Good deal? Bugera V22

[Duffy]

I have a chance to buy a Bugera V22 in excellent shape for 250US.

Is this a good deal?

I can also trade it straight up for a used Line 6 POD HD500 that I never use. Is that throwing the HD500 away?

Feedback appreciated.

What do you think about the V22?

I appreciate the feedback. I might make the trade later today.

[piebaldpython***]

IIRC Spudman loves his Bugera V22 and has touted it in many posts. Check prior posts.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

Price-wise, not an amazing deal for something that sells for $380 new. My rule of thumb for used stuff other than high-demand pieces, is 50-60% of the street price new. Of course, there are other factors beside price - your desire, general availability on the used market, etc..

[kidsmoke*]

I own a V22. I agree with Bookkeeper's son. It's not a steal. But I'd say it's fair.

I bought mine based largely on Spudmans recommendation. Bear in mind, he gigs with it. Gives it a sound beating, he does. It is a fantastic sounding amp. He said, re tube it, leave the speaker, which is what I did (bought the standard JJ retube kit). It's very loud. Sounds fantastic on the clean channel especially, takes pedals well. I'm not crazy about the gain channel. It is made in China by Behringer. There have been many folks who have had things go wrong, at which point, it can be a costly repair. I took a chance. The reverb went bad, so now I use a pedal instead.

All in all, It's worth what I paid, which IIRC is about what you're looking at paying. If anything else goes wrong, I won't pay for the cost of repair.

No personal experience with the POD, so I can't make that assesment.

good luck!

My V22 in service.....

[Duffy]

Good info. Any other feedback is appreciated.

[cebreez]

I like it Duffy. I ended up lucking up on a Peavey Classic 30 in a less than generous trade for a Fender bass I had laying around. I was at the time looking at and considering the Bugera V22 and know that at the time alot of the people who owned the V22 was very happy with it. I personally would have done the speaker swap as the stock speaker is a bit harsh in the mid range and dull in the bottom but thats just me. I believe you will enjoy it tremendously and consider it a really good deal for a better than average tube amp. Forget the Behringer name, the V22 is a keeper.

[Spudman***]

If you're really going to use the V22 to earn $ then the amp will pay for itself in 2 gigs roughly. After that time you will then understand that this is a perfectly good practice/gig amp that holds up well and sounds great. Through the night the sound stays really consistent. I've also ran a Crate Powerblock through the speaker at loud rehearsals and at gigs with no farting out and no fading. It's one of the best all around speakers that I've played through. $250 with no tax is a no-brainer in my opinion.

Don't trade the HD500 for it. Those are worth far more than the V22 is worth. Sell the HD500 and buy some other gear with the leftover $100 after you get the V22.

[Tig***]

It's a fair trade. It is much better than trading it in at GC or a pawn show, where they both will likely treat you as a desperate junkie willing to take a low ball offer.

I'd personally go for the V-22. The only thing to consider with the HD-500 is to be sure you've upgraded it with the October 2.1 firmware update to see if it satisfies you or not.

[Duffy]

It's a fair trade. It is much better than trading it in at GC or a pawn show, where they both will likely treat you as a desperate junkie willing to take a low ball offer.

I'd personally go for the V-22. The only thing to consider with the HD-500 is to be sure you've upgraded it with the October 2.1 firmware update to see if it satisfies you or not.

Most of the music stores around here will not even take the Line 6 on trade; brand new, mint condition. Only one place will give me supposedly 150 for it on trade toward a purchase. I have been trying to sell it/trade it locally and these guys tell me that they are looking for tube amps and that they are not interested in digital stuff.

I went and looked at the amp and the guy was a very straight up semi pro guitar player with a bar band that plays around here. The amp was in totally new condition. It must have been in the box. He has several nice amps, such as a Delta Blues with the matching fifteen inch cab, and other stuff, plus some really nice guitars including one of his main gigging guitars, which is a cherry burst Fender Am. strat with a white pearl pickguard and twin cream full sized Seymour Duncan humbuckers, a Pearly Gates/'59 set. I tested the amp with this guitar. Really nice playing guitar. The amp really sounds great and I brought it home. The clean has a very nice chime to it and the overdrive channel is very decent to my ear.

[bigoldron]

Congrats on the amp Duffy!

[Duffy]

Congrats on the amp Duffy!

Thanks Ron. I should take some pictures here in short order. The amp is in beautiful, brand new condition. It must have been in the box. It was built in '10. Hopefully it will not have the channel switching problem, since it is a newer version, supposedly made after they addressed the problem in the mfg. phase - new higher heat rated voltage regulator. It runs very cool.

I guess I should mention some things about my experience with the amp so far, for those that might be interested.

