NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

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NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Thu Aug 05, 2021 3:31 pm

I’m quite excited to introduce my new pal, a 1969 Kustom K200B-1 head.

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I’ll keep the background stuff brief, but this one has sentimental value. I grew up in the Midwest, and these weren’t uncommon to see as a bygone relic to a ‘90s teen. After college, I played through a tuck and roll combo for about six months in a band that was just the spare amp in their space. Liked it enough that I ended up playing it clean with just reverb in a full-on punk band. They obviously looked great, and I always liked older amps that had unique sonic personality. Not tons of experience playing them. And I’ve always loved Space-Age mid-century modern.

When I moved to my current town about 12 years ago and started seeing bands, there was a dude who I just thought totally rocked. Thought he had the coolest band in town, frankly kinda awestruck at his talent as an artist, but a really great dude as a dude. Ended up becoming buddies through mutual friends and eventually we even moved in to share a practice space with him when we lost ours. He was selling a pile of gear and we talked about me buying this for a very fair price, even though he knew at least one channel had some problems, etc. He hadn’t turned it on in years, but he’d bought it because a mutual influence of ours played one. Last time he tried it, it worked pretty well, he said. I was sold. I never got around to scraping together even the nominal asking price. So it sat behind our drummer at the space, just taunting me for a couple years. I was corresponding with him last week and told him I’d still love to buy it one day, and he said if I could get it working, it was mine.

I’d never tested it because I know better than to plug in a two-pronged cord on any device with a polarity switch; or even at all, if it’s vintage. So, I took it home last week to assess what I could so when I took it in I might know what I was dealing with.

And it was a mess.

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Aside from the ungrounded power, the thing had 6 jacks on the back, all unmarked. Four of them were clustered, sloppily, on a little board that was clearly modded, and the two on the other side were a complete mystery.

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After some education recently (including plenty from gracious members here), I took proper safety precautions and pulled the chassis. I checked around for any remaining juice with a multimeter, then got to inspecting gingerly.

Initial Observations:
- This thing was gross inside.
- REALLY gross.
- The output mess described above.
- Someone had installed a huge fan inside, somewhat crudely jumpered to the wall power cord ends.
- This fan was pointed directly at the Bright channel preamp board, clearly clogging every pot and switch with hot old dust that only baked on further. (And may have caused overheating?)
- A hole had been routed in the side of the head as some kind of vent for that giant fan.
- One component (a resistor?) on the power board was missing.
- The fuse holder had been replaced and a hole had been drilled in the front to allow fuse changes externally. Which means at some point, it was blowing fuses.
- It had clearly survived some vinyl and impact damage and was painted over flat black at some point.
- The power switch was clearly still set up with a death cap to the chassis.


Step one was to clean it up. The picture above is from AFTER the first wave of cleaning with compressed air and a vacuum at one end of the thing. A toothbrush, some Deoxit on the jacks, and then a very thorough few flushings of the pots, which must have been loaded with dust. Wiped down the exterior, and while nobody would mistake it for factory floor, it was clean enough to actually assess. Everything looked connected, gentle prodding with a chopstick found no loose components.

The fan drove me nuts. It was bolted to brackets mounted on the bottom of the chassis, and I could see where it had been spliced into the power input. I decided that if this amp was going to malfunction, I wanted it to malfunction of its own merit, so I could diagnose something. So I clipped it and removed it. It weighed just under two pounds.

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Next up was the power cord. Now, I’ve never done work like that before. Everybody’s gotta have a first time. Luckily, it turns out the only Kustom videos on YouTube include a handful of repair videos with one in particular dealing with replacing the power cord with a properly grounded 3-prong plug. I could see the switch, I could see exactly what the signal path was, I could see exactly why it was a problem, and how it did what it did, and why that was so dangerous. I decided to take the plunge and do it. Spent three days researching, studying, and my wife accompanied so she could assist. Short version of the story is that I did it and it worked great. I was nervous, but very, very careful with making sure I had a really solid solder AND mechanical grounding connection on the ground wire, and while I PROBABLY could have given the ground wire even more extra slack than I did, the power cable was woven and zipped around enough components, I’m not too worried. It would more likely rip one of those soda can caps or the transformer out first.

I tested the cap with a multimeter after I took it out. It didn't seem to be registering anything at all.

