Great review of the amp Ivan. I would have gussed that the chassi was plastic, like Zakk said knobs were falling off. But I would have expected more of the sound. That model is a copy of Peavey XXL I belive (and that other similar looking amp of JSX, or the other way around)
Zakk's experience of the sound was different. An other model maybe. Or the models shift a lot between eachother and don't sound the same.

People on youtube, one who traded his 5250 for the Bugera ripoff claiming it sounded better, they raise the amps to the sky such as great sound for less price.
But then, maybe it's not only the chassi where they saved money but also used cheaper parts inside.

How good the quality is still remains an issue then. Perhaps you can ask next time your inte store if the got the newly sold Bugeras back

Thanks a lot for the review Ivan!!

I am visiting a friend tomorrow who is a Behringer Dealership. I'll ask him about all of this tomorrow and see what he has to say!!
Hopefully I'll get a chance to have a close look at some of these Amps as I haven't got that close to one yet!!


Micke, I'll be back to tell you what I think of them!



This post has been edited by Sensible Jones: Jan 8 2010, 07:02 PM

Looing forward to it, put the thumb screws on him!

Yeah, i agree with that. i was in a store, because i really want to buy that amp! i had the money with me, because i was sure to get one. I want a tube amp, and that was the cheapest one i found and i has read some good feedback in the world wide web before!
i was in the store and i played that amp 2 minutes and i was sure, that i`ll never buy that amp!
I really not a good player and i havent much knowlege about that stuff, but i didnt like that sound! it sounds really flashy. i swear that sound hurts my ears when i was playing!
I cant say why, but that amp sounds cheap for me! cheap in the badest meaning...

This post has been edited by MirkoSchmidt: Jan 8 2010, 09:15 PM

Thanks for your opinion as well, I've never tried a Bugera.
I'd never buy one for sure, as I'm used to Engl, Bogner, Marshall, Vox and Reinhardt's

But always good to see some opinions on other amps, as that'll help me recommend amps to other people.
I won't recommend this one for sure

I'm glad someone takes the time to test it though

I will in the future test another of these heads if I find them, one head doesn't mean they are all bad sounding ofc, but from what I tested, it was enough to convince me that this one stands for its pricing in a very unbalanced way. Also, getting a proper voiced cab for the head is equally important, so perhaps the good ol 1960 cab wasn't good for that particular head.
So people who don't have money for buying proper tube head, should IMHO stay away from this head. It just doesn't feel right giving 550$ for something that does not do the job well. The clean channel was decent, as long as it was clean, distortion was messy, so practically all of the pricing go for the decent clean channel. For the money, I think there can be found a better tube amp, sure it will be smaller wattage no doubt, but at least all the variables will be included in the price with a higher degree of balance between each other.

This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Jan 9 2010, 05:14 PM

OK, I just got back from my friends Shop where I played around with the 333, the 333XL, the 6260 and the 6262 (both through the matched 412H-BK 4x12 Cab).

I haven't got time to write a full report at this moment as I have to go to work, but I will fill you in with my thoughts tomorrow with a little surprise too!!!

Great, leave us all hanging...



Hey! What's wrong with Peavey combos? The Classic series has a pretty good reputation, and I love my Delta Blues.

Oh no you didn't!!! You bought one! I'm guessing the 1960


...or from what I've heard so far it's more likely one blew up in your face

Nothing wrong with them mate.

No, not quite!!

Well, let's start at the beginning...
Although I got to play with quite a lot of things yesterday I didn't get a massive amount of time with it all as the Shop was really busy for some reason and I ended up helping my friend and his Staff selling stuff etc. I did get enough time to form an opinion of each Amp, so in order of play were:-
The 333.
This one comes equipped with 4 12AX7 valves in the pre-amp and 4 6L6 valves in the Power Amp side.

Using a PRS Custom 24 the 'cleans' in this Amp a really pleasing with a lot of scope for tonal variety. You can get jangly (almost 12 string sounding) bright tones through to some fairly dark Bluesy style cleans, with a Strat and a Compressor you could get that Texan style very easily. Going into the 'crunch' channel, it also delivers great tones from slightly dirty through to quite heavily driven sounds. However once the gain gets past about 6 it starts sounding a bit 'thin' and not as 'full bodied' as you'd expect with an Amp of this nature. Next there's the 'Lead' channel which is basically the same as the Crunch but with a heavier Gain. Although this Channel is full of gain it didn't deliver the soaring sort of lead tone you'd want to be able to use in conjunction with the PRS. It's almost impossible for an amp to make one of these PRS's sound muddled and woolly but this amp managed it!!
I tried it with an EMG loaded Explorer and it was a very similar story. Anything heavier than Metallica and it's just not 'fat' enough.