I have been putting a lot of hours on the amp and it has not demonstrated any unusual characteristics. I like the sound of both channels and have been using the drive channel to get some decent tones, no pedals. Right now I'm playing my '72 Fender Deluxe tele RI thru it with the wide field humbuckers, which, by the way, I really like the sound of. It is a great sounding guitar to my ear, and doesn't sound like a typical humbucking guitar like a typical LP. I can't qualify the sonic difference, but it is a beautiful sound. I'm not sure if Fender recently redesigned these pickups or if the redesigned one is just for the new Squier '72 Custom and Deluxe. I played my Michael Kelly Patriot Custom with the Rockfield pickups thru it extensively and it sounded really good. That's a nice guitar.

I'm not using the foot pedal so far, so that might have something to do with not having a channel switching problem. I heard that the footpedal should have a female cable jack installed on it and that it is wise to use a regular replaceable cable instead of the hard wired one that comes with it. I haven't hooked up the foot pedal since I got it home but it worked good at the guy's house when I tested it. I want to find out more about it before I risk messing up a perfectly good amp with a funky foot pedal, if such turns out to be the case.

I took a risk when I got the amp and now I'll have to see how it plays out. It's working great at this point and I have put quite a few hours on it already with no problem.

I hope this amp hangs in there because it has some great sounds going on. Even though it sounds good I probably will change the tubes and have it biased. I think it's a good idea to have someone that knows what he is doing, do the power tube swap and biasing. The guy I go to is a professional warranty repair man for all the major brands and an electrical engineering instructor at Penn State Univ. For now I'm playing it with the stock Bugera labelled tubes, but I'm "not" interested in having a power tube blow out. It sounds good and is running cool, but I just don't trust those mystery Bugera tubes. My amp guy stocks his own JJ tubes and he checks the matched sets to verify that they are closely matched, etc.

He told me that the JJ tubes are made in the old Tesla factory over there in Checkoslovackia. He said it is a relatively new plant and that we, Nato, bombed the original Tesla factory during the Bosnian operation. Imagine that. He says he has had good luck with the JJ's and says they are well made. He pointed out that he has found that a lot of these stock mystery tubes are imposible to identify the actual manufacturer, but he strongly suspects some specific Chinesse mfg's and suspects that a lot of problems he has seen with blown power tubes is due to poor manufacturing. With that in mind I think it is worth the expense to hedge on the side of prudence and get the cheap stock tubes replaced with some quality JJ's.

[kidsmoke*]

Awesome news! I hadn't heard that the footswitch was an issue. I don't use mine anyway. As I said previously, I bought the JJ retube kit for this amp, and have been very happy.

The problem that I had was intermittent popping. Two different amp techs were completely baffled. I discovered quite by accident that its the Reverb circuit, when I leave the reverb off, there are no issues. Since I've got a DVM reverb pedal, I consider it problem solved.

I hope she serves you well for a very long time.

As an aside....dbl cream Duncans??? That's a very rare item as it's a patent infringement for anyone but DiMarizio to make dbl cream buckers. My understanding is that the only way to get them is if you by them with covers, and them remove the covers. This is of course, simply what I've read over the years, and over at the Duncan forum. Sounds like a cool guitar!

[Duffy]

Yes Tio, Seymour Duncan double "cream" humbuckers. I thought they looked great and I can't remember seeing a set of them before. They had the large Seymour Duncan lettering, in black, on them too.

Since my last post I have tested out the amp according to some suggested directions, aimed at isolating if there is a channel switching or helicopter reverb problem. It involved leaving the foot pedal plugged in for a couple hours and switching on the reverb, playing the well warmed up amp, etc. It didn't demonstrate any channel switching or the helicopter reverb problem.

After doing that procedure with the amp I decided to check my email and there was a new reply from Bugera customer care, saying, that, "according to (my) mfg. date code, the amp was built after the channel switching and helicopter reverb sound problems had been corrected". That was encouraging and Bugera's customer care got back to me with a reply within a short period of time.

Today I had the opportunity to hook up a decent overdrive/boost pedal up to the amp and CRANK the "human digestive waste material" out of it! That was really fun. I hammered the guitar pretty well and generated some intentional and cool sounding feedback, etc., added for good measure. It was definitely fun to crank up the amp after testing it out good.

Turned up, the amp sounds really good, with and without an overdrive/boost pedal. It is the right size for me, so that I can crank it up good and loud and get some great sounds out of it, without it knocking the walls down. My experience cranking it up and rocking out is very rewarding. I mainly rocked out with my Fender '72 Deluxe tele with the big Wide Range humbuckers, producing a very satisfying tone.

This is an amp that I feel like I can crank up and rock out without worrying about it.

[Tig***]

New Bugera 22 for $279 at http://www.hellomusic.com/items/v22-tube-combo
(you may need to join their email list to get access)

[Duffy]

Update. My V22 is working flawlessly.