Just got my 6260.....some words.....

[xAzagthothx]

Hey guys, I finally got my 6260 head in the mail today from Fedex. I got it off ebay from a guy who bought it for a sound-test comparison.

Anyway..... the thing SOUNDs fucking KILLER!!! Even with the garbage generic Chinese 12AX7s (im gonna be making a thread about tubes, soon; I've been doing A LOT of testing and notetaking w/ different brands).

Now... heres the thing. You DO seriously get what you pay for with these things. I'm actually somewhat afraid of taking it anywhere....

First things I noticed:

1) Knobs. You can wiggle them. Up, down, side to side.... i'm sure excessive knob-twisting will eventually either break the pot, break the pot off the circuit board or break the circuit board its connected to.

2) Chassis. It moves. I don't know how normal this is for heads, but theres only 2 screws securing the chassis to the.... i donno, frame? So you can wiggle the entire "amp" within the head. Frame-wise, its sturdy as fuck. Metal corner protectors, and THICK wood. Makes it sorta heavy. But the chassis/amp-unit can move, with not a whole lot of pressure. I'm NOT going to test to see how far/hard I can push on it....because theres just one screw on each side of the amp that goes into the chassis.

3) Tube sockets. The guy shipped it w/ tubes removed, and when putting them back in, whatever the sockets are connected to moves. Like, when you press down, like you have to to put tubes in, its springy; you can move it. Not a whole lot, but enough to notice and be some cause for concern.

What was kinda dumb is that they have these redundant tube holder things for the 12ax7s.... like these spring-loaded caps that are supposed to hold the tubes in, apparently. But the the caps you like, screw on, sorta, in a way, like the way a fuse holder works. But the base unit that the caps screw into prevents you from actually putting the tubes back in, because you can't do the circular wiggle thing. and I'm NOT going to force a tube in from the top down and end up breaking off a pin (many of which were bent on the tubes. still got them in, but a lot were bent almost significantly).

3A) Tubes. The manual says it comes with 2 12ax7A's and 3 12ax7's. However, my amp has one 12ax7A, one 12ax7B, and three 12ax7C's. Yet, they ARE THE SAME TUBE DESIGN. They're Chinese, like Ruby and Groove Tubes (which are both rebranded Chinese tubes). Same plate structure. My only guess is that the A, B, C listing is maybe a grading system? Kinda like Groove Tubes does.... but I dont know, because they are ALL the same plate structure. Sounded fine, though, for being Chinese tubes.

4) Noise. Its a fairly noisey amp.... hopefully my Boss NS-2 gets rid of that. Its not bad feedback squeels, but just a background hum thats quite noticeable.

5) Sound. WOW!!! I'm actually very impressed... the gain is CRAZY. I actually had a SICK sound, and then all of a sudden realized that I only had the gain set at 7. Totally nuts. And this thing must have semi-active EQ or something, because the knobs DO A WHOLE LOT. I couldn't believe it. I've got a great sound dialed in WITHOUT MY BOSS GE-7 EQ PEDAL!!!! That thing has been my secret weapon on every amp I've had for YEARS. You basically can't get a good sound out of a 5150 w/o an EQ pedal, because the tone knobs on a 5150 might as well be absent due to their severe lack of range. But the Bugera is nuts with it!! The bass is fucking ridiculous too..... I don't go past 6 with it, and I only used a 2x12 cab w/ Celestion V30's, and that shit was pumping good, in Eb tuning!!!

6) Packaging. Came packed very well.... really thick foam end thingys. The user manual is fairly well put together, also, except the GLARING omission of a detailed schematic. I have no idea which tube is V1....which is important to know.

7) Reverb. VERY good. Very impressed. Even at like, .8 its noticeable. I like it a lot. Apparently its digital, so....whatever, it sounds great. Even when up on like, 5 or 6, it sounds awesome. Some reverbs sound shitty when you turn it up and just get a weird splashy-ness that doens't really impact the tone, but the Bugera reverb is excellent, VERY realistic of playing in a huge hall. Actually thought it helped increase my sustain, too....