The 333XL.
Same valve set-up as the 333. The XL bit means that you get an in-built Presence control as well as a Noise Gate.

Using the PRS again. Well, sound-wise it performed in a very similar way to the 333. Great cleans which stay clear even when you begin to dirty it up a little, but as with the 333 when you start getting into heavily dirty tones it doesn't deliver in the way that you'd expect. Tried it again with the Explorer and the same story applies.

Would I buy either?
To be perfectly honest I don't think I would BUT I would like to hear them loaded with EL34's instead of the 6L6's. Personally I think the High Gain settings would really sound a lot better for this conversion.

My friend has these priced at £352 (E394) for the 333 and £420 (E470) for the XL.

Now to the Heads! Same Guitars etc! both played through the 'Voice matched' 412H-BK 4x12 Cab.

The 6260
This has 5 12AX7 valves in the Pre-amp and 4 6L6's in the Power-amp.
Yet again, great clean tones. It's very similar sounding to the smaller 333's and behaves in a very similar way too. In all respects! Unfortunately, when you start pushing it too far in the Gain stakes it just doesn't deliver what you'd expect. The main difference between this and the Combos is that by using the 4x12 Cab it does make the whole amp sound more 'airy' or 'light' which benefits any clean settings.
Just using a DD3 and a Chorus pedal with the clean channel had me smiling! Seriously! You could do impressions of the Edge for days with this thing!! It really does justice to the PRS.
It has slightly different switching options to the 6262.

The 6262
Has 6 12AX7 and 4 6L6's.
Exactly the same as the 6260 except that it has separate Reverb and Presence controls for the Lead and Crunch channels.
Soundwise it delivers exactly the same way as the 6260 and only differs in that you have these extra controls for sound shaping.
Really nice cleans/crunch but just doesn't have the Cajones when in High Gain mode.

It's a real shame! As with the Combos I would like to play these loaded with EL34's as I really believe that it would give the High Gain end a bit of a boost and fatten it up! But maybe not enough?

Price for these is £320 (E358) for the 6260 and £382 (E428) for the 6262 add on the 412H-BK at £198 (E222) and you can see that you are going to be around the £600 bracket. Personally I think I'd save a bit extra and go for something else or use that £600 for a high quality 2x12 Combo.

Now the Build Quality. I'll just comment on all 4 overall.
In my mind they all feel 'light' and not as robust as you'd think by looking at them. The front facia panels look and feel thin and 'plasticy', there's no weight to the knobs and I could see over adjustment becoming an issue (especially in a live situation), you just need to touch up the treble a little and suddenly it's over the top. All in all not great, BUT very reasonable for the price.
The 4x12 cab was very nicely put together and looked and felt like it could take a few years of Gigging before falling apart!
Also the Footswitch seemed sturdy enough to be trodden on a few times too!!

So, my overall impression of these is this:-
They seem to be a bit confused as to what they want to be! They try to be a High Gain Metal Monster and fall very, very short!
If, on the other hand, you want an Amp for 'Brit Pop', 60's and 70's style Rock (Think Vox, Orange) then you could do worse, seriously! For that kind of clean playing these would be ideal with enough bite for some lead and enough grunt for some Classic Rock too.

As for his Profit Margins on these? Well, he wouldn't go into too much financial detail but did say that his Mark-up on these is obviously not as high a percentage as he makes on more well known brands! He did also mention that he hasn't had a single one returned for any faults!

Now, onto the SURPRISE!!!!!
It's this:-

It's the Ashton Blue Tongue 100H!!
This is only a 2 Channel amp, but it is loaded with 3 12AX7, 1 AT7 + 3 AU7's in the Pre-amp and 4 EL34's in the Power-amp!!
It has a proper Spring Reverb too!!!
This thing is MAD!!!!! Absolutely everything from sparkly cleans through to Earth shattering High Gain and all handled awesomely!!
Admittedly it's a tad more expensive than the Bugera's, this sells for £419 (E468) for the Head and there are 2 different cabinets available the GQ and the VQ.
Both 4x12's, the GQ is loaded with Celestion rocket 50's and costs £269 (E300) and the VQ which is loaded with Celestion vintage 30's and costs £469 (E524)!!!
Guess which Cab I had it plugged into????

Seriously, for £900 I could be VERY, VERY tempted by this stack!!!!

Awesome review Jonesy! I agree on pretty much everything you said about the 333 head, decent cleans and light crunch, after that it starts to get messy. Since I used 1960 Marshall cab when testing and came to very similar results, I conclude poor result for 333 head (and I guess 333XL as well, since the head is basically the same, except it has some additional features).

