I bought a broken Bugera 1900 on reverb. I pulled every surface mounted component and PCB out of it leaving an empty cabinet, chassis and 2 usable transformers. Then I put in a custom, point to point circuit. Love the end result. Getting a nice cabinet, chassis and 2 transformers for the price I paid was very well worth it.
Yeah eh, that would be a sweet deal for someone looking to do a custom build and needed a dece donor chassis. I wonder what was wrong with it. Like, their design is good, just not might not be durable. If it was me, I would of just fixed the amp, reinforcing the fault points, and ended up with equally good results. But then, I have experience with PCB's and SMD's.
@@DATT It had a blown on-board fuse in the F1 position. Swapped it out and the amp worked fine. No other trauma anywhere so I image a tube blew or something spiking the current in the HV winding. I just wanted a project chassis. I wasn't sure what type of amp the 1900 was cloning, but it did sound nice.
I'm thinking of doing this to a Jet City 20w. The tube socket holes are near the pots, which will make for sloppy lead dress. I don't like the idea of signal leads running next to power leads. A.recipe for noise, and ghosting. I guess my options are to punch more holes for tubes, or try my luck with the existing layout.
@@qua7771 What power leads ? The Preamp tubes being close the the isn't that big a deal. It also depends on what kind of circuit you're going for. Ihave a Jet City 50, if that chassis is anything like mind, you're going to have fun. My preamp tube sockets are PC mounted and the holes are gaping. Normal sockets were going to fit normally. When I was thinking of doing something like that to my Jet, I figured I'd have to mount some sort of sub assembly inside the amp to mount the sockets. I Just ended up fixing it and modding it a bit and really liked it. It's my "Jet City Violence" playlist if you're curious.
I owned this amp for a few months. I sounded FANTASTIC… but I couldn’t get that fantastic sound low enough to be able to play when anybody else was home. 😂
WEll, do what I did. Put a volume knob in the FX loop and run an OD pedal. But a proper OD, not a distortion pedal that's named OD. Something like the tubescreamer, or DOD 250, or the yellow boss pedals. It's not the same tone you get from cranking, but I had a lot of fun playing it like that.
You could have pulled the outer two power tubes or the inner 2 power tubes and gotten the sound you craved at a volume you could live with. This is what I have done.
Remember guys, you can also pull 2 of the 4 output tubes to tame some of the volume as long as you have an 8 or 16 ohm cab (if you have an 8 ohm cab, plug into the 4 ohm plug, 16 ohm cab plug into the 8) i do that quite a bit and also have a passive attenuator i built for a 50 watt amp that i put in between the head and cab while in half power mode and it nicely docks the volume into managable territory and it distorts beautifully
Oh Hell Yeah. I def do that all the time. Heck, just for saving money alone on tubes, I pretty much only buy pairs of tubes, and just run all my 100watters with jsut the 2 tubes. I really don't need to extra volume. I def did that with this amp too. It sucks I didn't have a chance to try it with an attenuator.
@@christopherallen5603 But why look lower headroom if you're using an attenuator anyway? There's a reason small amps don't have the big low end you know.
@@christopherallen5603 It's funny, a little while ago I got the Bugera PS1 attenuator. Says it's good for 100w unit you actually give it 100w. I modded it and installed fans. Electrically it should be good for 180w if I can keep it cool. I'll have a video about it one day.
@@DATT I put a fan on mine too my man! The Bugera is also a passive attenuator. I've recorded a few times with mine and only complaint is that ya lose some of the critical hi end of a Super Lead (recorded Unchained Van Halen) otherwise it sounded great!
Yeah, at the time I had mostly tested it at lower volumes using an OD pedal. I also didn't have an attenuator back then. Now days, when I crank my 800 into the Atten, I def have to drop the bass. I'll admit, that's something I recently learned.
Great shout-out for Traynor! I bought a YVM-1 in 1972 and modded it (minor stuff) to make it more suitable as a guitar amp. Very solid amp. Sadly, it's in need of recapping, but haven't gotten around to it. Some day...
I've had one of these for years but have rarely used it, because of how bad the master volume is. It sounds great when it's opened up, but opportunities to do so have become fewer and further between over the last several years. Even with 2 of the tubes pulled it's still loud. I never even thought of using one of those simple little attenuator pedals in the loop. Gonna have to pick one up and dust that head off. Thanks!
Last year I found a new old stock (lol) bugera NON-infinium 1960 in a store. I use it with a active volume pedal in the loop to reach really nice tones at bedroom levels. But there is a catch, not all active volumes will work well. Some will mess with the impedance and the amp will lose distortion and be clean. Some will suck the bass out of it. I`m using and MI audio Boost n Buff as the master. But i´ve not tried the passive, simple pot, master volume in the loop. That said, about the loop +4/-10, it has a behavior where in -10 the amp has much more gain and does not clean well with the guitar volume pot and is noisier. But in the +4 position, it is louder, it has the, may I say, plexi "correct" amount of gain, less noise and cleans beautifully with the guitar volume. Great amp! Will test with a simple pot in the loop tough. Thx for the nice video.
ahhh yeah, I'd def recommend a passive volume. I know the phenomenon you're talking about. I'm not sure how to explain it tho. Certain miss matches cause RC effects.
If someone gave me a broken/non-functional one of these for nothing, I'd pull out all the circuit boards and stuff, and re-build the amp on Turret boards, and replace all the stock pots with a set of good 24mm CTS pots, assuming the transformers were all good.
the parallel R around the choke is probably to de-q the choke... or reduce it's resonance. maybe it was ringing with a square wave stimulus. thank you for this video by the way. super cool.
@@DATT in that case use an RC or RCD snubber circuit. your intuition is spot on. Cuk, SEPIC, and flybacks especially. sometimes the output rectifiers ring and these circuits are useful there as well.
Hey "Do All Things" I need some help. At 11:03 of your video You see those 4 fuses. The top one closest to you, keeps blowing. I have a gen 1 1960 "Non-Infinium" I have no schematic so I'm studying everything you put up. It will run fine on just 2 tubes, inboard or outboard sockets but with all 4 installed, that fuse blows. Not having a Schem, I just tested the plug from the transformer. Have voltage on all except one orange wire. Any ideas why 4 tubes blows the fuse? Thanks in advance for any help.
Can you tell me the label on the fuse ? I'm looking at the schematic, I can find the 4 fuses. F1 thru F4. Looking at the Vid, that top fuse looks like it's on the yellow wires, which are the heater wires, which should be 10 amps. Yeah, if it's too small a fuse I could see 4 tubes blowing it and not 2. But that assumes not the correct value. One of the orange wires is tied directly to ground, so a 0 reading on that one will be normal, just at long as the other orange wire reads voltage. Prob around 60v is my guess. Makes sure it's not one particular tube popping the fuse, so like juggle them around. This amp doesn't have a bias test resistor from the looks of it, but the schem says to adjsut the bias is -35v. Says there is a bias test point labeled x6. That would be the reading with all 4 tubes tho.
@@DATT I juggled all the tubes (in pairs) in all the sockets and all configurations and with 2 tubes it made no difference. $ tubes blew F1 however, I had replaced it with a 250V 6A fuse. The F1 fuse is a 250v 10A fuse, If I'd paid attention I'd have seen the fuse specs printed on the pc board. F2 - F4 are all 250V 1A fuses. I'm certain if I put the other tubes back in that F1 will blow again. Of coarse, what's the worst that can happen, I go back to two tubes again, lol. The voltage on the hot orange wire is 88V.
I got one of these in a trade for a 412 that I got for free. One of the best amps I have ever played. That said, big agree that the master volume is straight ass in sound. I would LOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE to see you install a proper master volume utilizing inserting a pot between that wire (because I too would also like to have a master on it that works better, I would be down with an email explaining how to do it as well. I really would appreciate it). I think I would put the pot on the front in the upper right input jack though, like you, I also find that input completely useless.
The way this amp is built I don't think you could put the MV in that location easily. Easiest place would be where the existing PPMV is. Unfortunately, this is not my amp to mod, and unless someone hires me to do that mod, I won't be able to make a vid about it.
@@DATT Fair enough, the rear panel isn't always the easiest to reach for me, hence the input jack idea, but more to the point, I would still be interested to know if you really think putting a pot in the line of that wire connecting x41 to x42 would do the job of putting in a pre PI master volume in. I'm willing to make the attempt, worst case is I have to solder a wire back together and apply some heat shielding. I would send you my amp to mod but I am in the states and also incredibly poor.
@@riffsnoleads Ah, did I say x42? Looking at the schematic I have, Output from the tone stack is x41, to input of the FX send is x32. That would be where you insert it, and yeah, if it was my amp, I'd def do that. I wish I still had the amp in front of me, it'd be easier to walk thru it.
I'm with you on the PPIMV...my last two builds i tried them and it was a mess - the NFB collapses and all other kinds of not wanted stuff...big drop off ugh. Switched them back to normal masters....
Yeah, I dont' think you can go wrong with a normal master in most amps. Even in the old beasts you're suppose to crank, you can do a lot with an MV and an OD pedal.
Thanks for covering this amp, I've nearly bought one a few times, and I still might. There are a dozen kinds of PPI masters being used so that doesn't tell us what it actually is; some are quite horrific, like the one I removed from my Granger Plexi; and the Trainwreck Type 2 makes me nervous just looking at the drawing. I have a slightly more refined version of Trainwreck Type 1 that I get great results from in a variety of amps; Showmans, Twins my Granger and others, definitely a step up (and less "fizzy") than the '70s "post treble control" kind. Check out the #1 drawing. Like I said, my version is much nicer but it's essentially the same. BTW I wouldn't take issue with the covering - you're not supposed to beat up your amps anyway.
@@DATT Yes I used Type 3 once, looks scary with those voltages connected to one little pot. But in a Boogie Blue Angel is sounded pretty good, even though the taper was less than ideal. Different class and much less power than this amp though.
Yeah, just a A1M pot between the treble and the PI like any other master volume amp. The FX loop sits in that position so my soda can does exactly that, just buffered.
@@DATT i was thinking it’d be a good idea to put an eq pedal in there to act as a more useful tonestack if needed. Luke Bentham of The Dirty Nil puts a Rat in his fx loop with the preamp only slightly driven and most of the distortion coming from the Rat and gets a great sound. But yeah, maybe not if you’re looking for the actual plexi sound though
Hey man ive been trying to get in contact with you, can you please send me your schematic for your silver jubilee build, because i want to use lnd150 for the fx loop too and i want to know if you changed any components. please reply hope yopu see this
My schematic ? I used the same schematic you can find online. And I literally just subbed out the FX buffer for LND's. My Jube clone is 100% according to the Marshall schematic as far as the preamp goes.
Yeah Actually. I have a video of another already, The Trirec, tho it was more a repair. I'll have a video about the 1990 eventually. That's all I've been able to access however.
@@DATT cool it’s just nice to see the inner workings of these Amps and stuff im still shopping the used market for some form of a tube amp and haven’t narrowed it down yet so I’m just reading listening and watching all I can cause it’s tough to go play some of these amps on account they aren’t in production or sold around me lol thanks again really good stuff
@@formallynamed85 Oh yeah eh, that's always fun. It's hard to decide what you want before you have it. Not everyone can rent gear either. In Canada we have it a bit lucky, our biggest national chain will rent you most there gear.
I have a Bugera BC-30, a 2-12 combo that looks and sounds like a Matchless DC-30 They killed the BC-30... maybe they were just... too close. It's a cool amp, can cut down to 15watts as well, has the mis-matched speakers as well.
Yeah I don't know what it is, they came out it force years ago, now they are few and far between. Maybe they found that they could not compete in the tube head market, not with the kind of durability they are known for. These amps are almost a novelty in ways.
@@DATT Well, I purchased mine back in 2008 from a Black Friday sale, I've had absolutely no problems with it and its built like an absolute tank. I played it against a real Matchless DC-30 and they were soo close my ears couldn't tell the difference. I know a few people had problems with particular years of them ~16years of playing, tubes are still doing great in it.
"like a good Marshall you crank the bass"? Every four holer I've known, when they're properly cranked, you're always rolling back the bass. I play a JTM45, which is yes, a much woolier (I prefer the term "warm") Marshall, you bridge the channels for low volume to get all the warmth you need, but definitely not needed at higher, again, "proper" volume. Then again, I use a Power Station to control the overall volume.
AH yes, you are right, with this amp, and my 800, playing at low volumes, using overdrive, I have to crank the bass. However. When I'm playing my 800, cranked into an attenuation, yeah, you're absolutely right, the bass needs to be turned all the way down.
Well, if one comes across my bench I could. So far my videos are based on, things come in for repair, and I make a video about them while I have them. I dont' have access to just any gear.
so, hypothetical: in the world's best pawnshop you find a Sovtek 50 watt. It costs the same as this Bugera new, but you have no idea what state it's in. Which would you choose?
That's a hard call, I've always wanted a Mig, or a Red Bear even. Also what you want to use it for. Personally, there is nothing that could go wrong with a MIG I could not fix. Even if it was a catastrophic. If you can't do your own amp work, if the Mig didn't work, it could be a hefty price tag depending on what's wrong. Even just fresh tubes could cost a few hundred these days. If it was ME, I'd get the MIG, cause I could fix it, and they are rarer, and hard to find for a good price now when they do show up. That's pretty much the condition in which I got my 800 head. It was broken as is when it was offered to me.
I have this amp new from 2021 and the manual states that it's a post phase inverter master volume.. great video and I subscribed right away.. Would you consider making a video on how to remove the infinium circuit and do standard bias?
They were still making these in 2021? Or you just bought it then ? I could make a video about removing INf, if I had on in for repair with a faulty Inf. But It's not a vid I would/could make otherwise. Pretty much my videos are a product of gear coming in to get worked on.
I bought it in 2021from Sweetwater, and they literally only sold 5-10 in the shipment batch after mine and that was it, discontinued, so very likely they stopped actually building in 2020.. and I also found out by using the jumper (mine has the cascaded input already built in) actually undoes the cascading. If you get any of these Bugera infinuim amps to remove that circuit, they're all the same amp to amp. Thanks for the most informative video on the techs and guts of this thing!
@@christopherallen5603 Hey your welcome. I low key will be keeping an eye open for a broken one. Then I could do whatever to it. I would try to fix it back to stock first. I think it'd be a bigger flex to fix in Inf rather than remove it. Why do you even want to remove it, is yours broken ?
It's been acting funny especially the closer to the 3yr warranty running out.. that expired this past April.. It's been intermittently flashing random tubes 1-4 as being bad and know to be good using a tube tester. Also has been cutting volume up and down.. I wish it wasn't acting up cuz being able to mix different power tubes was a selling point for me since Eddie Van Halen used Sylvania 6CA7s in his old Plexi for several years and that tube was known to sound like a hybrid of a 6L6 and an EL34, and had been using a mix of the stock 34s the amp came with and my prized Sylvania 6L6s from 1989 to get that 6CA7 tone, and they sounded great together until the infinium circuit started acting weird, so now I don't mix power tubes anymore due to that.
I've done the trainwreck type 3 master.vol. it's not great for achieving bedroom volume, as you tuen down you loose gain . If you want to just trim some dB, it's ok. And with the cascade I suppose it's more useful than with a bassman etc. And those suguang are really good tubes according to Dave freidman. They're known to fail suddenly sometimes. But supposedly, really great tubes. And , I always see new amps as potential donors for gutting and handwiring. That would be a cool conversion
Yeah, I have no problems with shugangs. To bad they don't make them anymore from what I hear. But there are some other chinese manufactures now from what I understand. Now that I think about it, I didn't try ti PPMV at higher volumes, maybe it'd be more effective there. I just think it was a missed opportunity, if they were going to add an MV as you would traditionally add to a Cascade modded amp, why mess around, and not just add a normal MV. It's one of the reasons I figure that amp was still sitting unsold all these years, to loud for the average player.
