^ yeah, i'm guessing if you crank the master volume up they're better... but when you have engl, mesa, laney, vht, etc. which all sound way better at lower volumes, are way more versatile, still sound great cranked up, and (in some cases) are cheaper, I also don't see the point.
Another thing to remember with krank, which seems to be shared even with the guys who like them is, you can only really get one good tone out of them on the overdrive channel.
you know the way with, say, an engl if you set it one way, it sounds like a certain tone, then you tweak the knobs, and it sounds like a different tone?
with a krank, it sounds like cr@p, until you hit the sweet (loosely speaking- more like "where it doesn't suck just as much") spot- and then you quickly realise that that's the only place where it sounds any good at all (i'm talking about the OD channel).
I also disliked the way that it sounds fizzy way too early on the gain control- my engl has twice as much pre-amp gain before it even sounds half as fizzy as the krank. And to dial out the fizz, it doesn't really have enough gain for modern metal at low volumes.
And as for the mud, it's a similar thing- there's a very narrow sweet spot on the EQ- turn the treble any higher and it's too bright/fizzy/trebly, and turn it even a fraction lower, and it's muddy as hell. Also, the much-ballyhooed (to quote niles) sweep knob acts in a similar way to the EQ; it's not so much a device to increase the versatility, as is claimed by Krank and the many reviews- again, like the EQ, it tends to suck everywhere except the one place where you can get a usable (i.e. decent but far from great) tone.
I don't think it's fair to say that it totally sucks (i'm not sure it's just as bad as some guys on some of the forums contend), and personal preference and all (also, if ALL you play is modern metal, you probably don't need the versatility)- but it just seems to me that there are, as I said in my first paragraph, amps which sound better at the modern metal thing, which are more versatile into the bargain, and which are cheaper.
At least on this side of the Atlantic, it seems, to use an expression from the other side of the Atlantic, a no-brainer. It just seems to me that, like a lot of things in the guitar world (and in the wider world in general) that lots of good marketing wins out over common sense, and people are too scared to go by their own opinions.
To me, at least. If any of you guys like krank, fair enough. You're entitled to your opinion, lol.
:drink:
