Bugera 1960 INFINIUM anyone here tried these?

ecc83

"I'm still scared of the going on fire thing"

Pah! I don't know what the heater problem was on the bogies but I had burned out print on a famous name 250W ish amp*because they put more heater thru a 6A connector than it was rated for.

IMHO valve guitar amps are not things one should leave cooking away unattended!

I would like to get hold of a really cheap N tatty Buggera to do up for #1 Son.

*Never DID get the drinkypoo I was promised for fixing it!

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

Pah! I don't know what the heater problem was on the bogies but I had burned out print on a famous name 250W ish amp*because they put more heater thru a 6A connector than it was rated for.

Same. Overloading a connector which burnt out, and sometimes caused other damage when the HT then went to full unloaded throughout the amp, with no valves operating.

p90fool

jpfamps;365428" said:

A friend of mine is a BBC sound engineer and I can confirm that they do use the cheap Behringer mic pres. However, they are considered a disposable item.....

Oh definitely disposable, but still trusted enough for live broadcasting it seems.
I guess it's mainly down to middle managers slashing budgets, but they're still mostly (ahem) classic designs.

Dave_Mc

ecc83 said:

IMHO valve guitar amps are not things one should leave cooking away unattended!

Oh yeah I wouldn't do that, but I thought a bunch went on fire just with normal use.

I know even yet on Ultimate Guitar forum, we do seem to get more "My bugera stopped working, help!" threads than with other brands. Granted, that's hardly a scientific, random sample- maybe that age group/market buys way more Bugeras than anything else, for example.

I guess I'm just a bit wary buying one knowing the horror stories- bit like the old skoda jokes when I was wee. ) Also I had a bad run there a while back with things being faulty, and I was browned off having to parcel things up to send them back- and it's bad enough that happening when you bought something which was meant to be decently-built. It'd be much more annoying if you went in knowing the thing had a bit of an iffy reputation for reliability...

ecc83

Dave_Mc said:

ecc83 said:

IMHO valve guitar amps are not things one should leave cooking away unattended!

Oh yeah I wouldn't do that, but I thought a bunch went on fire just with normal use.

I know even yet on Ultimate Guitar forum, we do seem to get more "My bugera stopped working, help!" threads than with other brands. Granted, that's hardly a scientific, random sample- maybe that age group/market buys way more Bugeras than anything else, for example.

I guess I'm just a bit wary buying one knowing the horror stories- bit like the old skoda jokes when I was wee. ) Also I had a bad run there a while back with things being faulty, and I was browned off having to parcel things up to send them back- and it's bad enough that happening when you bought something which was meant to be decently-built. It'd be much more annoying if you went in knowing the thing had a bit of an iffy reputation for reliability...

Well I did not mean ABnormal use! I was not thinking peeps threw blankets over them!

No, I simply mean that I would not for instance leave any amplifier running  for long periods unattended in case something blew and you needed to be on hand to take action. Is there an instance of a Bugera actually taking down property or/and causing death or injury?

And yes,"Lies, damned lies and statistics"! I once read a scathing comment in a forum about the unreliability of M-Audio PCI sound cards. This overlooked the fact that M-A cards probably outsold every other similarly rated card put together and by a country click if not a mile.

Dave.

ICBM

ecc83 said:

No, I simply mean that I would not for instance leave any amplifier running  for long periods unattended in case something blew and you needed to be on hand to take action.

I once left an old Vox AC4 running for several days, because they don't have a pilot light and I forgot it was on! I'm not completely sure they have mains fusing, either… other than the one in the plug. It was hot when I spotted it, but not really abnormally so.

ecc83 said:

And yes,"Lies, damned lies and statistics"! I once read a scathing comment in a forum about the unreliability of M-Audio PCI sound cards. This overlooked the fact that M-A cards probably outsold every other similarly rated card put together and by a country click if not a mile.

This is true. Many of the amps I think of as "unreliable" are also very popular sellers, so probably aren't that bad overall. It's when you see multiple examples with exactly the same fault within a fairly short time after launch that I tend to think there is more of a problem.

(The heater connector on the early Bugeras was one of these.)

One of the few good things about modern 'throwaway design' is that the difficulty of servicing becomes a major incentive for the manufacturer to fix the problem at source, since otherwise they have to give free replacements under warranty. To be fair, Behringer do seem to do this.

stonevibe

Well Thomann have a three year warranty.

ICBM

stonevibe said:

Well Thomann have a three year warranty.

