Victory Amplifiers VX Kraken MKII Lunch Box Head

L'ampli fonctionne très bien pour les sons qu'il promet : un clean propre, une drive type JCM800 qui va assez loin dans le gain et une distorsion type 5150.

Le format et le poids le rendent très transportables et le mode "low" permet de le jouer facilement en contexte de répétition ou à la maison.
Le potard présence et le bass focus aident énormément à l'égalisation.

Le make up gain du canal 1 et le master auto assign sont de bonnes idées pour aider au confort de jeu.

Quelques éléments peuvent manquer : pas de reverb, pas de midi, pas d'EQ séparée, pas de sortie silencieuse. Cependant pour le prix et la taille, l'ampli est extrêmement compétitif.

Ich habe 15 jahrelang Peavey gespielt und nun war es Zeit für etwas Veränderung. Viele Amps bieten tolle Features und versprechen einen genialen Sound. Am Ende klingen sie aber gar nicht so viel anderes, nur minimal etwas besser oder schlechter. Der Kraken MKII schafft es allerdings im High Gain Bereich doch deutlich abzuheben. Er ist weitaus mittenbetonter und gibt dem Geschrabbel eine neue Farbe. Vor allem bei schnellen Blackmetal Riffs behält er eine gewisse Klarheit und klingt trotzdem super aggressiv.
Die Verarbeitung des Amps ist wirklich top und auch die mitgelieferte Tasche ist super praktisch.
Nur das System für die Footswitches ist viel zu kompliziert. Vor allem weil ich als Footswitch meinen Loopswitcher mit Footswitch Funktion nutze, hat es etwas gedauert alle Schalter richtig ein zu stellen. Aber am Ende funktioniert es 😊ein Noise Gate ist leider auch nicht integriert, ansonsten vermisse ich nichts.

This amp is genuinely a quality product. You can tell right away from the look, the build, the feel of the knobs, everything. The cleans are amazing, really sparkling cleans. The crunch is great as well, probably the best part of this amp. It’s super dynamic and reacts beautifully.
The only thing I wasn’t happy about was the gain on both the Crunch and Gain 2 channels. It just wasn’t the amount of gain I was expecting. Gain 1 maxed out simply wouldn’t chug with palm mutes, even with active pickups. It would barely get there even with a boost pedal maxed out. Gain 2 felt weak as well. Because I watched so many reviews of this amp, I was expecting a full high gain beast. Instead, I ended up with a really good rock amp, but not the high gain monster everyone made it look like.
I started thinking something might be wrong, so I returned it and now I’m waiting for the results. I’ll update this review once I know more. I suspect there might be an issue with the preamp section, or maybe the stock valves are just too weak. Proper valves like Tung-Sol might fix the problem, but I don’t know yet. Maybe Victory loaded all the review units with great valves and the rest of us mortal people ended up with low-end Chinese preamp tubes that simply can’t deliver proper high gain.
So yeah it's a great amp just not a high gain one. I will add update to this soon if it was just a bad piece or normal thing.
Hope this helps


Update:
Apparently there was nothing wrong with it so I guess it just doesn't have that much gain that I would like it to have. Otherwise It's a great sounding amp however keep in mind, even though the second channel is based on 5150 it doesn't have the same amount of gain even half way.

Before bying this amp I was thinking of buying the 5150 III 50S it's the same price range howerver I liked the sound of Kraken more. At the end I will go with 5150 bcs the kraken just doesn't have enaugh gain

It just might be me and you will ove this amp but I was trying to boost the Gain 1 maxed out and I even used EMG 81/60 pickups which should resolve in hot rodded marshal sound yet it almost didn't even chug.
Preamp valve upgrade might solve this and the reviews might have kakens with better valves. However stock one does not have that amount of gain.