Need help chosing an entry level tube amp
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Cagey
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I spent a lot of years as an electrical engineer for an industrial controls company where we made our own PC boards, transformers, chassis, hand-wired and assembled, and I can tell the you about how that stuff is made all day long. We went from stuffing boards ourselves to getting automated stuffers, soldering ourselves to wave soldering, using wiring harnesses to ribbon connectors, on and on. The company started off with tubes back in the days of tubes, went to discrete transistor, then discrete logic, and ended up with microprocessors when they made sense. Since then, I went through a number of other companies who did all those things in varying degrees, and I learned a lot from all of them. I say all that so I can say this: there's nothing wrong with the Bugera's stuff. In fact, it's some of the best stuff I've seen in a while from musical equipment manufacturers. But, you'd never know it from the amount of bile spewed on them in all the musical forums. Why is this?
The answer isn't obvious. But, one of the other things I learned over all these years is how business works, and Bugera is pissing off a lot of businesses. Much of the badmouthing you'll hear about Bugera is simply astroturfing, which spreads fast in the music business. It mostly has to do with their being made in China, with bad designs and substandard components. While it's true they're made in China, the bad design/bad parts part is pure horsefeathers. Most of the major manufacturers make their amps in China now. If that was a Bad Thing, then we'd have to stop buying Fenders, Marshalls, Egnators, Peaveys, Rolands, Crates - the list is long.
I've had their amps apart, and I can tell you they aren't scrimping anywhere. If anything, they exceed the standards others are working with. The problem (if you can call it that) is that they are such good amps, and they're selling them at cost plus instead of what they market will bear. The status quo is: If you make an amp that is considered to be the "most bad-ass" and charge $2,000 for it, then if somebody else comes out with an amp that's equal or better, then they're supposed to sell it for the same or more money. It's like an unwritten agreement among manufacturers, and for the most part everybody goes along with it, give or take 10% or so to make things interesting.
Not Bugera. They looked at what the market demanded, designed a product to fit, came up with a manufacturing cost, added a reasonable percentage for profit for themselves, then added a reasonable profit for the resellers, and that's what the price is. Turns out it's not that high. Or, so it would seem because everybody else was getting fat on the backs of musicians. Kinda like the RIAA. Give the musicians who do the work 5%, and keep 95% for themselves for yacht fuel, hookers, and coke.
So, there's a huge smear campaign going on. Fender wants to charge $600 for a Champ they build for $60 in China that isn't as nice as the V5 you can get for $150 on the street, or $900 for the Princeton Reverb Reissue that isn't as nice as a V22 for $300. Everybody else has the same problem. They want to make HUGE margins on the musician's backs, rather than pass along the good fortune of modern technology, automation and low-cost labor. What's wild is they're not defending "American Made" stuff, they're just grossly overpricing Chinese imports. You're not saving anybody's job here by buying The Name. But, by NOT buying The Name, you're working their wallets over. That's the real issue.
The answer isn't obvious. But, one of the other things I learned over all these years is how business works, and Bugera is pissing off a lot of businesses. Much of the badmouthing you'll hear about Bugera is simply astroturfing, which spreads fast in the music business. It mostly has to do with their being made in China, with bad designs and substandard components. While it's true they're made in China, the bad design/bad parts part is pure horsefeathers. Most of the major manufacturers make their amps in China now. If that was a Bad Thing, then we'd have to stop buying Fenders, Marshalls, Egnators, Peaveys, Rolands, Crates - the list is long.
I've had their amps apart, and I can tell you they aren't scrimping anywhere. If anything, they exceed the standards others are working with. The problem (if you can call it that) is that they are such good amps, and they're selling them at cost plus instead of what they market will bear. The status quo is: If you make an amp that is considered to be the "most bad-ass" and charge $2,000 for it, then if somebody else comes out with an amp that's equal or better, then they're supposed to sell it for the same or more money. It's like an unwritten agreement among manufacturers, and for the most part everybody goes along with it, give or take 10% or so to make things interesting.
Not Bugera. They looked at what the market demanded, designed a product to fit, came up with a manufacturing cost, added a reasonable percentage for profit for themselves, then added a reasonable profit for the resellers, and that's what the price is. Turns out it's not that high. Or, so it would seem because everybody else was getting fat on the backs of musicians. Kinda like the RIAA. Give the musicians who do the work 5%, and keep 95% for themselves for yacht fuel, hookers, and coke.
So, there's a huge smear campaign going on. Fender wants to charge $600 for a Champ they build for $60 in China that isn't as nice as the V5 you can get for $150 on the street, or $900 for the Princeton Reverb Reissue that isn't as nice as a V22 for $300. Everybody else has the same problem. They want to make HUGE margins on the musician's backs, rather than pass along the good fortune of modern technology, automation and low-cost labor. What's wild is they're not defending "American Made" stuff, they're just grossly overpricing Chinese imports. You're not saving anybody's job here by buying The Name. But, by NOT buying The Name, you're working their wallets over. That's the real issue.
Superlizard
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Whatever t0000000000b amp you go with, make sure it's biased properly.
Manufacturers have this nasty habit of biasing the power t00000000bs cold for t0000000000b longevity... this equals Poop Tone.
Manufacturers have this nasty habit of biasing the power t00000000bs cold for t0000000000b longevity... this equals Poop Tone.
Superlizard
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lidesnowi said:
Sheesh - you mean they're doing starved plate design on the preamp t00bs now, too? Cheap mofos.
Death by Uberschall
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Yes.smjenkins said:
If you don't know what your doing along with having some safe way of checking the voltages, take it to an amp shop so they can do it. Shouldn't be more than say $25.
Superlizard
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And hey, lookee here:
http://www.allenamps.com/blackheart.php
This looks like a fun project... assuming it gets that tone I heard in the clip. :icon_thumright:
http://www.allenamps.com/blackheart.php
This looks like a fun project... assuming it gets that tone I heard in the clip. :icon_thumright:
My mod is a lot simpler and cheaper it´s just 4 resistors and an output transformer cost about 50 bucks and take one hour to do!Superlizard said:
But to have a Eyelet or turret board in there makes it WAY more fun to work on, i hate dealing with those PCB it is real a pain in the a**
bigguspickus
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Bugera = Behringer.
The Behringer DI box I bought for my S90 died after 1 year and 1 day. The warranty was for 1 year. :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright:
The Behringer DI box I bought for my S90 died after 1 year and 1 day. The warranty was for 1 year. :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright: :icon_thumright:
bigguspickus
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Cagey said:bigguspickus said:
It's a sure thing
Ah, I see you work for their customer service dept.
Cagey
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There's no telling. All tube amps are failure-prone. It's the nature of the beast. They're hard on themselves. They run pretty hot, tubes are fragile things, there are high voltages running around, a lot of plug/socket connections to get loose/intermittent, they're subject to a lot of vibration in use and impact during frequent movement, etc.
Cagey
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Depending how you played it, even the V5 would be hard on neighbors in an apartment. But, also depending on what you like, the V22 can actually sound better than the V5 at lower volumes. It has an extra gain stage that'll let you get really saturated distortion that the V5 can't do. Crank the master back, and your neighbors won't have much to complain about. Still, it's a 12" speaker vs. an 8", so you're moving more air. I don't know how sensitive your neighbors are, or how transparent your apartment building is, but you might be better off with a little V-amp 3 and a pair of headphones instead. Those little desktop modellers sound exceptionally good, and include a wide variety of effects as well. Helluva lotta fun for $130.
bigguspickus
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Get a Dr. Z Mini-Z :guitarplayer2:
Death by Uberschall
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How much wattage do you want?
