it just didnt fit my style.......fair enough. I thought the same thing but it sounded great.

I was pleasantly surprised.


Edit: well let me rephrase, It's not staying, BUT I'm not in a hurry to move it either. I got one offer I may take, but if he backs out, then I'll keep it for awhile and see what I can do with it

Copperhead":45888 said:

To get a thick sound without a lot of sizzle you do have to keep the Sweep REAL low, I'm at 1 on my Revolution. Keeping the Presence down below 4 - 5 will help with that too. I know guys who play Flotsam & Jetsam kind of stuff who go the opposite way with the Sweep. Juggy is right, there are a lot of different tones in there, and the Sweep and Presence are very sensitive to dialing the amp in to do what you want it to do.
Playing it with the gains below 3 and the EQ's, Sweep, and Presence all hovering around 12:00 will make it sound like crap. The KRANK heads are unlike anything else I've owned, in respect to what the controls do to the tone, and the degree of sensitivity of the Sweep. I feel they get a bad rap sometimes because it really takes a little time to sit down and dial your sound in, and if you are unaware about what is going on with the rest and just play with the EQ, you won't like it at all.

Great, fair review Juggernaut, I'm very happy a well known person on this forum such as yourself gave this head a decent chance!

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I've never been real big on the Krank bashing, I had issues with them but it wasnt Krank perse, it was Jody Dankberg.

And yea, they are a COMPLETELY different animal than your standard amps (Marshall/Peavey) even Mesa. It's definetely NOT something you can just dial in, if people think the Mark IV is hard to dial in they'll hate this. It took me over a day to get used to the way its set-up, and it took me all of 30 seconds to dial the Mark IV

Juggernaut":471c8 said:

I've never been real big on the Krank bashing, I had issues with them but it wasnt Krank perse, it was Jody Dankberg.

And yea, they are a COMPLETELY different animal than your standard amps (Marshall/Peavey) even Mesa. It's definetely NOT something you can just dial in, if people think the Mark IV is hard to dial in they'll hate this. It took me over a day to get used to the way its set-up, and it took me all of 30 seconds to dial the Mark IV

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To be honest with you , I can see why people bash Krank because of there earlier gorilla marketing campaign. When they first arived on the sceen they were marketing there amps as Bogner/Mesa "insert amp MFG here" killers.
They were also busted on HC for giving out favorable all 10 reviews in the user reviews section and all of the reviews came from one i/p address trying to pose as different users. Thats a scumbag thing to do plain and simple.
Then When Bob Savage and I went to check them out at there debut at NAMM, we could not get a word in edgewise about our opinion of the amp. Everytime they asked us what we thought of the amp the sales guy would not let us speak and he kept saying..."its great right" "its great right!!"
We just walked away. Then Mark Cameron tried the amp and he got the same treatment even when he was trying to help them out (them would not let him talk!)

The first line of Krank amps sucked. No one will ever be able to tell me any different because they were horrible sounding. I think that they have improved over the years but the sweep control didn;t even work correctly the first year out, so if you are looking for the origin of why people bash Krank... I pretty much laid it out for you.


I tried the Krankenstein and I didn't dig it but thats just a preferance thing!!

Cool review BTW!

~R~

Hey Ralphie, I was waiting for you to chime in....

Yea I know the whole HC story, It happened about the time I first joined HC. I get it, and I understand why people were turned off, I was too, too a degree. But everyone want to hype their stuff, I just think they got a little too zealous, then when Dime joined the fray, it really got out of hand

They actually "out-talked" Mark? they should get an award for that alone (love ya Mark! )

It's not a bad amp, just VERY hard to dial in..........but like I said, NOT my tone thats for sure.

Juggernaut":e109d said:

Hey Ralphie, I was waiting for you to chime in....

Yea I know the whole HC story, It happened about the time I first joined HC. I get it, and I understand why people were turned off, I was too, too a degree. But everyone want to hype their stuff, I just think they got a little too zealous, then when Dime joined the fray, it really got out of hand

They actually "out-talked" Mark? they should get an award for that alone (love ya Mark! )

It's not a bad amp, just VERY hard to dial in..........but like I said, NOT my tone thats for sure.

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I hear ya! I really don't comment much on there amps anymore because Im sure everyone knows that I don't dig them but If it works for someone then thats great! That said, I was just reminding people as to why people bash Krank!! I know that you know the deal but Im sure that there migt be others who never heard of how the Krank Kamp ran there business!!!