@DATT Yeah, it's fd that they'd develop an amp that has a useless mv. The origin 50 marshall has one that at low volume only has clean tones. I picked up one for 300 bucks to convert to a 1987 circuit. And the suguang tubes are back on the market . Dave freidman was saying on a podcast. Appearantly, the el34 is really nice. Also, chinese Psvane tubes are quite nice. I've been buying soviet NOS tubes at great prices on eBay, though. 6p3s (6L6), 6p14p (el84), 6p6s ( 6v6), all direct replacement. The 6n2p-ev is a 12ax7 ( 4 to 8 bucks ). Awesome tube. Heaters are only 6.3v pins 4 and 5. Pin 9 is a sheild between triodes that you ground to chassis. You can even make an amp switchable between this and a 12ax7.
@@soapboxearth2 IS Shugang back? Last I heard that factory burned down or something. Psvane is all the rage yeah. Filling that chinese tube market. I have a video about playing with Russian tubes called "Soviet Surplus Vacuum Tubes Tested". I def have some 6P3S and 6N2P. I use the non EV ones in my 800.
@DATT ill check that video out. Love thr soviet tubes. And yes I just read thay suguang are back. Seemed like they'd never get another plant opened. I wonder if psvane is making them?
Bugera, I remember I know 3 people that had one. Had. For a short while till they all went tits up. Sounded killer but more unreliable than Grima Wormtongue.
Haha yeah. Can't say I recommend them for that reason. I heard they got better, but idk. I'd run one myself, but that's cause there's not much that could go wrong with it that I couldn't fix.
I have one, it lasted about a year until it stopped reliably making sound. I know a lot more about tube amps these days so im happy I held onto it. I’m going to try and fix it
@@JeremySteamsack Man you hear about them broken, but I've yet to see one. I'd love to find a broken on and fix it, assuming of course it's not the INf circuit that's corrupted.
@@DATT thankfully the issue I’m experiencing is unlikely to be the INF circuit (or at least that’s my thought). The power amp has always worked when plugging things into the effects return - it’s the preamp that’s intermittent. The mains LED does some weird things a few seconds after turning the amp off - some capacitor somewhere must be discharging into that circuit loop. 🤷♂️
I have never heard a cross phase cancellation master volume sound good. Always fizzy on anything but 10. A PPIMV dual gang setup usually sounds good with anything hotter than a black panel Fender.
Had a v22 infi and it didnt reduce the wear on the power tubes that much. Im not sure it worked ,at least in my amp. Didnt use my amp very often and never above 4 . Those JJ P.tubes fried after 2 years of light use never the less.. The stock buggie tubes were trash. One was microphonic and a pre amp had a sharp hifi sound.
What didn't reduce wear ? The Infini tech ? I dont' know that it would. Fried tubes after 2 years is a bit sus. Like I know 2 years is about the life span of a well used tube, light use should be longer than that.
@@DATT yeah the infinium tech didn't do it's thing in my case. I got a mini plexi for 3 years now, use it daily with an attenuator and the tubes are still going.
Typical Bugera... Clone it, but slightly modify it. (Well, infinium is interesting and great if you're into matched output tubes... was that cloned or original?) AFAIK, back when the original amps (the Fender Bassman, what Jim Marshall based his designs off originally, (or guys he hired to do so,) and the Marshall amps that came later) wasn't so intent of matched tubes/valves... something the HiFi and cork sniffing audiophiles were more interested in.
No, matched tubes was def a thing. The difference is back then, when they were a mass produced commodity, they could cull tubes in such a way that they matched. IF you bought say a 6L6, it was designed to a certain spec, so it would run within a certain tolerance of that spec, making almost every 6L6 you bought fairly matched. Any tube tested at the factory that was not in spec was rejected. Sometimes they would get rejected as a defect at the store when they went to use them. They made a lot of them back then so they could do that. Now, it's more a niche item made in smaller batches, unless you want to pay 10 times they can't afford to reject tubes like that, so they simply measure them and match them up. Fun fact about NOS tubes, maybe of them were those rejects / defects.
Man, so glad you covered one of these. I have a Burgera V5 which is much smaller but has that same infinium circuit. I've always wondered how it works. Do you find that it hinders the amplifier in any way? The dude from RAT Valve amps seems to hate it. He says: "Recently introduced (2014) to Replace the 'Standard V5' is the New 'Infinium V5'. The Infinium uses a 'Digital Valve Monitoring Circuit' designed to 'Shut Down' the Power Output Valve in the event of any Overload - (Details of how the system works are shown at the bottom of this page). This is a Total waste of time on a '5w - Single Ended - Cathode Bias' Amp as the last thing you want is the Amp to shut down when it's overloaded, that is the Main purpose of a 5w Valve Amp (It's all Marketing BS designed to compete with 'TubeSync'). The RAT Modifications can be fitted on the Infinium V5 but the 'Digital Monitoring' needs to be disabled in order for the Amp to function correctly. " Is this true, or is he exaggerating?
On this amp no, it's a very different design than the V5 and it pretty much just does automatically the same thing you'd do if you were going to bias the amp manually. I'd have to test it again under different circumstances to find out if the Overload thing is an issues. Assuming the software is programmed correctly, it should be just fine. A 5w single ended cathode biased amp, yeah, I could see where something like an infinium controller is kind of over kill. Like if it protects the amp from going thermal nuclear in the event of a fail, than it's a win, but if it shuts down your amp during a cranked out jam sesh, then yeah, that'd be a problem. I have no experience with the V5 personally. If it shut down on him, than it's obv a problem. Unless there was something defective and it was doing it's job, and normally would work fine.
@@DATT I heard some Canadian vocal references in your video lol. "Hoes she goin B'ye" Is how we say "How is it going boy" in Nova Scotia. A friendly greeting.
@@DATT Yestarday I post the link to the schematic in a comment right here, and today is gone. if you delete it let me know, or tell me what's your email adress and I send you the link cause I don't know how to contact you
@@ran-diy-audio Ohh, yeah no, I didn't delete it. Might of been youtube. I currently don't have any public facing contact info. YOu could try putting the link again, but breaking it up so it doens't look like a link. replace the / and . with a space maybe. So it looks like "youtube com channel UCAvu8z59b_XfI4ztEihJAxw"
It's not idea but it's within spec. I have tubes sets that have drifted father than that with time that still run just. I've had sets go as far as 20. Much more than that can be a problem. Fortunately most new tube sets are within 5 of less.
Don't buy bugera stuff, I have the svt copy, and while it sounds wicked, the infinium module sucks, it's going to fail on you, tubes are not going to be biased properly, and they get expensive. For that money, get some IR loader and a reliable head/modeling pedalboard, or, just save some money and buy a real amp
Hah, they even made an SVT copy eh ? Yeah, it did occur to me, as cool as infinium is, things could go bad really fast if it failed. I personally would buy this amp, as a jam room novelty, to get that sound on the cheap. But I don't think I'd trust it to gig, and if the infinium did fail, I would be able to gut it out for a normal bias circuit.
the ppimv sounding pretty bad is likely because it reduces the negative feedback with the volume, in relation to whats coming out of the preamp. should be lots of wild bright messy stuff.
If someone gave me a broken/non-functional one of these for nothing, I'd pull out all the circuit boards and stuff, and re-build the amp on Turret boards, and replace all the stock pots with a set of good 24mm CTS pots, assuming the transformers were all good.
No need, the one wire mod if built in stock into this model. There was an older model of this amp, which I discussed as per the schematic I had, that did not have that mod, but, being a PCB based design I imagine that mod might be tricky. The head, however, turnkey.
Nah, Hadn't even heard of that amp till recently. What I get to make vids on, and what gear I get to play with is half determind by what people bring to get worked on.
If someone gave me a broken/non-functional one of these for nothing, I'd pull out all the circuit boards and stuff, and re-build the amp on Turret boards, and replace all the stock pots with a set of good 24mm CTS pots, assuming the transformers were all good.