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Inside the chassis were two servicing stickers. Which traced the amp to living in or around Union, NJ through most of the 1970s, getting serviced by Rich at Time Electronics in 1974 and 1980. The fan isn’t mentioned on either sticker, so I’m assuming that was sometime later during the ‘80s. The part date on the fan is 1980. As you can see, the preamp outs and external speakers were modded in 1974. I wasn’t planning on using the preamp out, and I’m not sure how it would work, but it looks like they just swapped the original RCA jack for two 1/4” mono jacks. The location on the circuit board is close enough that I wonder if the missing component on the power board is related to these. And it appears that the speaker outs were just increased to four jacks instead of two.

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At first I wondered who would do all this to this poor amp. My hope is that some maniac had four 16 ohm cabs running from this, with two preamp outs running into the power sections of two other amps. It’s a pipe dream, but it’s what I’m going to imagine.

The other notes on the stickers indicated that transistors (that’s what “xistors” is tech shorthand for, yes?) had been replaced on both channels over the years. I’ve learned that these things can be sensitive getting blasted with input gain and I’m wondering if a hot overdrive or something did those in more than once. Hard for me to be able to say at the moment.

My suspicion is that this thing was blowing input transistors from hot stomp boxes over the years, and I can’t imagine getting blasted with dust from that fan was doing those preamp boards any favors. I wonder if fuses were blowing because of far too many outputs straining the damn thing, or maybe the fan. The fan bracket was installed partially OVER the 1980 service tag, so who knows what happened in the intervening 40 years.

So, right BEFORE I moved up here, a neighbor who worked as a contractor was doing some cleanup work on a house that had burned down. He knocked on the door one day with a Woodson 212 cabinet. Sealed back, no ports. I learned they were “Kustom kousins” of some kind — maybe in-laws, maybe something related to a divorce, maybe it was a fully separate company, but the few accounts I could find said that their products were basically “Missouri Kustoms” with a different nameplate. I’d drug it around for years, not wanting to get rid of it, but not finding a use for it. It wasn’t fancy, but like my beloved ‘70s Peavey, it was just too heavy-duty to get rid of, even if I had to replace speakers. If I needed a speaker cab, this was as well-constructed as any I’ve seen. A pair of Woodson-branded CTS 8 ohm speakers are inside, initially wired for a 16 ohm cab. The guy said the rest of the set burned up in the fire. This one smelled like smoke for a couple years in the garage, but you can’t tell anymore, it's in excellent condition. Based on the impedance, I’d always assumed it was half a PA system that wanted 8 ohms total. It was always waiting for new speakers or an appropriately-sized head or something. I pulled the volume rheostat that was in the back, figuring it can’t really be doing me any good for my purposes, I rewired it for 4 ohms, and hooked this mess up. They were clearly made for each other. Soulmates. For over a decade, it was a Kustom-ish cab without a head, and now I had a Kustom head without a cab.

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Ok, so how does it sound? Once I turned it on, it sounded… great. I knew about the thunk and the hiss, so they didn’t throw me, other than that, it’s worked exactly as one would expect. No crackle or cutout on the pots now that they and the jacks have been flushed and deoxfied. A couple inputs could have a tighter fit on the input cable, but I don’t like messing with those breaker-style jacks, I’ve mucked one up before trying to tighten things up. It’s in no way a practice amp. I can feel the vibration in our hardwood floors when the thing’s on zero. I mean ZERO. Pot all the way closed. I’ve gotten it up pretty loud a few times, but will need to haul it back to the space to really put it through it’s paces, lest our building evict me or the amp.

It’s got *personality*. I’m not euphemising shortcomings. It just sounds unique. Very late-‘60s. “Smoky”? “Woody”? It barks. It’s not any of those classic rock sounds, but it’s got tones I’ve heard on scratchy funk and soul 45s by the bucketful. It’s cheap punk and garage records. Not as abrasive on the treble than the majority of mid-range solid states I’ve played, which were all from the late ‘80s or beyond. The treble and bass knobs are pretty powerful, and other than the inherent hiss (like a faucet two rooms over), I don’t hear any HUM until it’s up past about 7 on the volume dial. And the hiss doesn’t get louder as I turn up, it’s just there.

The bright switch on the bright channel reminds me of the strangle switch on a Jag - and therefore not terribly useful to me. But the one on the Normal channel is helpful, and it’s so bone-simple to operate, it’s just more about flipping it on and playing. All the pedals I’ve tried sound great through it. Green Russian, Rat, Superfuzz — check, check, check. I’m having to adjust from my usual setup to make sure my clean tone is a shade louder than my effected tone. I’m used to super high headroom amps, so I’m treating this one with a little more delicacy. Ironically, this amp’s vibe has been inspiring me to just play guitar or bass through a big wooly fuzz and that’s it.

I can't stand CCR. I really can't. Music's not good or bad, but that band ain't for me. Hell of an instrumental unit, but Fogerty's grunting, flannel-clad, tryin-to-be-authentic shtick is proto-Nickelback to me and I can't go anywhere near them. So chasing THAT sound, with his fancier trem-and-fuzz-and-reverb model of these heads, is anathema to what I'm aiming for. I'm not gonna tell you that a Kustom is the greatest American amp since Fender, but I'll tell you there's a lot more in this box than just that.

So, yeah, I’m in love. It’s not my be-all, end-all amp. But I love the personality, and I love “double duty” amps. I play in a loud garage/punk/surf/psych two-piece, so I like thick closed-back amps for extra whoompf. As a full on garage/punk machine howling through that 2x12, I think it will be top-notch. As a nice, unique, straightforward bass rig, it’s exactly the kind of thing I like. If a Kustom was good enough for Dee Dee Ramone in the early days, I’m sure it’ll do me fine playing my punk rock bass, too. And I rarely play somewhere I can't mic it, so I'm sure it'll be plenty punchy if necessary.

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But if you’ve been kind enough to read this far, I do have a couple of questions maybe somebody here could answer, now or in the future. If it’s the future, you absolutely have my encouragement to revive this as a zombie thread.

- How hot would the input need to be to blow those input transistors? Obviously, a humbucker wouldn’t be enough on its own, but I’m keeping my DBA stuff away from this one for the time being. I have a DD-5 I love to pile up in a noise wreck at the end of the set. Would that going so crazy on the DD-5 it was clipping the DD-5 be enough to blow them? How hot is the 1V that I’ve read can blow them?

- Any thoughts on that missing component in the power board section? Like I said, my HOPE is that it was taken out to account for the mods to (perhaps) the preamp outs that were updated.

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Oh, and one of the best surprises? Underneath that black paint is gold sparkle. Not browned silver, this stuff is gold. The pics don’t do it justice. But there’s enough poorly-fixed damage under that paint with hardened, solid glue that I’m not going to strip it. I’m going to wear the hell out of it, and let it flake away the (very durable) black, slowly revealing patches of the gold glitter. Like a “reverse relic” kind of thing.

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(When I got back from picking it up, I told my wife it had followed me home from the practice space. I asked if I could keep him. So we’ve named him Mr. Stevenson. I hope that might give some other channel-surfer a laugh.)

Thanks for reading. Please share any thoughts, after digging for a week on any online info I could find, it’d be nice to read something new about these.

Please?

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by Flurko » Thu Aug 05, 2021 3:46 pm

I have zero advice for you because the most I know about electronics is how to not burn myself with the iron, but that was a great read !
You managed to make me read a long post all the way through, even so it was about an AMP, which is is usually one of the least interesting topic in gear for me. Congratulations, this was a great and interesting story, the stack with the wide head and narrow cab has a funky look to it too!

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by Veitchy » Thu Aug 05, 2021 5:25 pm

That was a ride. Insane amount of detail in your story. Thanks' for putting it up.

If nothing else, this has me wondering when tuck-and-roll is going to make it's Christlike return to amp and cabinet finishing.

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Fri Aug 06, 2021 5:58 am

Thanks for the kind words!

Yeah, I just thought this amp deserved better. Like, it made it 50 years, and my buddy wasn't mistreating it, but it wasn't where his heart was, it wasn't "his amp". And maybe he'd sell it to someone else who loved it, or maybe just somebody buying it cheap to fix it and never getting around to it and just letting it die in a dust heap.

Or kill them with wall power when they tried to test it.

It's clearly had an exciting life, and if it can still do the job, why give it a gold (sparkle) watch and let it wither on the pile ignominiously?

Also, I'm thinking that cab is a Woodson MONITOR. Which would explain the onboard rheostat volume control I took out (that always seemed weird to me). Never seen another Woodson cab like that, usually just input and output.

