If you have been a bedroom guitar player for a while, you would have probably come across the Boss Katana Air. A fantastic amp in its own right, especially for the price. Its benefits were its small size, punchy sound, and simplistic sound design, making it a great all-rounder for any type of playstyle while keeping small enough to chuck in an away case, should you need a beefy travel amp. You can still pick up the Katana Air, and it is still exceedingly popular; it is, however, missing something that guitar heads love: beef. And no not the meat, plenty of rip-roaring vegan guitarists — no, the thickness of sound is what was always lacking. And yet until now, we had no better…
The Boss Katana Air EX is the answer to all of our Katana woes of old. It’s the bigger sibling, the one with all the power, the compact amp with twin 5-inch speakers and enough drive to fill a household. Again, the Katana ethos runs through the blood of the EX, and in doing so has created an extremely favourable amplifier. It’s the simplicity of it all; the controls are classic, easy to use, and give you everything you need and nothing more, right on top of the amp. Should you want more, you can dive into the accompanying app and fiddle with the textures and tones to your heart's content. The EX now allows you to run both a delay and reverb at the same time for added functionality and comes with a wireless transmitter to untether your playing. Who doesn’t love wireless electric guitar?
An all-rounder amp is hard to make. To deliver on tone, clarity, crunch and style is a tall order, and it is why there is no perfect amp, all are tuned for certain styles. There will be preferences of course, but in the small amp market, this new and still emerging product category of desktop amps that push the boundaries of their form factors, there is nothing like the EX for a classic feeling. It has the modern bells and whistles, but it keeps them up its sleeve. On the surface, the Katana Air EX is a phat amp with tonnes of personality that is simple to use and a whole lot of fun. At £539.00 on Andertons and £544.00 on Gear 4 Music, this amp is up there with the high-end in its category — but it deserves to be for the sound alone. A worthy and powerful successor to the Katana Air legacy.