If I had a broken on, I'd prob be able to fix it, based on what I've seen, but that's me. Alternately, I might try to keep as much as I can that still worked, and just gut and replace the faulty circuits. And if I was going to completely gut it, Not sure I'd go with a turret board, like I might, but they weren't designed correctly in the first place. One thing bugera did right is re engineering the circuit with a better layout and better grounding. That's the big weakness of the classic amps, their grounding schemes suck and can be done way better. Which I could do with a turret board, I have before. I just think I'd successfully be able to salvage most of the amp, it's too simple not to. Just I know it's be a good idea to go thru and resolder everything in case they used weak ROHS solder.
Back in the Day…Bugera sent out amps untested…i.e.unflashed getter in one of the Power tube…a nasty habit of catching on fire…we called them Bugger-Ya or Buggeror. As to fix to the MV boot strap to the Schmidt splitter check out Kevin O’Connors The Ultimate Tone Vol 3 in the Chapter 8 pages 8-4 and 8-5 or put a 100k resistor between MV after the EQand the cap
Is that a book or something I can see online ? The unflashed getter is something the tube maker would of done at the factory. It's unlikely Bugera made their own tubes, so that'd just be a fluke tube defect I think.
@@DATT No one ever made their own vacuum tubes…they purchased them from any number of tube manufacturers. Sylvannia, General Electric, RCA, Tung Sol, to name a few in the USA, Mullard and Genelex and others in England. These were “Private Labeled” ‘Use only Genuine Fender Tubes….not made by Fender. And if a tube manufacturer was short on tubes he would have another just put his logo and ship them to him. What Guitar companies who also made Amplifier companies Gibson, Rickenbacker (Leo Fender was a radio repairman who also first worked for Rickenbacker repairing guitar amps) Ampeg did they tested the amps before selling, and shipping to Music Stores. Yes the actually used Test Equipment, Vacuum Tube Voltage Ohm Meters, Capacitor Testers, Tube Testers to test the tubes and then they actually played the damn amplifiers to see if these actually made a sound worked, didn’t hum (too loudly) didn’t feedback in a ground loop. There was a sense of pride and reputation to project and protect. Even the companies that made guitars and amplifiers under a variety of names, and before department stores did become destroyed by Ivy League Accounts and corporate raiders, Montgomery Wards, Sears & Roebuck had entry level beginners amps which buyers purchased on lay away made by outside suppliers, these had the contracted manufacturers test the amplifiers. Would anyone sell a car, boat, airplane, radio, TV set, film projector, phonograph, without testing these first. People maintained and repaired their equipment or telephoned the local repair man or brought to a repair shop, often a music store also maintained the products they sold. This was the reality before the landfill mentality from MBA’s… but before I go further Uli Behringer has a reputation, both as a business man and his work on synthesizers vintage Europe. His Rep as a business man isn’t one he protected and one he wants to be known. There’s no way an unflashed, non working Dead on arrival tube has been tested. No way an amp that had such a tube installed had been tested or so much as one chord or a single note played.
@@Renshen1957 Ohhh I see what you're saying. An unflashed tube means they didn't test the amp first. Yeah I could see that. I could also see them testing the amp with a different set of tubes, and just slamming a fresh set in on the way out the door. Either way, yeah, Beh doesn't have the best rep for quality.
Honestly, I just google it and hope I get lucky. Some amps I can't find anything, some amps I can. I googled your amp and this came up, no idea if it's accurate. music-electronics-forum.com/filedata/fetch?id=860228
Those resistors parallel to choke could in fact be useful because they decrease the (caused by Lenz law) voltage spike over the choke in sudden current changes through choke.
Yeah eh, I figure there must be a good reason for it, they applied modern engineering to this amp. I would of assumed the choke would be good an absorbing a voltage spike on it's own however. What would the benefit of this be ?
@@DATT Just study Lenz law, or measure the HUGE voltage spike over a choke when the current through it changes suddenly, for example over the choke when the amp is turned on, and during that moment the filter caps of the power supply are virtually a short circuit to ground for a couple of milliseconds and the choke tries to fight against that change by inducing a huge opposite voltage. So those resistors protect that choke from arcing and going shorted, like a snubber (Zobel network) circuit or flyback diode protects an OT which has no load or is clipping heavily.
@@DATT Those resistors cannot do any harm anyway. And the inner resistance of the choke at low or DC frq is neglible compared to those parallel resistors. (And in fact the law is Faraday's induction law but Mr. Lenz showed that the voltage opposites the change. 🧐) Edit.: If that choke is a cheap high DC resistance (1kohm or so) choke, the reason for those parallel resistors could be just to reduce the DC voltage drop of the choke made of thin wire.
I don't really see it for sale anywhere sadly. Does kind of make my vid pointless. Kind of, if you can find it used kind of thing, here's what you can expect.
I love the absolute puzzlement in your voice when trying comprehend the idea of playing a JCM 800 clean. 🤘
Those things sound GREAT clean; yes, in the high input.
Hah, for sure !
i love the different height tubes. the epitome of "send it"
Yeah, one of the few amps you can get away with doing this.
I bought a broken Bugera 1900 on reverb. I pulled every surface mounted component and PCB out of it leaving an empty cabinet, chassis and 2 usable transformers. Then I put in a custom, point to point circuit. Love the end result. Getting a nice cabinet, chassis and 2 transformers for the price I paid was very well worth it.
Yeah eh, that would be a sweet deal for someone looking to do a custom build and needed a dece donor chassis.
I wonder what was wrong with it. Like, their design is good, just not might not be durable. If it was me, I would of just fixed the amp, reinforcing the fault points, and ended up with equally good results. But then, I have experience with PCB's and SMD's.
@@DATT It had a blown on-board fuse in the F1 position. Swapped it out and the amp worked fine. No other trauma anywhere so I image a tube blew or something spiking the current in the HV winding.
I just wanted a project chassis. I wasn't sure what type of amp the 1900 was cloning, but it did sound nice.
I'm thinking of doing this to a Jet City 20w. The tube socket holes are near the pots, which will make for sloppy lead dress. I don't like the idea of signal leads running next to power leads. A.recipe for noise, and ghosting. I guess my options are to punch more holes for tubes, or try my luck with the existing layout.
@@FishloreJimson Yeah, I guess the amp might be good for a donor.
The 1900 or the 1990 ? I can't find a 1900.
@@qua7771 What power leads ? The Preamp tubes being close the the isn't that big a deal. It also depends on what kind of circuit you're going for. Ihave a Jet City 50, if that chassis is anything like mind, you're going to have fun. My preamp tube sockets are PC mounted and the holes are gaping. Normal sockets were going to fit normally. When I was thinking of doing something like that to my Jet, I figured I'd have to mount some sort of sub assembly inside the amp to mount the sockets. I Just ended up fixing it and modding it a bit and really liked it. It's my "Jet City Violence" playlist if you're curious.
Make more of these types of amp explanation videos, learned so much.!
Oh there are def more comming, in various forms.
I owned this amp for a few months. I sounded FANTASTIC… but I couldn’t get that fantastic sound low enough to be able to play when anybody else was home. 😂
Sounds like it would be perfect with a Power Station.
@@poulwintherCost more than the amp.
@@qua7771 Have it already 😅
WEll, do what I did. Put a volume knob in the FX loop and run an OD pedal. But a proper OD, not a distortion pedal that's named OD.
Something like the tubescreamer, or DOD 250, or the yellow boss pedals.
It's not the same tone you get from cranking, but I had a lot of fun playing it like that.
You could have pulled the outer two power tubes or the inner 2 power tubes and gotten the sound you craved at a volume you could live with. This is what I have done.
Remember guys, you can also pull 2 of the 4 output tubes to tame some of the volume as long as you have an 8 or 16 ohm cab (if you have an 8 ohm cab, plug into the 4 ohm plug, 16 ohm cab plug into the 8) i do that quite a bit and also have a passive attenuator i built for a 50 watt amp that i put in between the head and cab while in half power mode and it nicely docks the volume into managable territory and it distorts beautifully
Oh Hell Yeah. I def do that all the time. Heck, just for saving money alone on tubes, I pretty much only buy pairs of tubes, and just run all my 100watters with jsut the 2 tubes. I really don't need to extra volume. I def did that with this amp too.
It sucks I didn't have a chance to try it with an attenuator.
@@christopherallen5603 But why look lower headroom if you're using an attenuator anyway? There's a reason small amps don't have the big low end you know.