I'd love to figure the power rating of this cab, but the only place that has a catalog is VintAxe and I don't have a subscription. I don't need anybody to share their materials, but could anybody who has a subscription there check the '73-'74 catalog for a 2-12 Monitor Module and let me know the power rating? If it's not fit for this head, I'll see about swapping in some more powerful speakers...

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Tue Aug 10, 2021 10:48 am

Continued experimenting. These things are infamous for the background hiss, right? It's prominent in a living room situation, but doesn't increase as you turn the volume up. Single coil hum sets in when the volume's above about "7" (way beyond home volumes), but the hiss would easily be drowned out in any low-volume playing situation, really.

So I was messing around and patched the "Tape Output" (modified on mine to a pair of 1/4" jacks) into my Focusrite interface, just to see what the deal was with that output.

It was DEAD silent. No hiss. None. A little hum once it got up to 7-8, but I guess I expected that. Had headphones on, but wasn't sure if it was on 'til I picked up the guitar. At 7, my interface preamp was clipping with the input gain all the way down, maybe I'll stick a volume pedal in between, or build a little passive volume attenuator, just to see how this preamp sounds at full tilt.

Just a curious discovery. I don't know why, but I guess I expected the preamp to be the hissy part, not the power section. I thought this preamp output would be useless to me. C'mon, this hissy beast as a recording amp? And it's not like the preamp tone is so sweet it simply must be captured like you would a Marshall or Vox or something, but it does a nice job of taking a signal and "amping it up", and really makes the sponge-muted flats on my bass sound... "right"? Also makes it easy to quickly EQ a Bass VI tone with the limited-but-effective shaping controls and input jack variety.

Anyway, thought I'd share. Might be worth properly converting the RCA jack to 1/4" if you have one of these. It's a particular flavor, but with such a quiet preamp, it seems easy to work into a recording situation, if you like what this does to your sound.

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by jthomas » Tue Aug 10, 2021 2:51 pm

Cool story. The missing component likely is a capacitor. If you look at the bend in the leads, they are similar to the rec ceramic cap to the left in your pic.

If you are a member over at The Gear Page, you might re-post this over there, in the Amp-Tech subforum. There are several amp gurus over there that might have some more info.

Here are the schemos for your amp (K200-1B). If you get energetic you could trace the schematic and find out where the sap was chopped out.

http://www.vintagekustom.com/literature ... pList.html

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:12 am

So, I did a thing.

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Was eyeballing for Kustom cabs after catching the bug with this head. Any 3x15 would be infeasably impractical for me. Duck Dunn and Jamerson used a 2x15, that'd be plenty for me. And while not as desirable as the JBLs or Altec Lansings that Kustomers could upgrade to, the stock CTS speakers from Kustom's prime era are said to be better suited for their bass-oriented cabs. Maybe they're more rugged or push more lows, I don't know, I'm not a speaker expert yet. While I want a double duty amp, I needed a bass-specific cab that won't give up. I *have* guitar cabs, but nothing I can throttle with low end. So, I was keeping my eyes peeled for a 2x15, tuck and roll, any color, CTS preferred for practicality and the fact that one loaded with JBLs or Altecs would likely cost more.

Currently without a car, but saw a black tuck and roll listed an hour away and accepting offers. Well priced, but my budget's tight. Still the cheapest one I'd seen online, and not only that, it was the closest to me. Made an offer, they accepted, and even short-renting a car fell within budget (basically the amount they agreed to discount paid for the rental), so off we went. The way the old gear market is going, I didn't wanna wait 3 years til I'm more financially comfortable and having to pay double for one of these.

Apparently, the shop across state lines had previously had a dozen of them, the owner was apparently a collector. They'd sat in the window, all lined up and beautiful, for ages, but hadn't sold, so the staff was told to clearance them out at 60% off and I got the last of the bunch. At another 20% off.

Aside from a few missing screws on the back (out of the approximately 80 holding it on), there are a couple of tiny dings, but I'd believe this was made within the past 10 years if you told me. Casters and jack are still shiny, nauga is supple. Looks so new my wife and I were raising our eyebrows as to whether it was a reissue, but inspection showed it was old materials, just excellent condition. I actually didn't care either way. It was a matching tuck and roll cab for less than the coat of a pair of used bass speakers for the Woodson. I could replace speakers in this sexy cab even if it turned out to be loaded with duds.

