I got rid of my Katana combos because of the harshness that sometimes prevails, which is down to the cabinet and budget speaker, or speakers. The new Katana Artist has a lovely warmth to it and I was made aware of this and investigated in search of an explanation. I first disconnected my speakers and paired my Katana 100 with a 1 x 12 Mesa Boogie cabinet and then a 2 x 12 A30 type cabinet, albeit with neodymium speakers in each, Celestions in the Vox and an Eminence Lil Texas in the Boogie. Each of them were a vast improvement on the same settings that I regularly use, so I decided that I would go or a 100 watt head and at the same time lighten the load. The Katana Artist is equipped with two extra knobs for cabinet simulation and live, but these are in the software. I’m convinced that the Artist is the same amp with a better speaker in a better quality cabinet - for £250 more. Also, they don’t make an ‘Artist’ head which leads me to believe that this is the case.
I also suspect that Boss have realised the amp is capable of better sounds through quality speaker and quality cabinet after complaints that some folks made about harshness at higher volume. I got that snippet from a dealer after I mentioned it and he pushed the Katana Artist in front of me.
Anyway the problem is no more as I have the Boogie 1x12 (the Vox is 4 ohms) so I bought an 8 ohm Fender 2x10 that I tried last night and sounds lovely.
I will say that only at band levels did I get the harshness, but it bothered me enough to do something about it.
The good news is, the Katana 2 x 12 went within half an hour of hitting eBay for almost what it cost me, so it’s happy days.