Anyone own anything from Kruse?

[Jeff Hilligan]

Considering a bandmaster from him.
Thoughts from owners

 

[RedB4Black]

I bought his mosfet power amp. Arrived DOA. Got sent a different one. It worked for a bit and now doesn’t. Garbage. I wouldn’t buy anything from him again.

 

[PurityS.L.G]

Stay far away from that guy. He does phenomenal repair tech work but that's about it. His designs and mods are all thin harsh tinny trash built with hokey quality. Not to shit on anyone else's aspirations but he should've stayed solely as an amp repair/tech guy.

 

[jeff5]

I know people have had bad experiences. However, he modded my 5150 III 50 watt to stealth specs and split out channel 1 and 2 and did a great job. Great communication and the work was fast. This was several years ago and the amp still works and sounds great.

 

[Racerxrated]

From what I've heard, it really depends on which amp he does the work on. Diezels? Fantastic. EVH? Also fantastic. The rest? Well......not so much. At least with Marshalls, Mesas. Not sure though about Fenders.
Referring mostly to the results of the mods...not the cost, communication etc. That part was always really good.

 

[DanTravis62]

Mixed reviews

I've heard mods that sounded really good of his, and I've heard mods that sounded horrific

 

[SoooRad]

His mods on Fenders to make them into rock machines sound incredible in the clips. The other stuff I don’t have a real opinion on.

 

[Tone Monster]

Guess I got lucky. I did the DeKompression mod to a VH4 and it was truly killer. One pot in the back and could be dialed in from completely stock to full mod and every point in between. Miss that amp actually. Jen’s was fast and very professional. On a side note Peter himself begged me not to do it…but I did!

 

[vultures]

He uses cheap bullshit parts sourced from Ali-Express for his power amps. I've had to fix a few for a buddy because they were noisy and not grounded. Even with some fixes they were never quite right. Noisy and unreliable. He epoxies his screw heads and puts labels like "UNAUTHORIZED OPENING OF DEVICE WILL VOID WARRANTY!". He obviously doesn't want people seeing that he uses cheap bullshit. In some of the amp builder/modding circles he is not talked about positively.

Modding a bandmaster to have high gain is similar to a IIC+, it involves cascading the channels. You can hit up any of the known and reliable amp modders out there to do a mod like this.


Here's his pedal power amp thing with links of his circuit boards. I've seen a few of them and they were all like this.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832719836411.html
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803507710062.html

 

[RedB4Black]

Yeah. My power amp has 2 screws glued in so you can fully disassemble it… but you can see those shitty Chinese parts… no wonder it only worked for a brief time

 

[technomancer]

He's pretty well know as a hack... IIRC he started out as a Diezel dealer and had his dealership pulled for pushing his mods on everybody that tried to buy an amp.

He uses cheap bullshit parts sourced from Ali-Express for his power amps. I've had to fix a few for a buddy because they were noisy and not grounded. Even with some fixes they were never quite right. Noisy and unreliable. He epoxies his screw heads and puts labels like "UNAUTHORIZED OPENING OF DEVICE WILL VOID WARRANTY!". He obviously doesn't want people seeing that he uses cheap bullshit. In some of the amp builder/modding circles he is not talked about positively.

Modding a bandmaster to have high gain is similar to a IIC+, it involves cascading the channels. You can hit up any of the known and reliable amp modders out there to do a mod like this.


Here's his pedal power amp thing with links of his circuit boards. I've seen a few of them and they were all like this.
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832719836411.html
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256803507710062.html

View attachment 456683

Wow that is some super sketchy shit, even for him.