But it was a weird one. No front name plate, no serial plate on the back (nor evidence there ever was either), a little slimmer than my 1969 head, one rib of tuck and roll narrower. Blank jack plate on the bottom. No distinctive chrome ports. Which puts it as an early "Frankenstein"/"95 series" cab (see the 1966 katalog for examples). The nameplates came in '67 and the big chrome port holes became standard-issue around '68 (having been optional upgrades previously).

Two things threw me, aside from the sparkling condition. The first is the Feb 1970 CTS speakers. The second is a complete absence of any ports. The baffle looks original, so I don't think anybody bashed it up and replaced big pieces, the condition is too clean. This was taken care of.

There's a lot of info out there about these, but a lot of it's second-hand recounting and fuzzy details from people's conversations with Bud Ross.

So, while I don't have any proof, the Frankie-width cab with no printing on the jack plate, no name plate, and the lack of any ports, I'd bet dollars to donuts that this started life as one of the early cabs from the story where Bud Ross was still building amps personally and broke his sabre saw, deciding to focus on the speaker holes in the baffles just to get 'em out the door til he could afford a new saw. He allegedly hung the saw in his office later to remind him of the early days.

The Kustom lifetime guarantee makes me think that someone likely had this early 2x15 from '66-'67, blew the speakers, and had them replaced sometime in (likely) early-to-mid 1970. Speculation, sure, but the details add up, and while I don't need a cool story to love this cab, it's pretty neat that Bud Ross himself may well have built this cab. Kinda cool, huh?

The sound? Big, full, low, rich, warm. Very retro, but really solid. I'm not a true bassist, because they're all audio scientists with parallel effects lines and crossover mixers. This is definitely old-school, but what a thump.

jthomas, thanks for the suggestion. I FINALLY got an account at TGP to ask about that missing cap. Good call, appreciate the tip. I'll likely use this opportunity to work on decoding schematics, so thanks for the link!

And a double fun weird fact I'd forgotten all about - my wife and I went to different neighboring high schools. Where we both knew some of the Hanser kids - the current owners of the Kustom brand. Small world.

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Thu Aug 19, 2021 2:53 pm

Okay, okay... I'll stop harping about this one, but I had a buncha pics I took when I opened the cab up, and I know that pics are like chum to people like us. No offense.

Like I said above, I think this may be a really neat example of an early-era Kustom speaker cabs, albeit not all-original. I've been learning a lot quickly, so these are the indicators to the best of my current knowledge:

- 11 pleats wide (and narrower in inches than the later B-Series 200-1 head)
- no logo plate on the front of the cloth
- no black sealant tape (now tar/goo) used on the back panel
- slight taper from bottom to top (sorry, my camera wouldn't pick it up)
- blank plexi jack plate
- no baffle ports, even behind grillcloth
- evidence of handles being replaced, replacements look like later Kustom handles

I stand by my earlier theory that this was a '65-'66 cabinet, before the name plates came in '67 and before the big metallic ports came standard in '68, and some of my reading on the other forums, including VintageKustom, indicated that some other non-ported examples were from that period. I think that it got taken in for replacement speakers in mid-1970, got a fresh pair of CTSs, handles replaced with ones that match later examples of tuck and roll cabs with the black plastic and metal strap, and I have no idea about the casters.

The lack of ports works to my advantage, because this is my only bass rig, but I'll probably be playing mainly guitar through it. Big thick sound. Chunky low end abounds on this head/cab. And wasn't Ampeg using speakers like these in some B-15's around this era? I'm no bassist, really, but that's gotta be a good sign for old-school low-end, right?

I'm definitely going to get a cover for it to keep it from getting torn up, but this is now my gigging amp. This isn't to be collected, it's gonna get PLAYED. The four inputs on the head really do offer a fair variety, the bright switches are useful in the moment, it's really loud, and it hasn't caught on fire just yet.

(fingers crossed)

Anyway, just leaving the details for future civilizations trying to figure out what's up with the weird amp they just bought, enjoy the pics:

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by cestlamort » Thu Aug 19, 2021 4:56 pm

MrShake wrote:
Mon Aug 16, 2021 4:12 am
Casters and jack are still shiny, nauga is supple.
Congrats on the amp and cab. This made me laugh. Thanks for that!