Yeah, Mark was going to suggest a few things to them and he couldn't get a word in edgewise

I thought that the cleans were the only thing going for these amps imo.........but as the man who loves his 3 eyed wife " beauty is in the eye of the beholder"

One thing that can make or break how an amp sounds in the store is who demos it and how it's hooked up. The singer in my band has been thinking about getting into playing guitar and wanted me to check out some cheaper amps with him. We went to GC and checked out some of the amps. The sales guy set up an amp (amp name withheld to avoid highjacking this thread) and matching 4x12 cab and fired it up. I didn't like the amp at all, sounded weak and thin, no punch, no bass, terrible sound. Even I had heard that theses amps were considered a "poor man's" recto. No matter how I dialed it in, couldn't get a good sound. So after about 20 minutes I said let's look at something else. So as we are getting ready to move on I decided to just look at the back of the amp for the sake of looking. The sales guy had the cab in stereo mode and the bias was set wrong on the amp. So after I got all 4x12's pumping on the correct bias setting the amp came alive. Plenty of bass with full sound. For the money it was now a good amp to consider.

Gainfreak":3a832 said:

how the Krank Kamp ran there business!!!

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Yep, Jody Dankberg, ripped me off for over $500 on a deal for some custom faceplates for the Krankenstein prototypes..............hence my problem with them.


But they seem to have toned it down somewhat since firing that polesmoker, now if we could get the owners to calm down too..... (Hi Copperhead )

I think you need to try a Chadwick next!

I dont know whats next........

I'm thinking about:

Carvin V3
Marshall JVM
Vetta II
Mesa Roadster

Juggernaut":936b3 said:

Gainfreak":936b3 said:

how the Krank Kamp ran there business!!!

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Yep, Jody Dankberg, ripped me off for over $500 on a deal for some custom faceplates for the Krankenstein prototypes..............hence my problem with them.


But they seem to have toned it down somewhat since firing that polesmoker, now if we could get the owners to calm down too..... (Hi Copperhead )

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I met Jody at NAMM and he was in fact a complete polesmoker
I'm glad that he is gone!

On another note, Im just not sure why the Krank amps suund like they do. I heard a Marshall Modded By Tony that blew my doors off. I was really hoping that the Krank amps would sound like that but they dont!

Yea Brent (Gutierrez) has nothing but great things to say about Tony as a tech too. He actually had problems with his Uber and out of something like 4-5 techs in Phoenix, Tony was the only one who figured it out and fixed it. He said only took him like 20 minutes too.


Dildo Jody is working for Randall now.......breaks my heart.

Juggernaut":8c206 said:

Yea Brent (Gutierrez) has nothing but great things to say about Tony as a tech too. He actually had problems with his Uber and out of something like 4-5 techs in Phoenix, Tony was the only one who figured it out and fixed it. He said only took him like 20 minutes too.


Dildo Jody is working for Randall now.......breaks my heart.

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That's what really amazes me. His modded Marshall amps were flamethrowers!! Great tone with an assload of gain but they retained clarity. I plugged into the Krank and I was like WTF? I guess he wanted to design something from the ground up but his mods sound tons better IMHO.

Unfortunetly, Guys like Jody will always have a job because they are natural salesmen who know how to bullshit people.

Man I GOT to figure out how to get to NAMM this year to meet you guys in person...

Juggernaut":6dbce said:

But they seem to have toned it down somewhat since firing that polesmoker, now if we could get the owners to calm down too..... (Hi Copperhead )

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Oh - I am not an owner or employee or anything like that. I've just had some very positive experiences with Krank. When I went to their place last November, everyone was great, I met Tony and he was super, and they seemed to really listen to me and tweeked my Revolution to do exactly what I wanted it to do, even Tony was poking around in my amp, and he was showing me some prototype stuff that I got to play with while they were working on the Revolution.(RevJR and Krankshaft) Their price for the mods was very fair, and they were very helpful.

So when I hear about Ralph's and others experiences I am amazed because I've been treated just the opposite!
Perhaps they've learned how to treat people from past miscues? They continue to be very helpful to me and they are always working on new stuff that they get very excited about. The tech guy is building me a looper right now, I don't know what it will cost but I'm sure it will be very reasonable.

I didn't mean to insinuate (-sp) that your were owner in the company, I just meant the owners of the amps

But hey, Mesa guys and Marshall guys are hardcore too.....just seems the majority of Krank owners are a little TOO hardcore.

I'm not a one amp guy by any stretch, I like at least one of just about everything. I'm a whore

Juggernaut":5f24d said:

Man I GOT to figure out how to get to NAMM this year to meet you guys in person...

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Make it happen bro!!!