ebozzz

On 11/01/2019 at 02:11, Al Krow said:

Just wondering whether, for a cost not much more than the Lehle pedal,  @ebozzz was getting the same from his Bughera Veyron BV1001T?

@Al Krow,

It's been a couple of years since I had the T in my care so anything I could tell you now would be strictly from memory only. If I am correct, it sounds like you are interested in tube-like characteristics or performance. Here are my disclaimers. I have never owned nor have I had any meaningful experience with a true tube amp. Due to my lack of experience, my perspectives may not be as accurate as those from someone who has been more hands on with tube amps. With that being said, I'll try to answer your question....

If a person is looking for an amp that would offer some dirt or overdriven tones to their signal the Veyron BV1001T, while warmer sounding than the Mosfet version to my ears, is probably not the one as it stays pretty clean throughout the gain structure. I do think that it sounds similar to some of the tones that Ed was achieving in his video at times but I honestly don't feel that it would get you totally there. Now, the T with a quality & less expensive pedal than the Lehle in front of it? That might work.

3 hours ago, Newfoundfreedom said:

Yeah I've been going backwards and forwards for a while on this and I think I'm definitely going to plump for the Mosfet. I just don't think a tube preamp is worth the extra cost or possible reliably issues for what it brings to the party. 

I kept my T for about a year and I've had an M for over three years. Never had an issue with either. Also, I know of at least two people that have had a T for longer than I've had my M.If I were contemplating the purchase of one of the Veyrons, I would just go with the one that I felt suited my tone needs best. I honestly don't think there's a drastic difference in performance or reliability......

3 hours ago, Sparky Mark said:

The pre amp controls are very different; the mosfet offering the Ampeg style ultra hi and lo as well as five frequency bands for the mid range EQ. Personally I would favour the mosfet feature set.

Different, yes. Very different? I don't know that I am in agreement there. Having owned both amps at the same time, my personal experience is that the amps sound & perform in a very similar fashion. The main difference to my ears is that I felt the T was a little more darker or warmer sounding than the M. At least, that was my perception with the cabs and instruments that I was working with at the time that I had both. 

12 hours ago, Sparky Mark said:

The tube and mosfet versions are based (copies of) on very different amps. I believe the tube is based on the GB Streamliner and the mosfet has very similar features to Ampeg heads. Therefore I wouldn't expect a review of the tube version to give much indication of the mosfet other than they probably share the same class D power section.

There are some similarities in tone with the two but my personal opinion is that the T has more of a low mid presence than the M. The preamp sections are slightly different as well....

54 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

...or you could folk out a mere £10,305.58 and buy it now.

!!!

It's worth it! 🤣🤣🤣

1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

Bill's right. It's pixie dust, really. Even RMS wattage claims are pretty meaningless. They may tell you how much an amp will heat an 8 ohm resistor for a few milliseconds, but into a reactive load like a speaker and across a full range of frequencies, that all goes out of the window. And that's before you start factoring in speaker efficiency, etc. Best to ignore all claims and audition stuff in real-world situations.

👆 This......

3 hours ago, police squad said:

yes it does make it a bit louder but I've never had any success with compression so I don't know any difference

I guess that I was attempting to find out if that was something that had changed with the EVO II line. It seems that it hasn't. As I mentioned, it's not a deal breaker for me and I love my amp....

3 hours ago, police squad said:

The compressor is actually brilliant I think. It adds some thickness and evens out the slight string imbalance on my Fender Flea bass.

Congratulations!

Do you find that there's a difference in the volume level with the compressor engaged and without it in use? I have the RM-800 EVO and there's a definite difference with my unit. Not a deal breaker but just one of the traits of the amp.

1 hour ago, Al Krow said:

I presume it's now a 3000W head then? 

Wrong....... 😎

I've known about and heard the Boom Bass Cabinets for over three years. About a month ago, I acquired one of the Tank 1012 models. The cabs work very well......

You folks in Europe are getting a better price than we do in the States! Every now and then I get tempted to buy the tube version again when I see a good deal but thus far I've been able to resist. I think part of the reason for that is that I purchased a different set of tubes that I planned to try to see if it had an impact on the tone. Unfortunately, I saw another deal that I had to move on fast and sold the amp before getting a chance to perform the trial....

The Veyrons are the only bass amps that are still in Bugera's product line and in production. I'd like to think that it's because that the heads must have more positive attributes than not. Mine has been with me for over three years and it's still going strong. 

49 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

This is what was explained to me when I was at Ashdown, they said that they have their volume controls so that they go louder the whole way round, rather than peaking at 3 or 4. 

I love Ashdown amps. With my Rootmaster 800 EVO without using the compressor, the gain stage is pretty smooth. With the compressor engaged? It gets a lot louder much earlier than either of my other two amps. 

4 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

OK then that explains perhaps why you have concerns and why those of us who have dealt with these issues over a number of years are so frustrated with you. It's a simple matter of misunderstanding.

Measuring an amplifier's output is basically very simple. You connect it to a big resistor of 4ohms (say) put a signal into it and increase the signal until it starts to distort. At that point you measure the voltage the amp can do without distortion (less than 1% is the usual measure) and then the power is voltage squared divided by the resistance. Conventionally this is measured over the whole range of our hearing 20-20,000Hz. It's slightly more complex for a class D amplifier as this operates on high frequency pulses all at the same voltage but passing it through a low pass filter makes comparable measurement possible.