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by jthomas » Thu Aug 19, 2021 5:18 pm

Absolutely do not stop "harping." These are great amps. When I was in high school there were two really good bands. Both had players with Kustoms. Great amps.

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:26 am

Aw, shucks, thanks!

More forensic fun. I was going crazy trying to figure out what the "missing component" was, based only on the pics I took a couple weeks ago. So, I finally got around to opening it back up. I think I figured out the mystery, and I'm likely better off than I thought I was.

I got in there and took some pics from a better angle, and used a flashlight and perspective to backlight the traces. The clipped component legs (see post above) didn't seem to lead anywhere. One was rattling around, the other was very secure.

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Based on that schematic jthomas so graciously linked to, even a novice like me could see that this piece didn't make sense. The preamp wires go in, they go through some resistors, then off north (on the board pics) under the resistors. There were no actual board traces leading to this mystery component, so it was definitely not stock. There were the two component legs and another little hole in the board, I've labelled them A, B, and C on the pic below:

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The leg going through Hole B was loose. I was able to carefully work it back through the PCB hole, and got it out. I also clipped the long leg in Hole A, which was very secure, but I just didn't like the idea of a little antenna there. So I clipped it down to the board.

I was surprised at what I found, and laid them out to take a look:

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The most notable thing is that the little bit of metal in Hole C was stranded wire. Meaning that likely, the signal came in via the blue preamp wires, went through one of the matching resistors, but was then bled off through a mystery component (probably a capacitor), whose leg was soldered behind the board to a wire, which then flew the signal off somewhere else.

My best guess is that this was an early attempt at adding a preamp out. What else could someone be trying to get at that point in the circuit, just one resistor and a mystery cap away from the raw preamp signal? I think someone tried to do it this way, and ended up undoing it in favor of the more direct conversion done at the Preamp Send connection a little further down the board (look for the big grey wire in some of my previous pics that leads left to a pair of 1/4" jacks).

So, to me, all of this means that I don't have anything to worry about here. My concern was that it was something someone had done where OTHER components were changed too, and now without this cap, maybe something else would be strained or blow. Maybe not at gentle levels, but was worried that once I took it out and cranked it up that it might overwork some other area. Looks like that's probably not the case, this attempted mod seems pretty self-contained. It's not a stop along traces that are now broken or open.

I don't see any other real "board work" other than red dots near what I now know to be the preamp transistors on their respective boards, reinforcing my belief that the "xistors" listed on the service tags were blown inputs. I've heard these can take about 1v, but I don't really know what that means, practically speaking. I guess I could hook up my multimeter and figure it out?

So, the missing component isn't missing at all... it should never have been there!

Good gravy, I like this amp. A coily cord really helps get those vintage toanz.
jthomas wrote:
Thu Aug 19, 2021 5:18 pm
These are great amps. When I was in high school there were two really good bands. Both had players with Kustoms. Great amps.
jthomas, any recollection who those bands were? Where from and what era? I love finding regional stuff from back in the day, all the way up to the digital era. Every city and state seemed to have its own unique flavor, sometimes related to their regional gear manufacturers (sometimes not).

Frankly, this amp has had me digging back through some of my favorite garage rock and funk compilations - Back From The Grave, Pebbles, all the funky stuff from Now Again records. Kustoms seem to abound. It's amazing how little info is out there for a line of amps that seemed particularly ubiquitous at one point.

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by jthomas » Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:35 am

Indianapolis Eastside in the late 60s and early 70s. One of the bands was called Stones Crossing (named after a little town south of Indy). Can't recall the name of the other band, but the bass player (I'm pretty sure) who used the amp was called "Lamb Chop" cuz his last name was Lamb or Lamm... st like that.

Good forensic study on you amp. Rock on!

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Mon Aug 23, 2021 3:47 am

Heeey, small world - my wife and I were gigging around Bloomington during the '00s. Never played as far north as Indy, but saw a bunch of shows up there. In fact, that was the era I was playing through a 4x12 Kustom combo for a while. Must be that "Western Kustom/Northern Peavey" territory thing that led to them being so prevalent in punk rock basements all over the area. That and they'd still work just fine if you plugged into them.

