NAD: Victory Kraken VX MKII

[2dor]

I had this hooked up yesterday and decided to turn the camera on. It’s a really great, tight amp.

Big iron sounds all day long - love that little amp!

 

[Desertdweller]

Let's jump in, I'm about to void a warranty.

I did a bit more experimenting with tube rolling this week with the amp, and found some interesting things with it.

Preamp tubes:
I was getting a bit of noise with the original set that was in there and I had rolled some JJs and Marshall ECC83s a few months ago. I swapped out V1 to a Tung Sol, something I thought I did months ago but apparently I didn't. That was the biggest change in sound, nicely reducing the noise floor. I keep forgetting that this is the first thing I need to do whenever I get a new amp. Tung Sols are awesome.

Experimentation led me to believe that V1-V3 are the gain stages, and V4 is either a phase inverter or drives the FX loop, I'm not sure, and I'm not tech-savvy enough to trace the wiring to find out, but V1-V3 changes the tone and V4 has some impact as well.

Where I wound up is a Tung Sol in V1, Ruby tubes in V2 and V3, and a Russian LPS in V4 that just smoothed out the overall sound a bit. I kept going back and forth between the Ruby and a shielded Mesa SPAX7 12ax7 in V2, but stayed with the Ruby as the Mesa tube darkened the tone a bit more than I liked.

Power tubes:
Normally I'm a 6L6 guy, but in rare occasions I prefer EL34s. This is one of them, and I'm so glad they included the tube bias switch. It feels like the amp just hits all the right frequencies with the EL34s and the notes just jump out of the speakers in ways they didn't with the 6L6s. It's almost like it put a Mesa Mark-like slight V EQ on the amp swapping the tubes. I thought I had some JJ EL34s in my tube bin, but I think I used them recently in a different amp, so I used Tung Sol EL34s here and they sound amazing.

I don't have time to do a comparison video or recording right now, but I played the EL34s enough to be happy with the sound and closed up the amp for the night. I did not adjust the bias yet, but I played for about 30 minutes, the amp sounded good, and there's no red-plating on the tubes, so good enough for now and I'll check the bias later today. It's nice it has leads and the bias trim pot on the outside, but ultimately it's a fixed bias amp so I'm not terribly worried.

If any experienced YouTuber wants to do a deeper dive on this amp, feel free to hit me up, I'd be happy to consult. I think it's an absolute banger of a circuit they built here and it's a really flexible platform. This amp absolutely replaced my Badlander and EVH heads and I hear literally nobody talking about this amp.

 

[2dor]

Let's jump in, I'm about to void a warranty.

I did a bit more experimenting with tube rolling this week with the amp, and found some interesting things with it.

Preamp tubes:
I was getting a bit of noise with the original set that was in there and I had rolled some JJs and Marshall ECC83s a few months ago. I swapped out V1 to a Tung Sol, something I thought I did months ago but apparently I didn't. That was the biggest change in sound, nicely reducing the noise floor. I keep forgetting that this is the first thing I need to do whenever I get a new amp. Tung Sols are awesome.

Experimentation led me to believe that V1-V3 are the gain stages, and V4 is either a phase inverter or drives the FX loop, I'm not sure, and I'm not tech-savvy enough to trace the wiring to find out, but V1-V3 changes the tone and V4 has some impact as well.

Where I wound up is a Tung Sol in V1, Ruby tubes in V2 and V3, and a Russian LPS in V4 that just smoothed out the overall sound a bit. I kept going back and forth between the Ruby and a shielded Mesa SPAX7 12ax7 in V2, but stayed with the Ruby as the Mesa tube darkened the tone a bit more than I liked.

Power tubes:
Normally I'm a 6L6 guy, but in rare occasions I prefer EL34s. This is one of them, and I'm so glad they included the tube bias switch. It feels like the amp just hits all the right frequencies with the EL34s and the notes just jump out of the speakers in ways they didn't with the 6L6s. It's almost like it put a Mesa Mark-like slight V EQ on the amp swapping the tubes. I thought I had some JJ EL34s in my tube bin, but I think I used them recently in a different amp, so I used Tung Sol EL34s here and they sound amazing.

I don't have time to do a comparison video or recording right now, but I played the EL34s enough to be happy with the sound and closed up the amp for the night. I did not adjust the bias yet, but I played for about 30 minutes, the amp sounded good, and there's no red-plating on the tubes, so good enough for now and I'll check the bias later today. It's nice it has leads and the bias trim pot on the outside, but ultimately it's a fixed bias amp so I'm not terribly worried.

If any experienced YouTuber wants to do a deeper dive on this amp, feel free to hit me up, I'd be happy to consult. I think it's an absolute banger of a circuit they built here and it's a really flexible platform. This amp absolutely replaced my Badlander and EVH heads and I hear literally nobody talking about this amp.

View attachment 52494

I'm getting one this autumn for sure; can't f'in wait.