My attuneator is only safe for up to a 50w amp, a full 100w is sure to overheat the passive resistor circuit and kill it.
@@christopherallen5603 It's funny, a little while ago I got the Bugera PS1 attenuator. Says it's good for 100w unit you actually give it 100w.
I modded it and installed fans. Electrically it should be good for 180w if I can keep it cool. I'll have a video about it one day.
@@DATT I put a fan on mine too my man! The Bugera is also a passive attenuator. I've recorded a few times with mine and only complaint is that ya lose some of the critical hi end of a Super Lead (recorded Unchained Van Halen) otherwise it sounded great!
I've always been curious about these heads.
They're really quite something.
Anybody who owns a vintage 100 watt Marshall knows that you run the bass literally off to get the best midrange gain and grind out of them.🙄
Yeah, at the time I had mostly tested it at lower volumes using an OD pedal. I also didn't have an attenuator back then.
Now days, when I crank my 800 into the Atten, I def have to drop the bass. I'll admit, that's something I recently learned.
And crank the mids!
Used to own one, what you say was true for my amp. It was LOUD, and very dark and dull ( especially turned up) so more bass was never what I needed.
Great info!
Thanks !
Great shout-out for Traynor! I bought a YVM-1 in 1972 and modded it (minor stuff) to make it more suitable as a guitar amp. Very solid amp. Sadly, it's in need of recapping, but haven't gotten around to it. Some day...
Oh yeah, Traynor is common in Canada. I've recapped a few of them over the years.
It's only hard cause you have to torch off the old ones.
I've had one of these for years but have rarely used it, because of how bad the master volume is. It sounds great when it's opened up, but opportunities to do so have become fewer and further between over the last several years. Even with 2 of the tubes pulled it's still loud.
I never even thought of using one of those simple little attenuator pedals in the loop. Gonna have to pick one up and dust that head off. Thanks!
Hell Yeah Bud ! Instant JCM 800.
This was a terrific video!
This is the first time I've ever seen your channel, holy hell how is that even possible? I subscribed 🙏🏼
The algorithm doesn't know what to do with me. This vid popped off for some reason. Usually, I don't get anywhere near this many views.
@@DATTkeep them coming. You dove into that Bugera exactly the way I was hoping somebody would in a video 🙏🏼
@@kellecetraro4807 Frik yeah bud !
Last year I found a new old stock (lol) bugera NON-infinium 1960 in a store. I use it with a active volume pedal in the loop to reach really nice tones at bedroom levels. But there is a catch, not all active volumes will work well. Some will mess with the impedance and the amp will lose distortion and be clean. Some will suck the bass out of it. I`m using and MI audio Boost n Buff as the master. But i´ve not tried the passive, simple pot, master volume in the loop. That said, about the loop +4/-10, it has a behavior where in -10 the amp has much more gain and does not clean well with the guitar volume pot and is noisier. But in the +4 position, it is louder, it has the, may I say, plexi "correct" amount of gain, less noise and cleans beautifully with the guitar volume. Great amp! Will test with a simple pot in the loop tough. Thx for the nice video.
ahhh yeah, I'd def recommend a passive volume. I know the phenomenon you're talking about. I'm not sure how to explain it tho.
Certain miss matches cause RC effects.
If someone gave me a broken/non-functional one of these for nothing, I'd pull out all the circuit boards and stuff, and re-build the amp on Turret boards, and replace all the stock pots with a set of good 24mm CTS pots, assuming the transformers were all good.
.
the parallel R around the choke is probably to de-q the choke... or reduce it's resonance. maybe it was ringing with a square wave stimulus.
thank you for this video by the way. super cool.
Interesting. I wonder if I could try that to reduce ringing in SMPS builds I do. It always seems to be a problem for me.
@@DATT in that case use an RC or RCD snubber circuit. your intuition is spot on. Cuk, SEPIC, and flybacks especially. sometimes the output rectifiers ring and these circuits are useful there as well.
Hey "Do All Things" I need some help. At 11:03 of your video You see those 4 fuses. The top one closest to you, keeps blowing. I have a gen 1 1960 "Non-Infinium" I have no schematic so I'm studying everything you put up. It will run fine on just 2 tubes, inboard or outboard sockets but with all 4 installed, that fuse blows. Not having a Schem, I just tested the plug from the transformer. Have voltage on all except one orange wire. Any ideas why 4 tubes blows the fuse? Thanks in advance for any help.
Can you tell me the label on the fuse ?
I'm looking at the schematic, I can find the 4 fuses. F1 thru F4.
Looking at the Vid, that top fuse looks like it's on the yellow wires, which are the heater wires, which should be 10 amps. Yeah, if it's too small a fuse I could see 4 tubes blowing it and not 2. But that assumes not the correct value.
One of the orange wires is tied directly to ground, so a 0 reading on that one will be normal, just at long as the other orange wire reads voltage. Prob around 60v is my guess.
Makes sure it's not one particular tube popping the fuse, so like juggle them around.
This amp doesn't have a bias test resistor from the looks of it, but the schem says to adjsut the bias is -35v.
Says there is a bias test point labeled x6. That would be the reading with all 4 tubes tho.
search google for "bugera_1960_rev.0" with the quotes.
@@DATT I juggled all the tubes (in pairs) in all the sockets and all configurations and with 2 tubes it made no difference. $ tubes blew F1 however, I had replaced it with a 250V 6A fuse. The F1 fuse is a 250v 10A fuse, If I'd paid attention I'd have seen the fuse specs printed on the pc board. F2 - F4 are all 250V 1A fuses. I'm certain if I put the other tubes back in that F1 will blow again. Of coarse, what's the worst that can happen, I go back to two tubes again, lol. The voltage on the hot orange wire is 88V.
I got one of these in a trade for a 412 that I got for free. One of the best amps I have ever played. That said, big agree that the master volume is straight ass in sound.
I would LOOOOOOOVVVVVVEEEEEE to see you install a proper master volume utilizing inserting a pot between that wire (because I too would also like to have a master on it that works better, I would be down with an email explaining how to do it as well. I really would appreciate it). I think I would put the pot on the front in the upper right input jack though, like you, I also find that input completely useless.
The way this amp is built I don't think you could put the MV in that location easily. Easiest place would be where the existing PPMV is.
Unfortunately, this is not my amp to mod, and unless someone hires me to do that mod, I won't be able to make a vid about it.
@@DATT Fair enough, the rear panel isn't always the easiest to reach for me, hence the input jack idea, but more to the point, I would still be interested to know if you really think putting a pot in the line of that wire connecting x41 to x42 would do the job of putting in a pre PI master volume in. I'm willing to make the attempt, worst case is I have to solder a wire back together and apply some heat shielding.
I would send you my amp to mod but I am in the states and also incredibly poor.
@@riffsnoleads Ah, did I say x42?
Looking at the schematic I have, Output from the tone stack is x41, to input of the FX send is x32. That would be where you insert it, and yeah, if it was my amp, I'd def do that. I wish I still had the amp in front of me, it'd be easier to walk thru it.
Is it possible to mod it so we can switch infinium or non infinium with a switch?
Probably, but it would be pointless. I think you'd either want one or the other, not sure I see a point to both.
I'm with you on the PPIMV...my last two builds i tried them and it was a mess - the NFB collapses and all other kinds of not wanted stuff...big drop off ugh. Switched them back to normal masters....
Yeah, I dont' think you can go wrong with a normal master in most amps.
Even in the old beasts you're suppose to crank, you can do a lot with an MV and an OD pedal.
Thanks for covering this amp, I've nearly bought one a few times, and I still might. There are a dozen kinds of PPI masters being used so that doesn't tell us what it actually is; some are quite horrific, like the one I removed from my Granger Plexi; and the Trainwreck Type 2 makes me nervous just looking at the drawing. I have a slightly more refined version of Trainwreck Type 1 that I get great results from in a variety of amps; Showmans, Twins my Granger and others, definitely a step up (and less "fizzy") than the '70s "post treble control" kind. Check out the #1 drawing. Like I said, my version is much nicer but it's essentially the same. BTW I wouldn't take issue with the covering - you're not supposed to beat up your amps anyway.