The problem is that you have to send it back to Germany, which can be slightly inconvenient. Although apparently with the cheaper stuff they do just send you a new one.

Dave_Mc

^ Agreed, but I don't think the Bugera would be cheap enough to qualify. I've had Thomann send me a few things before without having to return the faulty item (dodgy Power Plant Juniors at ~£25), but they made me send back my VHT special 6 (twice! because they didn't fix it properly the first time), and it's under half the price of the Bugera (or at least it was when I sent it back).

And yeah to Germany and back probably means you're without the thing for ~2 weeks. Not a massive problem but a bit annoying, especially if they don't fix it the first time (and even more especially if you need the thing for e.g. a gig).

ecc83 said:

Well I did not mean ABnormal use! I was not thinking peeps threw blankets over them!

No, I simply mean that I would not for instance leave any amplifier running  for long periods unattended in case something blew and you needed to be on hand to take action. Is there an instance of a Bugera actually taking down property or/and causing death or injury?

And yes,"Lies, damned lies and statistics"! I once read a scathing comment in a forum about the unreliability of M-Audio PCI sound cards. This overlooked the fact that M-A cards probably outsold every other similarly rated card put together and by a country click if not a mile.

Dave.

LOL

And yeah I'm not aware of any Bugera hurting anyone, though there were some reports of smoke etc. Whether it'd have done any more harm had someone not been at hand, I dunno. )

And yeah you definitely have to be careful with statistics, you're preaching to the choir there. I seem to remember that Thomann used to list the failure rates of products. IIRC the Bugera rate was a bit worse than e.g. Peavey, but not massively so. It was something around 2-3%, while the Peavey rate was maybe 1-1.5%- though it's a while ago and I'm maybe making that up ) The gist is right though- a bit worse, definitely, but not horrifically so. Then again, as JPF said, maybe they're cheap enough that some people aren't bothering to send them back (I'd doubt it, though, plus the other manufacturers have similarly cheap stuff which would also presumably affect the statistic in the same way).

samzadgan

i know someone in the doom room (different forum) who was looking for a loud plexi type amp as pedal platform and he ended up getting this...and he was loving it.

stonevibe

samzadgan said:

i know someone in the doom room (different forum) who was looking for a loud plexi type amp as pedal platform and he ended up getting this...and he was loving it.

Cool.

I may well invest in one of these at some point in the very near future.

gearaddict

I've been looking into these a little bit...the Infinium ones look really cool with the cascaded gain and master volume 'mods'. It sounds a bit different from real plexis, but one plexi sounds different from another so it would be odd if it didn't.

For 250 quid I'm really tempted to have some plexi goodness in my life.

Does the logo come off easily?

EricTheWeary

ICBM said:

stonevibe said:

Well Thomann have a three year warranty.

The problem is that you have to send it back to Germany, which can be slightly inconvenient. Although apparently with the cheaper stuff they do just send you a new one.

Unless it has shut very recently Thomann had a UK service centre in London where they did things like amp fixes. I think we even had a Discussion about the job that was advertised there a few months ago.

gearaddict

Someone...stop...me...

Gnnnnnnnnrnrnrnnrrrrrnnnnnrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

gearaddict

Finger...on...trigger....holdmeback, holdmeback...!

stonevibe

I reckon I'll try one of these soon as well. 

 So if you do buy one let me know what you think of it.

gearaddict

Damn you all for not stopping me.

Thomann seemed to have sold out of all but one B-stock one, so I went for that. Thomann's B-stock stuff it usually pretty good and I figured the resale value will be peanuts anyway.

Plus it saves me a few quid.

Bucket

I've always been intrigued by the 1990 (JCM900 clone). The reliability thing is a tad off-putting but I would hope they're better now.

ICBM

Bucket said:

I've always been intrigued by the 1990 (JCM900 clone). The reliability thing is a tad off-putting but I would hope they're better now.

I wouldn't worry about it. They're probably more reliable than the originals .

gearaddict

Bucket said:

I've always been intrigued by the 1990 (JCM900 clone). The reliability thing is a tad off-putting but I would hope they're better now.

B-stock Bugera? What could possibly go wrong!?

I'm looking on it as a bit of an experiment. For the money, just having the valves for spares is good. And a new kettle lead.

I dunno. I've had expensive amps go phut! ...and cheapo amps last for years. Things are generally built pretty well now and I think the early niggles with these particular amps have been fixed so fingers crossed.

I just want to blast an el34 monster for a change! I only seem to play through low wattage el84 amps these days...that or solid state.