You'd like another drink?

Hi Dave, I received the Vintera 50's Telecaster. It's not a bad guitar but for the money I am very unimpressed with the fret work. Paint work is good and it appears to have a 3 piece body. It sure does have that telecaster twang. I like a big neck but this is taking a bit of getting used to. It has a 7.25R not a problem The best I can do on fret size because of the cleared neck is 2.20 mm possibly 2.30 mm wide and .90 mm high. with a 42mm nut. close to 24 mm deep at the center of the 1st fret and 25.3 mm deep at the center of the 12th fret. I have no problem with the frets they are bigger than my Vintera 60 Jazzmaster frets. To compare I picked one of my guitars that supposedly has medium jumbo frets and they are 2.65 mm wide and 1.35 mm high but I really notice no difference when playing and if I did not measure them I would have thought they were the same size by looking at them. I hope you do not mind the dimensions in mm but I usually measure my necks this way. As far as necks I think the Gibson baseball bat on my Les Paul Junior is a bit more comfortable but This neck is great also. I do not like a slim taper neck so this works much better for me.

what a coincidence, have both guitars. squier 40th ann. in surf grean and mexican strat in buttercream 😂

It sounds fantastic to my ear!

Awesome ✅

Beautiful tele!!

Greetings, David. I’ll say right away that replacing the pickups and wiring, in my opinion, is definitely the right decision. Over the decades, our ideas about the correct and high-quality sound of a guitar have changed. There is no reverse (retro) move here and there never will be. As for many other alterations, it depends on the will of the owner and the main thing in this tool for him. For some it is important to preserve the sound, for others the convenience of playing, for others the illusion of authenticity. We have different prices for the labor of a guitar restorer and a guitar debugger, but the mere occurrence of a microcrack on the fingerboard during restoration repairs by a specialist is completely eliminated by modern gluing techniques. tool. The restorer would replace the anchor rod and restore the load points on the wood according to the design (thrust washers), and fill the crack itself with super-liquid glue, and this would restore the full sound. During the same work, I replaced the metal frets of your choice, adjusted the height of the strings and tuning of the guitar, and would be proud of my work. All these are typical tasks for a specialist. A secret that guitar owners know little about: - wood stabilized over time becomes precise and rewarding for the final fit. Everything that is made on it to its final size will remain for centuries. Wooden drawing rulers from the middle of the last century are just as accurate now, but plastic ones are not. But you took a different path, and here is your choice. The main thing is that you haven’t ruined the sound. Microcracks are scary on new musical instruments until the wood has stabilized; on old ones they simply fill it with glue and forget about it.

I have to say, it takes a lot of guts to make so many changes to a guitar that you long considered to be your “number one.” I suppose the truss rod problem forced the issue for you. My prediction is that you’ll eventually end up swapping out the neck again for one with a better fit and your preferred frets. Otherwise, my question is, is it still your “number one”? The video strongly implies that the answer is “no.”

Do you know If the speaker is changed in gen3 or do you think the sound difference between mkii and gen3 is only EQ settings?

On my end it sounds pretty good. I just ordered a Vintera 50's Tele. with the fat U shape neck. I imagine it is a similar guitar.

I upgraded from the original to gen 3 EX with the upgraded speaker. The difference is so clear

Thank you for your review and demo. I recently purchased this same guitar for my daughter. I think the frets has improved. Nice sounding guitar. Thanks again.

Hi David. Howard from New Jersey. I came across this video searching to learn this great song by The Astronauts. Glad I did. Love your playing and your tone.Can't tell you how many times I've watched this to learn it. I'll definitely subscribe to your channel and give all thumbs up. Important question. Are you playing along with the song or did you make this back track? And if so, how did you do it? Would love to know. Just fantastic. Thanks for sharing, I appreciate it. Be well.

Maybe there is something wrong with your amp?

Does this mean that the Kaana Gen 2 50 is not loud enough for stage work such as a pub gig?

I'm surprised that I thought the Stratocaster sounded better

Glad I'm getting the Catalyst instead.

Original played on a Gibson SG !!!

Let me know if you have a Gen 3 Katana and have run into the same issues. Also, apparently “annoying” is the word of the day. :)

Love this theme song and wish it was on Spotify! ❤️🙌🏻

This is what I expected to hear when I learned there was a Ventures version. 😎🎸

The mk1 was good.. the rest could be good if the patches where compatible backwards. Also YT people who sell settings has broken the fun to me.. I use it as a normal old skool amp 😎🎸

How do they compare in a live band? In the video I would guess the gen 3 cuts better? Although with KZfaq you never know . In the past I purchased an amp based on KZfaq videos but when I actually played through it I couldn't get a sound I liked. Thank You for the video.