I think this is a type 3 PPI ? I really didnt' like it. But I have worked with others that sounded better.
@@DATT Yes I used Type 3 once, looks scary with those voltages connected to one little pot. But in a Boogie Blue Angel is sounded pretty good, even though the taper was less than ideal. Different class and much less power than this amp though.
@@deanallen927 Ahh, well these ones are connected after the coupling caps, so that will block the high voltages. Not really dangerous, just lame.
when you in the zone 6:54
Hahaha, my descriptions of sounds.
Is this Candian?
Yeah, bud !
When you say change out the PPIMV for a standard master volume, do you mean a pre-phase inverter master volume?
Yeah, just a A1M pot between the treble and the PI like any other master volume amp. The FX loop sits in that position so my soda can does exactly that, just buffered.
@@DATT so pretty much any pedal with a volume knob in the FX loop would work the same
@@slayabouts Yeah I guess so eh. I didn't try that cause I didn't want to change the sound.
@@DATT i was thinking it’d be a good idea to put an eq pedal in there to act as a more useful tonestack if needed. Luke Bentham of The Dirty Nil puts a Rat in his fx loop with the preamp only slightly driven and most of the distortion coming from the Rat and gets a great sound. But yeah, maybe not if you’re looking for the actual plexi sound though
@@slayabouts Oh yeah, an EQ pedal would do exactly that I think, esp if the vol goes down to Zero.
Usually the dark channel works well if you want to use pedals for your dirt.
Yeah, that's true. I just generally don't use distortion pedals anymore.
Hey man ive been trying to get in contact with you, can you please send me your schematic for your silver jubilee build, because i want to use lnd150 for the fx loop too and i want to know if you changed any components. please reply hope yopu see this
My schematic ? I used the same schematic you can find online. And I literally just subbed out the FX buffer for LND's. My Jube clone is 100% according to the Marshall schematic as far as the preamp goes.
Very good in-depth video much appreciated any chance of you getting your hands on some different bugera amps from the mom and pop shop soon ?
Yeah Actually. I have a video of another already, The Trirec, tho it was more a repair. I'll have a video about the 1990 eventually.
That's all I've been able to access however.
@@DATT cool it’s just nice to see the inner workings of these Amps and stuff im still shopping the used market for some form of a tube amp and haven’t narrowed it down yet so I’m just reading listening and watching all I can cause it’s tough to go play some of these amps on account they aren’t in production or sold around me lol thanks again really good stuff
@@formallynamed85 Oh yeah eh, that's always fun. It's hard to decide what you want before you have it. Not everyone can rent gear either. In Canada we have it a bit lucky, our biggest national chain will rent you most there gear.
I have a Bugera BC-30, a 2-12 combo that looks and sounds like a Matchless DC-30
They killed the BC-30... maybe they were just... too close.
It's a cool amp, can cut down to 15watts as well, has the mis-matched speakers as well.
Yeah I don't know what it is, they came out it force years ago, now they are few and far between. Maybe they found that they could not compete in the tube head market, not with the kind of durability they are known for. These amps are almost a novelty in ways.
@@DATT Well, I purchased mine back in 2008 from a Black Friday sale, I've had absolutely no problems with it and its built like an absolute tank. I played it against a real Matchless DC-30 and they were soo close my ears couldn't tell the difference.
I know a few people had problems with particular years of them ~16years of playing, tubes are still doing great in it.
@@28mmRPG You still have the same tubes after 16 years even ? Well, it's not unheard of.
@@DATT yes in the Bc-30... the tubes may have been changed before I purchased the amp. But since Ive had it, I've only had it rebiased once.
@@28mmRPG Damn, I've have changed them out several times by now, but that's just cause I like trying different tubes if nothing else.
What's with the 4 6L6 power tubes in the schematic? They're certainly not in the amp as manufactured.
Oh, I was referring to a schematic from a different Bugera amp, just to explain how Infinium works, as I didn't have the Inf schem for the 1960.
"like a good Marshall you crank the bass"? Every four holer I've known, when they're properly cranked, you're always rolling back the bass. I play a JTM45, which is yes, a much woolier (I prefer the term "warm") Marshall, you bridge the channels for low volume to get all the warmth you need, but definitely not needed at higher, again, "proper" volume. Then again, I use a Power Station to control the overall volume.
AH yes, you are right, with this amp, and my 800, playing at low volumes, using overdrive, I have to crank the bass. However.
When I'm playing my 800, cranked into an attenuation, yeah, you're absolutely right, the bass needs to be turned all the way down.
OMG I just found your channel and you have gained a new subscriber. Can you please do an analysis of the EVH ICONIC 80 Head ❤❤❤
Well, if one comes across my bench I could. So far my videos are based on, things come in for repair, and I make a video about them while I have them. I dont' have access to just any gear.
@@DATT right on
so, hypothetical: in the world's best pawnshop you find a Sovtek 50 watt. It costs the same as this Bugera new, but you have no idea what state it's in. Which would you choose?
That's a hard call, I've always wanted a Mig, or a Red Bear even.
Also what you want to use it for. Personally, there is nothing that could go wrong with a MIG I could not fix. Even if it was a catastrophic. If you can't do your own amp work, if the Mig didn't work, it could be a hefty price tag depending on what's wrong. Even just fresh tubes could cost a few hundred these days. If it was ME, I'd get the MIG, cause I could fix it, and they are rarer, and hard to find for a good price now when they do show up. That's pretty much the condition in which I got my 800 head.
It was broken as is when it was offered to me.
I have this amp new from 2021 and the manual states that it's a post phase inverter master volume.. great video and I subscribed right away.. Would you consider making a video on how to remove the infinium circuit and do standard bias?
They were still making these in 2021? Or you just bought it then ?
I could make a video about removing INf, if I had on in for repair with a faulty Inf. But It's not a vid I would/could make otherwise.
Pretty much my videos are a product of gear coming in to get worked on.
I bought it in 2021from Sweetwater, and they literally only sold 5-10 in the shipment batch after mine and that was it, discontinued, so very likely they stopped actually building in 2020.. and I also found out by using the jumper (mine has the cascaded input already built in) actually undoes the cascading. If you get any of these Bugera infinuim amps to remove that circuit, they're all the same amp to amp. Thanks for the most informative video on the techs and guts of this thing!
@@christopherallen5603 Hey your welcome.
I low key will be keeping an eye open for a broken one. Then I could do whatever to it.
I would try to fix it back to stock first. I think it'd be a bigger flex to fix in Inf rather than remove it.
Why do you even want to remove it, is yours broken ?
It's been acting funny especially the closer to the 3yr warranty running out.. that expired this past April.. It's been intermittently flashing random tubes 1-4 as being bad and know to be good using a tube tester. Also has been cutting volume up and down.. I wish it wasn't acting up cuz being able to mix different power tubes was a selling point for me since Eddie Van Halen used Sylvania 6CA7s in his old Plexi for several years and that tube was known to sound like a hybrid of a 6L6 and an EL34, and had been using a mix of the stock 34s the amp came with and my prized Sylvania 6L6s from 1989 to get that 6CA7 tone, and they sounded great together until the infinium circuit started acting weird, so now I don't mix power tubes anymore due to that.
And I do have a schematic of both the old version and infinium one, but Bugera kinda prints their schems a bit confusing
sounds like homie is from Wisconsin
Canada, bud !
I've done the trainwreck type 3 master.vol. it's not great for achieving bedroom volume, as you tuen down you loose gain . If you want to just trim some dB, it's ok. And with the cascade I suppose it's more useful than with a bassman etc.
And those suguang are really good tubes according to Dave freidman. They're known to fail suddenly sometimes. But supposedly, really great tubes.
And , I always see new amps as potential donors for gutting and handwiring. That would be a cool conversion
Yeah, I have no problems with shugangs. To bad they don't make them anymore from what I hear. But there are some other chinese manufactures now from what I understand.
Now that I think about it, I didn't try ti PPMV at higher volumes, maybe it'd be more effective there. I just think it was a missed opportunity, if they were going to add an MV as you would traditionally add to a Cascade modded amp, why mess around, and not just add a normal MV.
