UPDATE!
I've just returned from a 5 show mini-tour of Colombia, South America (home country of my wonderful wife!) and, all I can say is that my Katana 100 Head really delivered.
I decided to give the Katana 100 Head a try after a ton of thinking and consideration as to overall tone, horsepower, and portability.
See, I would normally have taken my Axe Fx rig which lives in a 4 space rack (Axe Fx, L6 G90 wireless, and a Matrix poweramp) but, with me needing to put a guitar in checked luggage along with a suitcase for clothing, tools, cables, etc - and considering I would still have had to figure out space for my MFC controller and a couple of expression pedals, it all got to be a bit too much to move rapidly through airports by myself. Oh, and there's the whole 23kg/50lb max weight allowed with my suitcase so, that was a no go. Not to mention the fact that putting my Axe Fx rig through checked luggage made me extremely nervous as to how it might come out the other side of the flight. I can't afford to just go replace my Axe Fx and, the idea of fighting an airline if it got damaged didn't exactly tickle my fancy either.
So, what I ended up doing was putting the Katana 100 Head, the Roland GA-FC controller, and a L6 G30 wireless into a carry-on sized suitcase and stuck it in the overhead bin on the plane - worked like a charm! Granted, I had to go through a more extensive x-ray/swabbing process with the amp as carry-on but, for the bit of extra time it took to get through the security screening, it was well worth it.
To the gig:
I've owned a slew of really great tube heads over the years (MKII C+, Dual Recs, Triple Recs, Road Kings, Diezel VH4-S, JVM-410, TriAxis/2:90, blah, blah, blah) and man, I'm really impressed with how well the Katana held its own in a real-world/high-volume metal gig. Will it totally thump a 100 watt Marshall or Recto? Nope. But, will it sound good cranked and sound authoratative to a very good/acceptable level? ABSOLUTELY!
In our band, we play 8 string guitars doing the requisite low range crunchy thing (black metal/death metal) but, we also use clean sounds that need to be really clean and have a good amount of headroom - no problem for the Katana ---- at all. The amp sounded really good in all venues we played and at a fairly wide range of stage volumes.
I will say that I used the 'Sneaky Amp Models' and my choices were the Vintage Recto for crunch and leads with a 'Green Screamer' boosting/tightening the tone up. For cleans I used the Twin model with a bit of chorus and delay and that was it.
Since the Katana doesn't have a built-in tuner, I just grabbed an iRig and my old/iPhone 5s and ran a send to it from my L6 G30 wireless (tuner out) and used the Peterson iStroboSoft app for tuning - worked a treat!
About durability:
Again, I was moving the Katana, the Roland GA-FC and the L6 G30 wireless around in a carry-on sized suitcase so, it got dragged over humps, bumps, door thresholds, in and out of cargo holds on the tour bus, in and out of taxis, up and down steps, elevators, over rough sidewalks, escalators, etc and it never missed a beat, never acted up or got weird at all. The GA-FC worked perfectly every gig and, though small-ish, was absolutely solid and worked flawlessly.
Did I miss having my Axe Fx rig on the tour? Well, only as far as effects go to be honest because 1. I LOVE playing stereo and the Katana is a mono amp and 2. I need/use a fairly whacky custom scale pitch transposer patch on one of our songs but, I figured out a work-around for that. Amp sound-wise, the Katana was excellent and I didn't even think about the Axe Fx rig at all on that front. It's just a damned good overall amp at a pricepoint that's kinda hard to believe.
P.S. I'm not a one-trick pony type of guitar player. I don't don't just hang on the low F# string of an 8 string and play in the first 5 fret range. I also love to play my old Les Pauls, Strats, etc and jam on everything from Billy Gibbons to Mark Knopfler to Bluegrass. In addition to my recent 'heavy' tour, I've also played a bunch of my other guitars through the Katana and man, so far, it has hit the button on just about every style and guitar I've thrown at it.
Can someone tell me where this amp was 30 years ago?
Anyhoo, that's my experience so far with the Katana 100 Head. It's a very solid workhorse of an amp and after all the lugging and tugging I've thrown at it it hasn't so much as blinked. Good stuff!
