Bogner XTC or Marshall JVM

[toxikdeth]

So I headed over to Pete's yesterday. The Bogner is a tone machine. But I brought my Nitro and we played around with Petes JVM too. I have wanted the Bogner for years. As I said before I passed on a trade for one and always regretted it.

So we paired the Nitro up to a cab that had V30 and Greenbacks in it. Identical speaker config that the Bogner was running through.

Pete and I switched between to of his guitars - An Explorer and an ESP M series.

We played together and switched of each playing chunky fat chords and leads. It was a really good time.

I hate to say this but I like the Nitro better. Much easier to dial in and I think (pete correct me if I am wrong) the Nitro got some really great Bogner-ish tones.

Now we also had the JVM on standby. The JVM is going through a JCM2000 cab with GT75's in it.

The JVM is a tone machine! Lots of reviews on this head but The OD1 Channel and the Crunch channel just rip. The cleans are really nice too and Marshall cleans are usually - well lets just say Marshalls are not known for cleans but this one hangs in there just fine.

So in the end, I love the Nitro (biased of course lol) and really liked the JVM better than the Bogner Ecstacy.

As far as Dialing in the Bogner has tons of options. A bit of a tweaker for sure but there are really no bad tones in it. I just preferred the other two heads tone and for the price of each new you could get a Nitro and a JVM for the price of the Bogner Ecstacy.

The Nitro on the inside is an easy fix amp if something should ever fail with it's point to point hand wiring and simple layout. Did not have the Bogner open and have never seen inside one but I bet it is neat and has a clean easy to fix if something fails layout as well. The Marshall will be a nightmare. It is PCB mounted and from the pics of the inside that I have seen it is boards on top of each other with ribbon cables, everything just tight together etc.

So I ranked 'em.

Best heavy tone. NITRO (OD2 on) / Marshall OD1 / Bogner (red CH)

Best Rock tone. Marshall / Bogner (blue Channel) Nitro (with od2 off

Easy Fix if something fails. Nitro/Bogner

Tweak tones till your ears bleed. Bogner / Marshall / Nitro

Best Layout including footswitch. Bogner / Nitro / Marshall (Pete did not have the

Marshall footswitch out but I found the front layout of the amp to be a bit of a pain to work with maybe if the face plate was color coded or the faceplate lit up on the channel that was selected... i dont know... but4 completely independent CH is awesome.

Cleans - Marshall / Nitro/ Bogner

So there ya have it. My ears like them in that order.

Keep in mind too that Pete has had time to dial in the Marshall as he has had if for a while and I have had the Nitro for about a year or so too. We are both comfortable with the Marshall tone, which the Nitro does better than any Marshall I have ever owned and the JVM is just about every good Marshall tone in one box.... and maybe if I had the Bogner for a few months opinions will change. So if Pete wants to drop it off and let it visit my house for closer inspection then I might have a change of opinion on my review.

Nitro owner here as well they cant be beaten!!

[Firebird V]

Tone is subjective and all three of those amps sound fine I'm sure. I haven't played the Splawn stuff but have heard Splawn modded Marshalls back before he was producing his own amps and I've briefly played the JVM at a store. The Ecstasy still impressed me more but whatever you like you like. Anyway, the next thing to do is try those 3 amps live in a band/gig situation. The only one of the three I've done that with is the Ecstasy and kicks much butt live Also keep in mind I'm not going by what has most gain but what I feel has the tone. If I want more gain I just kick on the OCD pedal or bust out the Uberschall

Yeah. No one amp is right for everyone. Does the Uber sound like the Red Channel on the Ecstacy?


I have played the Splawn in a live band. It cuts through and mixes really well. Always have had compliments. Nobody knows what it is... Funny thing is I have had people ask me if it is a Bogner... lol. I dont use a whole lot of gain anyway... On the Nitro I have the gain usually at around 10-11 o clock... That is all I need. I use my volume knob on my guitar a lot to control gain... never really care if a amp has super high gain anyway because like you said ya just slam the front end with a pedal.

[roodyrocker]

Yeah. No one amp is right for everyone. Does the Uber sound like the Red Channel on the Ecstacy?