It's one of the reasons I figure that amp was still sitting unsold all these years, to loud for the average player.
@DATT Yeah, it's fd that they'd develop an amp that has a useless mv. The origin 50 marshall has one that at low volume only has clean tones. I picked up one for 300 bucks to convert to a 1987 circuit.
And the suguang tubes are back on the market . Dave freidman was saying on a podcast. Appearantly, the el34 is really nice.
Also, chinese Psvane tubes are quite nice.
I've been buying soviet NOS tubes at great prices on eBay, though.
6p3s (6L6), 6p14p (el84), 6p6s ( 6v6), all direct replacement.
The 6n2p-ev is a 12ax7 ( 4 to 8 bucks ). Awesome tube. Heaters are only 6.3v pins 4 and 5. Pin 9 is a sheild between triodes that you ground to chassis. You can even make an amp switchable between this and a 12ax7.
@@soapboxearth2 IS Shugang back? Last I heard that factory burned down or something.
Psvane is all the rage yeah. Filling that chinese tube market.
I have a video about playing with Russian tubes called "Soviet Surplus Vacuum Tubes Tested".
I def have some 6P3S and 6N2P. I use the non EV ones in my 800.
@DATT ill check that video out. Love thr soviet tubes.
And yes I just read thay suguang are back. Seemed like they'd never get another plant opened. I wonder if psvane is making them?
@@soapboxearth2 WEll, I'll keep an eye out then !
Bugera, I remember I know 3 people that had one. Had. For a short while till they all went tits up. Sounded killer but more unreliable than Grima Wormtongue.
Haha yeah. Can't say I recommend them for that reason. I heard they got better, but idk. I'd run one myself, but that's cause there's not much that could go wrong with it that I couldn't fix.
I have one, it lasted about a year until it stopped reliably making sound. I know a lot more about tube amps these days so im happy I held onto it. I’m going to try and fix it
@@JeremySteamsack Man you hear about them broken, but I've yet to see one. I'd love to find a broken on and fix it, assuming of course it's not the INf circuit that's corrupted.
@@DATT thankfully the issue I’m experiencing is unlikely to be the INF circuit (or at least that’s my thought). The power amp has always worked when plugging things into the effects return - it’s the preamp that’s intermittent. The mains LED does some weird things a few seconds after turning the amp off - some capacitor somewhere must be discharging into that circuit loop. 🤷♂️
@@JeremySteamsack Man, it's simple amp overall. If the INF is good, it'd be an easy fix if it's just in the preamp.
The dark channel you can try with the bass and mid on 0
Yeah eh? That usually seems counter intuitive to me.
@@DATT and the treble on 10
@@jupjuck Hah yeah, prob have to.
Come on Barbie let's go party
Frig yeah bud !
I have never heard a cross phase cancellation master volume sound good. Always fizzy on anything but 10.
A PPIMV dual gang setup usually sounds good with anything hotter than a black panel Fender.
Yeah, I've gotten the chance to play with some dual gang versions before and they work much better, that's for sure.
Some say the Type 3 MV works better on cathode biased outputs rather than fixed...based on my AC15C1 vs homebrew 6V6 Plexi I tend to agree.
@@wyattdoodat Yeah eh ? I'll have to keep that in mind.
I use a 120w into a 212 avatar, bugera=Lemmy tone for cheap
Oh yeah, the tone was def solid, Almost wanted to buy it.
Had a v22 infi and it didnt reduce the wear on the power tubes that much. Im not sure it worked ,at least in my amp.
Didnt use my amp very often and never above 4 .
Those JJ P.tubes fried after 2 years of light use never the less..
The stock buggie tubes were trash. One was microphonic and a pre amp had a sharp hifi sound.
What didn't reduce wear ? The Infini tech ? I dont' know that it would.
Fried tubes after 2 years is a bit sus. Like I know 2 years is about the life span of a well used tube, light use should be longer than that.
@@DATT yeah the infinium tech didn't do it's thing in my case. I got a mini plexi for 3 years now, use it daily with an attenuator and the tubes are still going.
@@melexdy Yeah, sounds like it was jsut straight up defective.
Typical Bugera... Clone it, but slightly modify it. (Well, infinium is interesting and great if you're into matched output tubes... was that cloned or original?)
AFAIK, back when the original amps (the Fender Bassman, what Jim Marshall based his designs off originally, (or guys he hired to do so,) and the Marshall amps that came later) wasn't so intent of matched tubes/valves... something the HiFi and cork sniffing audiophiles were more interested in.
No, matched tubes was def a thing. The difference is back then, when they were a mass produced commodity, they could cull tubes in such a way that they matched.
IF you bought say a 6L6, it was designed to a certain spec, so it would run within a certain tolerance of that spec, making almost every 6L6 you bought fairly matched. Any tube tested at the factory that was not in spec was rejected. Sometimes they would get rejected as a defect at the store when they went to use them. They made a lot of them back then so they could do that. Now, it's more a niche item made in smaller batches, unless you want to pay 10 times they can't afford to reject tubes like that, so they simply measure them and match them up. Fun fact about NOS tubes, maybe of them were those rejects / defects.
Man, so glad you covered one of these. I have a Burgera V5 which is much smaller but has that same infinium circuit. I've always wondered how it works. Do you find that it hinders the amplifier in any way? The dude from RAT Valve amps seems to hate it. He says:
"Recently introduced (2014) to Replace the 'Standard V5' is the New 'Infinium V5'. The Infinium uses a 'Digital Valve Monitoring Circuit' designed to 'Shut Down' the Power Output Valve in the event of any Overload - (Details of how the system works are shown at the bottom of this page). This is a Total waste of time on a '5w - Single Ended - Cathode Bias' Amp as the last thing you want is the Amp to shut down when it's overloaded, that is the Main purpose of a 5w Valve Amp (It's all Marketing BS designed to compete with 'TubeSync'). The RAT Modifications can be fitted on the Infinium V5 but the 'Digital Monitoring' needs to be disabled in order for the Amp to function correctly. "
Is this true, or is he exaggerating?
On this amp no, it's a very different design than the V5 and it pretty much just does automatically the same thing you'd do if you were going to bias the amp manually. I'd have to test it again under different circumstances to find out if the Overload thing is an issues. Assuming the software is programmed correctly, it should be just fine.
A 5w single ended cathode biased amp, yeah, I could see where something like an infinium controller is kind of over kill. Like if it protects the amp from going thermal nuclear in the event of a fail, than it's a win, but if it shuts down your amp during a cranked out jam sesh, then yeah, that'd be a problem. I have no experience with the V5 personally. If it shut down on him, than it's obv a problem. Unless there was something defective and it was doing it's job, and normally would work fine.
@@DATT ahhhhhhh I see! thanks! I was genuinely curious 🙏
@@shanemichaelneal648 Yw
How she going B'ye?
Ahhh, I don't get the "B'ye" reference.
@@DATT I heard some Canadian vocal references in your video lol. "Hoes she goin B'ye" Is how we say "How is it going boy" in Nova Scotia. A friendly greeting.
@@GibsonsLoveMarshalls Ohhh ok, I'm in Ontario so we dont' have B'ye, we got like bud and bro, bud. Haha.
Hi! I got the schematic of the infinium 1960, I send to you if you need, your content help!
Please send to me, we are doing a video at my tech on doing a transformer swap and mods.
Really? Is there a link ?
@@DATT drive.google.com/file/d/1XOY-IKIKP4DiEvNfNcdhSrgly95T1C5a/view?usp=drive_link
@@DATT Yestarday I post the link to the schematic in a comment right here, and today is gone. if you delete it let me know, or tell me what's your email adress and I send you the link cause I don't know how to contact you
@@ran-diy-audio Ohh, yeah no, I didn't delete it. Might of been youtube.
I currently don't have any public facing contact info.
YOu could try putting the link again, but breaking it up so it doens't look like a link.
replace the / and . with a space maybe.
So it looks like "youtube com channel UCAvu8z59b_XfI4ztEihJAxw"
10ma off is not matched lol !