I would still like to test 1960 Bugera head, it would be interesting to find out how it behaves. While we are on that topic, there is one person who calles himself Tone King on YT, and made some good (although unbiased IMO) shootouts between 1960 Bugera and a vintage 1959 JCM800. The difference is clear even on these videos, but again, the price is very low on the Bugera, so it is a justified difference to some extent:





EDIT: I just have to comment on how this guy compared the built, it's pretty unbiased to me. He accents the great built with Bugera, but speaks no such thing on the JCM. He even says that wiring on the Bugera "nice job", "color coded, and "wrapped correctly", which to me is a bit strange thing to say. Of course it needs to be color coded and wrapped correctly. On the other hand, I look at this JCM amp and see the wiring is way better, but he speaks no good things about it? Also, you can clearly see that he says that caps on the Marshall are "on the outside" which sounds to me like it is a bad thing. I don't know how this can be a bad thing at all. Also, the caps on the Bugera are so tiny, and again no words there. he didn't even mention that the tube sockets are printed on the PCB on the Bugera, as opposed to the chassis-mounted sockets on the JCM, which is by many a bad construction decision made to cut costs in production.

EDIT2: one more thing, in the first video, he mentions how he payed the JCM much more than Bugera. That is OK, but JCM is a vintage amp that has been around for decades and it needed maintenance, so included that in the price and compared the sum. I'm not sure if that is a good way to compare them. I would like to see Bugera in some 20-25 years of abuse, how it sounds then.

This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Jan 10 2010, 03:27 PM

Thanks Ivan!!
I would have loved to have been able to play around for at least another hour or so! That's my thoughts after having about 15/20 minutes with each Amp.
Except the Ashton! The shop had shut and we all had a lot of fun messing around with that one!!!
I would also like to try that 1960 as well!
You can hear the difference between it and the 6260 straight away (even from that video clip)! It has to be the EL34's!
If any of the ones I played were EL34 loaded they would be so much better, especially where they start to sound 'thin'!

Reply to edit 1!
Maybe TK is just pointing out that the Bugera's aren't quite as badly built as their reputation would have you believe?
Secondly, he shouldn't really have to mention any drawbacks on the Marshall's build quality as there shouldn't be any!!!


Reply to edit 2!
Very good point mate!!
Would the Bugera even be working after that time? I think so if it hasn't been thrown around and abused. It would be interesting to see!

This post has been edited by Sensible Jones: Jan 10 2010, 03:38 PM

Great review SJ! And nice find with that Ashton, never heard of it before, what a gold nugget!

About The Tone King, I keep watching his reviews since some time back. Overall interesting and enjoyable but I wonder why he's stubbornly recording through the mike of the camera instead of miking the cabs. Should sound so much true.
Yeah, I also think he commented on the Bugera as a surprise there were wires and tubes inside and not bricks only to add weight.


I do also wonder if 1960 and 1990, like the other Bugera models fail when pushed. They are newer models from 2009 and question is if Bugera improved or have settled for good enough.

Thanks Micke! It was a nugget!! Ashton is an Australian company and although I've seen their budget Instruments and SS Amps I hadn't come across their Valve gear before!!


I wonder the same thing too. That 1960 Plexi style seems to be much more adept at doing what it should. (Maybe because of the EL34's!)
Where as both those 62--'s that I tried were trying to be something that they're not, although, as I mentioned I really think swapping the 6L6's for EL34's would make a difference. The question is...
Would it make that much of a difference?

In terms of reliability I would say it depends on the amp in front of you because you can always get unlucky,

For example I had a Marshall TSL 100 head that broke down twice within 6 months of having it due to faulty wiring (something to do with the virtual power reduction switch) and then after another six months it let go again at a gig so I had it fixed and sold it, whereas I have had my peavey valveking head for over two years now and no problems whatsoever....

Also I bought a marshall ed-1 compressor that went after two gigs, so I bought a boss compressor which lasted me 4 months (I did take it back on the warranty though and it was fixed without a problem) whilst this was being fixed however I decided to get something in the interim a behringer compressor costing me about £20 and I kid you not over 18 months later I am still using the behringer and I leave the boss at home!.

Also in my opinion the behringer is much much better than either the marshall and the boss and as I dont have to use a noise gate in conjunction with it ( which I had to with both the other pedals).

The other guitarist in my band also had massive noise problems as well with his "constrictor" compressor pedal (about £80) i.e a massive amount of feedback so he went and bought a behringer and now has no problem at all! So sometimes price aint everything.

Theres my two pence worth

I agree a lot with the Marshall, they are to me even worst then Behr these days, putting out lousy amps that cost a fortune. They should really cut down prices. But the reliability and tone image is on their side, so they can do this.