I have played the Splawn in a live band. It cuts through and mixes really well. Always have had compliments. Nobody knows what it is... Funny thing is I have had people ask me if it is a Bogner... lol. I dont use a whole lot of gain anyway... On the Nitro I have the gain usually at around 10-11 o clock... That is all I need. I use my volume knob on my guitar a lot to control gain... never really care if a amp has super high gain anyway because like you said ya just slam the front end with a pedal.

No the Uber is different sounding a than the Ecstasy. The Uber has tons more gain and has much more lows available. Its also much darker sounding. Even with all that gain I usually run my Uber's gain knob at about 1:00 oclock. The Ecstasy is more traditional sounding than the Uber. I love them both though
I'm using more distortion pedals in front of my Marshall Rhoads amps. Occassionally I use a Fulltone OCD with the Ecstasy and no distortion pedals with the Uber. The Uber has unreal amounts of gain if you need it

[Firebird V]

Cool. I hope to find a Uber to check out. I thought someone here said that the Uber was based on the red channel or a clone of it or something. Good to know!

Marshall RR amp - How does that compare to the Bogner Ecstacy?

[roodyrocker]

Cool. I hope to find a Uber to check out. I thought someone here said that the Uber was based on the red channel or a clone of it or something. Good to know!

Marshall RR amp - How does that compare to the Bogner Ecstacy?

The Uber has so much more gain that I don't see the similarity to the Ecstasy. The Marshall RR amp is basically a single channel amp, no loop, no footswitch. Its strictly old school Marshall, no master volume either. It cleans up nicely by turning the guitar volume knob down and thats basically how I get my clean and distortion sounds out of it. The Marshall RR *sounds* louder than any other amp I've ever heard! An attenuator is pretty much mandatory with this thing. The cleans on the Ecstasy are the nicest of the three amps. The Ecstasy also has by far the most tone options on it and sounds great at all of them, medium gain, high gain, clean, boosted, etc... The Marshall RR has the most balls and the Uber has the most gain. Thats pretty much the summary of it.
A few weeks ago I played my Marshall RR out live. The RR has two inputs and they are cascaded (one internally goes into the other for more gain). Input 1 is stock, 2 is the cascaded input. I plug into 2 and had the volumes on less than 3 and ran an attenuator full up in order to use it live! Its one loud amp! Of course a white Marshall RR halfstack looks killer on stage too

[lhrocker]

So I started playing with speaker cabinets today and I found that I really like the Bogner going thru a Standard Marshall w/GT75's. I had the Bogner plugged into a Marshall with Greenbacks/75's and I found the tone rather piercing. I normally use this cabinet with my JVM and it sounds great. Tomorrow, I'll try my H&K cab w/blackbacks/75's and see how that goes. We're making progress and I'm starting to get a cool tone from the blue channel.

[Twisteramps]

If you can get a bogner cab, do it... my 101B sounds ok with a marshall cab (even my '76 with blackback celestions) but it KILLS with the matching Bogner cab.

Pete

[Shawn Lutz]

I agree about the cab Pete....I typically was not a big fan of V30's but the Bogner 4x12 I have with them really kicks ass, compliment the 101B nicely. Actually, that cab sounds great with whatever head I ran through it

[Firebird V]

Heh heh heh... I was at my brothers the other day and also today and his Bogner Alchemist sounds better with the matching cab and it got me wondering if the XTC cab would make the difference.... I came here to post the question and the answer arrived before I got here...

[lhrocker]

Well after going thru all of my cabinets, the ones that I liked best were a Marshall 1960A with Celestion 75's and an older Boogie cab with Black Shadows. My other cabs have a combination of Vintage 30's, Greenbacks, Blackbacks and 75's. Using any of the single cabinets along with the Marshall or Boogie cabinet gave a good balanced tone. Without the Marshall or Boogie, the tones were more on the shrill and middy side. These were tested at slightly above bedroom volumes. Maybe I need to find time to open it up - only time will tell.

[ken361]

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=1031183

my crunch channel on the jvm