The original may have more bass, but it also sounds like there's something covering the speaker compared to the gen 3. The open, clarity of the new one wins over the dead sounding original.

I'm sold. Great review!

I’ve been contemplating buying one of these. Actually, there’s one that’s been hanging on the rack at my local GC for a long time now. Nobody seems to want it and it’s now priced under $400. Now that know how it’s tuned, I might just go buy it. Sounds really cool!

Save the money, get a Gen2 Artist and it will sound better than any Katana except the Gen 3 Artist

The Gen 3 sounds so much better. The original sounds muddy in comparison.

Wow..thats mind-blowing..I hope Boss checks this out.

(through Bose headset) original had a more tube like quality in tone. Gen3 crisper.. This why the some say the Clean Channel is where all your sounds need to be built from....CLEAN is Mean! lol

looks like you ran the Gen3 at half power(25W). Maybe thats why the Mk1 (does not habe the Power select) is much louder...? Or did you compare against the Mkll?

Thank you for the comparison. Maybe big part of the difference could be explained because the old speaker is much more "broken" rather than a new one very stiff which will need hours and hours of playing before a direct comparison makes sense. So not exactly apple with apple... or ?

So i guess now we get the honest reviews of the Katana gen 1. Ill just wait a few years for the honest reviews of the Katana gen 3 ;)

I still have the Mk1 50 watt and that little sucker is loud with a decent amount of low end, I was contemplating the new Gen 3, but I think you just saved me a bundle!

wonder if the speakers are the same

the clarity with the gen 3 is much better.

If you gigged with these two, the new one would sound WAY better live or in any band setting. It'll sit in the mix much better due to its increased presence and leaner bass than the old one which will sound muddier.

IMO It's not about loudness. Gen 3 definitely has less mids (not bass) that's why it's perceived quieter. Most of the loudness comes from mid range.

Thanks for the vid, I'm hoping that someone will put them back to back thru a spectrum analyzer at some point.

The Gen 3 is far brighter. In comparison, the old model sounded to me like it had a towel draped over it.

I owned the original katana 50 watt then I sold it and bought a 100 watt gen. 2. I just assumed that it would sound the same just with more features. It doesn't sound the same. I have never been able to get a tone as good on the newer one as I did on the original. I have several nice tube amps and have played for over 30 years and my hears are fairly good. But since I no longer own the original I couldn't do a side by side. Even though you are comparing the gen. 3 I feel confident that you just confirmed what I thought was true. They are making running changes between the models. Thank you for making this video.

I had the MK2 2x12, the USB-A cord port broke rendering all updates and software useless. I tried to solder a new one it but it was too broken. The Spark40 is honestly more user friendly and built better.

What you like more" is all subjective.

The original is NOT louder. It is more compressed and is lacking in dynamic range. That is why the Gen 3 sounds SO much better. A large part of compression, is the perception of loudness. The lowest and highest frequencies are compressed into the middle which is also why you think it has more bass. These are all very undesirable characteristics. There are times where compression is desired, but that's what the compression effect is for, it should not be on all the time. What you've done by increasing the volume on Gen 3 is raised the "floor" on the higher Dynamic range Gen 3 so that it's equal to the MKI. Psychoacoustics are a heck of a thing and they can confuse a lot of people.

I know it was a phone but I really heard more upper harmonic content from the Gen 3. Maybe the extra bass was masking it???

Now line 6 has to make catalyst 2.

Mk1 sounds better..tone is everything

Nice comparison but what is crazy about it, is the first comparison like this that I saw this guy ( Juca) who said that the Gen 3 had much more output than the MK2 but he was running them line in and actually it sounded like the MK2 was much louder as you are saying on your video. Now the crazy part is that on your video you said the MK2 is louder but I think the Gen 3 sounded louder clearer and much better overall as someone else has mentioned. I have an Artist MK2 and am trading up for the Artist gen 3 so I was concerned when I saw the video where the MK2 sounded better but he said it's only because he overcompensated for the Mk2"s lower output. But trust me, when I do the trade in I'm going to a/b them before I leave the store! I have a feeling i will be leaving with the Gen3. Thanks for the comparison.

so which one do you like more

Very interesting comparison, thanks for doing this. The original version has more darker sound perhaps? I have been interested in this amp, will put in my list now. Cheers!!