In the US there is long standing Federal legislation to stop misleading claims by advertisers and in Europe various standards exist with the DIN standard widely known. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_power There's some good links at the bottom of the article if you are interested.

You simply cannot design an amplifier without knowing all of the parameters and indeed specifying all the parameters of you amps so the claim of 'we don't know the rms power' or 'we don't calculate it that way' isn't credible.

Another factor is the input power, an amp cannot put more power into the speaker than it takes from the mains. In fact it will lose power both in it's power supply and in the amplifier itself. A class D design with a switch mode power supply is likely to be somewhere in the 80% efficiency range, so if the amplifier has indeed an input rating of 880W then it can only put out 700W. Then there is the long history of Behringer over claiming power outputs in their advertising. For example I own an old Behringer EP2400 PA amp, claimed output 2400W. When you delve into the manual as I did before I bought the amp I found it would produce 285W continuous into 8ohms with both channels driven. I was using 300W speakers at the time so it was an ideal match and a lot of bang for the buck so a good buy. The over -claiming was irritating but I'm a scientist and the data was all available. With the Beyron it isn't and Behringer are no longer publishing all the data on a lot of their gear. I think it's pretty stupid really as a 500W amp at this price is still beating the whole market and false advertising just makes the company look suspect and contemptuous of their customers.

As a 'Physics person' I come on here to repay all those who have helped me with my bass playing by advising them as best I can on technical stuff. I'm still enough of an old hippy to see the people here as friends and I don't want them conned. If someone delivered a Beyron to me it wouldn't be difficult to test it but I know more than enough to know that it makes way less than 2000W. If it is part of the decision of what to buy then I want people here to know what is true and what is incredible.

Thanks for this explanation. It's been the one most helpful to me on this thread or other. No sarcasm here. I'm going to ask you a direct question. As frustrating as you and others seem to think I am, I'm really not trying to be that. 

Bugera claims that the amp is 2000 watts peak at 4 ohms. You feel that it's not near that value. Could you please elaborate on why you feel so strongly that it's not? 

1 minute ago, Oopsdabassist said:

Welcome...I hope you have learned the lesson!

Oh, you were teaching? 😉

7 minutes ago, Oopsdabassist said:

Haven't...not don't!!

Sheesh where do they breed the trolls nowadays???

Thanks for the correction!

1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

Now you've got it. 😀

No Bill, I really don't.....😉

7 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

Run, Martin, Run!

 

 

Maybe he should! The premise here seems to be 90% of the manufacturers use RMS but Bugera doesn't. They MUST be trying to mislead. That's the only reason for them NOT  using what the 90% are using!

27 minutes ago, Beer of the Bass said:

Usually, yes.  But regardless of how the quoted power outputs are derived, if the Bugera really is putting out a similar amount of power to competing products that quote an output of less than half of what Bugera does, then it'd be fair to say that the 2000W figure is intended to mislead.

I'm not sure how you connect the dots between Bugera listing peak only and GK listing what appears to be RMS only to reach the conclusion that Bugera is purposely being misleading. The company has openly stated that they do not believe that RMS is the rating system that provides the best indication of how a bass amp should perform. From what I've read, it doesn't seem that they feel peak is the best either but it may be better for rating bass amps in their opinion. We need a NEW & improved ratings system...

19 hours ago, Chienmortbb said:

If the FULL power is 880 watts then best case would be 85% efficiency and that means about 750 watts for a class D amp and Switch Mode Power Supply. However if either power amp or power supply is linear then that would drop to sub 70% or 600 watts max of whatever type GK quote.

Assuming that you meant the 750 watts figure is RMS, wouldn't the peak value be significantly higher?

19 hours ago, dyerseve said:

It probably couldbe ruled out without testing simply by looking at the schematics but I dont think anyone here has suggested the claims haven't been tested it shouldn't be tested. 

Sometimes things drawn up on paper don't work out as well as expected when implemented and occasionally, the results are better than expected. All that I'm saying is that until there's some definitive proof, it's a little premature to accuse an entity of fraud, If there is some definitive proof, I'd love to review it....

5 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

I can't for the life of me understand why some people are arguing that fraud is a good thing.

 

I'm admittedly not a Physics person. Nor am I an engineer. Neither am I of the opinion that "fraud is a good thing". If fraud can be proven by testing the amp, I'm fine with the results of testing. Fine meaning that I can accept it with no qualms. 

Bugera claims 2000 watts peak at 4 ohms. Can that claim clearly be ruled out without testing? 

3 hours ago, Beer of the Bass said:

Not sure if this has come up already in the 12 pages, but the quoted power consumption of 880 watts is the same as the GK MB800 Fusion. Since both amps have similar topology (Class D power amp, SMPS, preamp using 3 x 12AX7) and the power consumption has to be rated consistently for regulatory reasons, it would seem a reasonable guees that the output might be roughly in line with other manufacturers compact 800W bass heads. 

With the MB Fusion 800, GK doesn't clearly specify if the rated power output is Peak or RMS on their web page or in the manual. If it is indeed RMS, wouldn't 800 watts put the Peak value in the neighborhood of 2000 watts?

1 hour ago, Bill Fitzmaurice said:

A perusal of the history of Behringer's shenanigans gives said claims plenty of credence. But if you must, look at the power consumption of the amp. It's 880 watts. That means if the Bugera/Behringer claim is true it puts out more than twice what it draws from the wall socket. That either means they're deliberately lying or they failed to pass grammar school level physics.

Got anything else other than "ifs"?