And it looks like Stone Crossing may have gotten back together as HeartStone Crossing. (And that reminded me I was once in a
side project called "Oolitic". Oof.) Maybe a gospel band got their old name locked up. Didn't see any Kustoms in the recent live pics, maybe they left em in a basement somewhere... ;).

Anybody else remember enjoying playing through one of these?

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by jthomas » Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:22 pm

HeartStone Crossing" appears to be a different band. The bass player in Stones Crossing used the Kustom setup. Many years ago he got a degree in electronics and started his own design firm. The lead guitarist is one of those guys that everybody knows because he has a ton of talent and keeps the faith by playing out. I don't want to derail your thread, but here's a link to his band's page:

http://redrabbitband.com/

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Re: NAD - 1969 Kustom 200 Solid State Energizer

Post by MrShake » Mon Jul 18, 2022 5:11 am

Okay, checking in a year later.

Most of the year, all my home amps have been sick or needed a checkup. I just got my #1, the Bassman Ten, back from the shop with a clean bill of health.

So, as it was the last man standing, I've been babying the Kustom a bit over the past year. It's been a home amp for low-to-medium playing, with some low-impact pedal platforming. With the Bassman back from the shop, I decided that the Kustom could handle a full workout. If something was gonna blow, it was gonna blow anyway, and it would get taken in for the servicing I presumed it needed. If not, well... not. It had performed admirably all year as a home amp, never failing to work as expected but without a lot being asked of it.

So, I took it to the practice space this weekend and cranked it the **** up.

Image

Here are my One Year Later thoughts:

- I've only ever played this through 15" speakers. The low end is MASSIVE. Although I wasn't there back in the day, I get how these probably seemed like a very solid choice in 1965-66 for gigging bands on bass or guitar, before the late-'60s volume wars.

- The clean tone lacks any chimey sparkle you could want. It's a clean, blank, thick tone, but well-balanced. It does what it does.

- It stays clean with single coils about halfway up the dial. Once it starts to crunch, it sounds like a fuzzy overdrive. Very warm and thick, not at all harsh to my ear. Smooth and wooly in a good way.

- Maxed out, it's fully-fuzzed fatness. I haven't listened to the Black Keys in a decade, and I know it's not what he uses, but the cranked Kustom sounds like my memories of what thickfreakness sounded like.

- I've heard varying descriptions of these as pedal platforms. Tonally, sure, they're sonically great for it as a blank canvas and my home setup works perfect for it, with pedals set at unity and the amp below breakup. But I've also read that they have relatively delicate input transistors. As you can see from last year's pics of the service tags, the input transistors on this particular one had to be replaced at least TWICE. So I'm not taking chances, and treating this as a "straight-in" amp with no gain boosts or fuzzes between me and the amp.

- It's a 3-trick pony. Lower-volume clean sounds that can do Creedence-style sounds if that's your thing. 12-1 o'clock on the dial gets you fat crunch at very loud volumes. And fully cranked sounds exactly like, well, Jon Spencer. Here he is, straight into a Kustom, without his usual post-millennium Peavey Bandit. It was exactly this sound, no matter what pickups I fed it:

https://youtu.be/w0i1ckEYUA8

I could feel the air moving around my legs at 3-4 feet away, and the carpeted concrete floor was rumbling. It was loud.

So, no pedals to prevent blown inputs, no loop for post-gain effects. (Though, if you get the fancier models, you can get things like trem and reverb built in.)

As I put it in a Setup of the Day post, it's not an amp I could use as an always amp -- my band and style are too reliant on fuzz pedal hopping and reverb. But if I joined the right band that needed me to make one sound the whole set (garage, punk, something like that), this would be a great sound to choose. Again, it worked well for Mr. Spencer. My trick of choice would be that fully-blasted sound, but it only comes at "earplugs required" levels.

It acquitted itself nicely for about an hour and a half in a very hot room. Nothing blew up, never smelled burning or heat or electricity, never sputtered, and pots and switches were free of crackle or pop. It's going back home atop the tuck and roll cab for the time being to continue enjoying its golden years of being low-power pedal platform and absurdly-overpowered living room bass amp, but I won't be afraid to gig it or drag the head over to the space if I want to get raw and wild.

I've actually just ordered an untested Kasino head to try and repair and refurb and maybe press into service for a more active lifestyle. Here's hoping a new fuse and a 3-prong cord are all it needs.

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