It's not idea but it's within spec. I have tubes sets that have drifted father than that with time that still run just. I've had sets go as far as 20. Much more than that can be a problem. Fortunately most new tube sets are within 5 of less.
Don't buy bugera stuff, I have the svt copy, and while it sounds wicked, the infinium module sucks, it's going to fail on you, tubes are not going to be biased properly, and they get expensive. For that money, get some IR loader and a reliable head/modeling pedalboard, or, just save some money and buy a real amp
Hah, they even made an SVT copy eh ?
Yeah, it did occur to me, as cool as infinium is, things could go bad really fast if it failed. I personally would buy this amp, as a jam room novelty, to get that sound on the cheap. But I don't think I'd trust it to gig, and if the infinium did fail, I would be able to gut it out for a normal bias circuit.
@@DATT good luck on that
AvE
Haha, he's not the only guy in Canada you know :P
@@DATT That's not one of his shirts youi're wearing?
@@rafaelallenblock Ohhh yeah, I thought you were comparing me to him.
I've gotten that before cause of the accent.
Cet ampli est beaucoup trop puissant donc inutilisable dans toutes les configurations, y compris pour jouer dans des salles
Généralement oui, mais la façon dont je l'utilisais avec la pédale de volume le rendait plus utile.
the ppimv sounding pretty bad is likely because it reduces the negative feedback with the volume, in relation to whats coming out of the preamp. should be lots of wild bright messy stuff.
Yeah, I suppose it causes the 2 sides to phase each other out in such a way that doesn't effect the whole FQ spectrum.
If someone gave me a broken/non-functional one of these for nothing, I'd pull out all the circuit boards and stuff, and re-build the amp on Turret boards, and replace all the stock pots with a set of good 24mm CTS pots, assuming the transformers were all good.
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Alright! Ive been waiting for someone to look into these.
I bet that amp would be a great candidate for the one wire mod.
No need, the one wire mod if built in stock into this model.
There was an older model of this amp, which I discussed as per the schematic I had, that did not have that mod, but, being a PCB based design I imagine that mod might be tricky. The head, however, turnkey.
Have you looked at the Bugera BC 30? If so, what do you think? Do you have a schematic for this amp. 2X12 Combo.
Nah, Hadn't even heard of that amp till recently. What I get to make vids on, and what gear I get to play with is half determind by what people bring to get worked on.
If someone gave me a broken/non-functional one of these for nothing, I'd pull out all the circuit boards and stuff, and re-build the amp on Turret boards, and replace all the stock pots with a set of good 24mm CTS pots, assuming the transformers were all good.
If I had a broken on, I'd prob be able to fix it, based on what I've seen, but that's me. Alternately, I might try to keep as much as I can that still worked, and just gut and replace the faulty circuits. And if I was going to completely gut it, Not sure I'd go with a turret board, like I might, but they weren't designed correctly in the first place. One thing bugera did right is re engineering the circuit with a better layout and better grounding. That's the big weakness of the classic amps, their grounding schemes suck and can be done way better. Which I could do with a turret board, I have before. I just think I'd successfully be able to salvage most of the amp, it's too simple not to. Just I know it's be a good idea to go thru and resolder everything in case they used weak ROHS solder.
Back in the Day…Bugera sent out amps untested…i.e.unflashed getter in one of the Power tube…a nasty habit of catching on fire…we called them Bugger-Ya or Buggeror.
As to fix to the MV boot strap to the Schmidt splitter check out Kevin O’Connors The Ultimate Tone Vol 3 in the Chapter 8 pages 8-4 and 8-5 or put a 100k resistor between MV after the EQand the cap
Is that a book or something I can see online ?
The unflashed getter is something the tube maker would of done at the factory. It's unlikely Bugera made their own tubes, so that'd just be a fluke tube defect I think.
@@DATT No one ever made their own vacuum tubes…they purchased them from any number of tube manufacturers. Sylvannia, General Electric, RCA, Tung Sol, to name a few in the USA, Mullard and Genelex and others in England. These were “Private Labeled” ‘Use only Genuine Fender Tubes….not made by Fender. And if a tube manufacturer was short on tubes he would have another just put his logo and ship them to him.
What Guitar companies who also made Amplifier companies Gibson, Rickenbacker (Leo Fender was a radio repairman who also first worked for Rickenbacker repairing guitar amps) Ampeg did they tested the amps before selling, and shipping to Music Stores.
Yes the actually used Test Equipment, Vacuum Tube Voltage Ohm Meters, Capacitor Testers, Tube Testers to test the tubes and then they actually played the damn amplifiers to see if these actually made a sound worked, didn’t hum (too loudly) didn’t feedback in a ground loop.
There was a sense of pride and reputation to project and protect. Even the companies that made guitars and amplifiers under a variety of names, and before department stores did become destroyed by Ivy League Accounts and corporate raiders, Montgomery Wards, Sears & Roebuck had entry level beginners amps which buyers purchased on lay away made by outside suppliers, these had the contracted manufacturers test the amplifiers.
Would anyone sell a car, boat, airplane, radio, TV set, film projector, phonograph, without testing these first. People maintained and repaired their equipment or telephoned the local repair man or brought to a repair shop, often a music store also maintained the products they sold. This was the reality before the landfill mentality from MBA’s… but before I go further
Uli Behringer has a reputation, both as a business man and his work on synthesizers vintage Europe. His Rep as a business man isn’t one he protected and one he wants to be known.
There’s no way an unflashed, non working Dead on arrival tube has been tested. No way an amp that had such a tube installed had been tested or so much as one chord or a single note played.
@@Renshen1957 Ohhh I see what you're saying. An unflashed tube means they didn't test the amp first. Yeah I could see that.
I could also see them testing the amp with a different set of tubes, and just slamming a fresh set in on the way out the door. Either way, yeah, Beh doesn't have the best rep for quality.
Hey friend? Where do you fund your schematics?
I have a Gibson ga42rvt I need a schematic for.
Love what you do!!! Love the Ave T-shirt!! 😅
Honestly, I just google it and hope I get lucky. Some amps I can't find anything, some amps I can.
I googled your amp and this came up, no idea if it's accurate.
music-electronics-forum.com/filedata/fetch?id=860228
I have this amp I bought new in 2021 and had trouble finding a schematic myself too until recently.
Those resistors parallel to choke could in fact be useful because they decrease the (caused by Lenz law) voltage spike over the choke in sudden current changes through choke.
Yeah eh, I figure there must be a good reason for it, they applied modern engineering to this amp. I would of assumed the choke would be good an absorbing a voltage spike on it's own however. What would the benefit of this be ?
@@DATT Just study Lenz law, or measure the HUGE voltage spike over a choke when the current through it changes suddenly, for example over the choke when the amp is turned on, and during that moment the filter caps of the power supply are virtually a short circuit to ground for a couple of milliseconds and the choke tries to fight against that change by inducing a huge opposite voltage. So those resistors protect that choke from arcing and going shorted, like a snubber (Zobel network) circuit or flyback diode protects an OT which has no load or is clipping heavily.
@@jutukka Yeah Eh, I guess I'll have to look into that.
Makes me wonder if adding that resistor to my other choked amps might be a good upgrade.
@@DATT Those resistors cannot do any harm anyway. And the inner resistance of the choke at low or DC frq is neglible compared to those parallel resistors. (And in fact the law is Faraday's induction law but Mr. Lenz showed that the voltage opposites the change. 🧐)
Edit.: If that choke is a cheap high DC resistance (1kohm or so) choke, the reason for those parallel resistors could be just to reduce the DC voltage drop of the choke made of thin wire.
@@jutukka Hmm, I didn't think to measure the choke. I just assumed it was a lower Z like they usually are.
Can you still get this amp.. if so would get it
I don't really see it for sale anywhere sadly. Does kind of make my vid pointless. Kind of, if you can find it used kind of thing, here's what you can expect.
@@DATT Not at all love videos with old gear.
Hosting a ghost do you have some toast? Hi Yaw!!!!
great man :)
Thanks !
I don’t know where you’re from or at, but its from Canada bud. I’m subscribed.
Hell yeah, bud !