Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)The Bugera 1990 really is an awesome sounding amp. It's got that classic marshall roar, pristine cleans, lush reverb (especially considering it's digital), and it's switchable between 120 watts and 60 watts, which offers great volume flexibility. But like the title of the review says, there are a few simple matters of business that any owner of this amp will need to take care of before you'll really be set:
1. New power tubes. The bugera power tubes aren't very good. Like, they're really really not very good. So depending on what tubes you choose to replace the stock tubes with, plan on spending an additional $80-$100 right from the start. It sucks, but Bugera can't make a quality amp at this pricepoint without cutting some corners, and tubes are one of the big places they're doing it.
2. BIAS THE AMP!!!! The out-of-the-box bias can be a little out of whack (mine was actually ok, but it was running a little hot). A common problem is that right out of the box the amp will be fine for between 15 minutes and an hour of playing, then it will just shut off. This reason this happens is a combination of poor power tubes and an out-of-whack bias. So be warned: the amp itself isn't broken, and since getting new power tubes and tweaking the bias, I haven't had a single problem. Also, this amp is very sensitive to impedance mis-matches, so be sure to know what impedance your speakers have, so you can match it correctly. A mis-match can also lead to the amp overheating and resetting. By-the-way, it was a pain trying to figure out where to set the bias, because on the Bugera website the biasing instructions are based on "tube" grades, which only Bugera uses to rate power tubes. So I just set my bias for the middle of the road at 50V, and it sounds great. I put JJ 6L6GC power tubes in, just for reference.
Ok, now that I've covered the "business" side of things, I'll move on to the truly important part of this review: I love the way this amp sounds. For reference, I play through a 4x12 cab with celestion vintage 30 speakers.
Cleans: Spectacular. Warm, rich, and full-bodied. I actually prefer the clean tones from the 1990 to the cleans on the fender tube amps I've owned. Fender cleans tend to be bass heavy (regardless of how you eq the amp), and I really like the more even frequency distribution I hear out of the Bugera. One concern I had was that with this amp only having one set of eq knobs, I would have to pick which channel I wanted the eq to be specifically set to, and then just compromise on the other channel. But fortunately, the clean and overdrive channel are pretty much voiced the same, so the same eq settings sound great on both channels. By the way, I mostly play hard rock/metal, stuff like Avenged Sevenfold, Metallica, Nickelback, Breaking Benjamin-style stuff. This amp has enough gain and a wide enough range on the EQ to be able to do each of these sorts of sounds well enough; maybe not match the tone exactly, but especially with a tubescreamer driving the front end, you can get some pretty heavy tones out of this amp. But if you're a total gain-a-holic who wants crushing bass-heavy tone, this probably isn't the amp for you. I'll also mention one small downside is that the clean channel doesn't respond well to distortion pedals. Plan on actually using the lead channel for your overdrive, and tube screamers or overdrive pedals to boost that channel should you wish to do so. I currently use the MXR ZW-44 (Zakk Wylde) overdrive to boost my lead channel and it works great as an additional "channel" with a little more bass, high end crunch, and gain for those heavier palm-muting riffs.
So if you're willing to "take care of business" with new tubes and biasing the amp, then the 1990 is a fantastic amp with as good of a price tag. Due to Bugera's reliability and quality control issues(more-so in the past, most of the major problems have been fixed), I don't know that I'd recommend this amp as a "first amp", but if you know a thing or two about tube amps, or just know a good amp tech, then this might be the best amp purchase you ever make.
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