8) Bias. It has a bias knob and a bias test point. ANd it has a switch to select for either EL-34 or 6L6 power tubes. Unfortunately, it doesn't say much about it in the manual, except what the bias is set to for each switch setting. However, there is nothing labeled on the knob, so you have no idea what its set at unless you use a multi-meter.

But the test point is only a single contact/jack, so I'm not sure how thats supposed to work, yet. I'm VERY tempted, though, to have someone SLOWLY turn the bias knob while I play in order to find my own personal sweet spot. It sounds great now, but I'm just curious.

Unfortunately, I can see tons of idiot people randomly turning that knob and then wondering why they blow their amp out in 3 months...... HMMMM!!!!! Maybe thats why people kept melting their connector pin sockets? Because they had the bias voltage set wrong? Because its SO easy to turn that knob....i can totally see people accidentally turning it when changing power tubes.



Overall, I am VERY happy I bought it. For $300.... a fucking steal in my book. Sounds better than a 5150, imo. Way more versatile, in terms of EQ range.

The main thing that pissed me off what the preamp tube thing....first off, you need to remove both grills in order to easily replace both the power and preamp tubes. and then the preamp tubes have those stupid twist-cap things on them, the foundations of which I had to unscrew from the chassis anyway so that I could actually PUT the tubes back in. Fairly stupid, and dont to make it "look" more badass, since the preamp tubes are like, RIGHT at the front of the amp, maybe an inch back from the grill/knobs.

I would have much rather they forsaken those stupid twist-cap things and instead spent money on building a more sturdy innards/chassis, because you can totally feel that everything is just connected to one big circuit board underneith the metal covering, and I can totally see people breaking this shit with too much force or excessive use.



But overall, for the money? Fuckin worth it, I say. As long as you aren't an idiot, and know how to treat a tube amp, and dont mistreat your amp in general, I don't foresee any problems, except the fatiguing of the knobs over time, since they aren't connected to the chassis, but rather the internal circuit board.


ahhhhh I can't wait tho until I get my 4 new JJ 6L6's and my 6 new Tung-Sol 12ax7s to put in




Oh, and I'm borrowing a 5150 right now to compare it to at band practice tomorrow. It doesn't work, because the fuse is blown, but I'm gonna fix that. The guy i'm borrowing it from plays Strats and blues rock....he bought it in 1995 the first year it came out, and says he probably hasn't turned it on since 1997, that its just been sitting in his basement, collecting dust (he wasn't joking!). Because he brought it in to work, and I opened it up and took the tubes out to make sure they were good, and put them back in and turned it on, and the lights went on but then immediately went off, so i'm guessing the fuse blew

 

[colonel kurtz]

You basically can't get a good sound out of a 5150 w/o an EQ pedal

you sure about that??

 

[paladin shredder]

i have a real pet peeve when people say, "oh my amp is noisy, i'll get a noise suppressor or a gate." don't people realize those kinds of effects pedals only reduce excess noise coming from a guitar? if it's a noisy amp, it's a noisy amp.

i had a recoding project with a guitarist that owned a peavy valveking, and i had a 6505+. he was pretty insistent on using his amp for "his tone," but i wanted to try both of them out. so we try his amp first, he uses his normal settings and it had good tone, but it also had pretty bad noise issues. we plug in my amp with his same guitar and same cab, there are no more noise issues, and we nailed his tone in less then a minute.

tone starts in the hands, and more expensive gear has a cleaner signal path due to better parts and better construction to allow than tone to come through.

 

[006]

^^^ I use my BOSS NS in the loop of my amps to kill amp noise... There's also the 4CM lots of people use.

 

[cobhc]

you sure about that??

+1 So all the albums like err I dunno, Burn My Eyes, Clayman, Burning Bridges, Recreation Day, Violent Revolution, Enemy Of God, etc. All sound like shit?

 

[cobhc]

And yeah if you use a noisegate in the loop you're killing all the excess noise from the preamp before it hits the poweramp, which is basically amp noise and not guitar noise, but the 4CM is even better.

 

[Pot]

do your shootout with thw older 5150 and then report back..

why didn´t offer yourself to relief your friend of his stored 5150, i would...

 

[xAzagthothx]

Oh I'll still probably buy it........but its kind of ironic, because I ordered the amp that morning, and then when I went to work later, thats when I found out he had the 5150 lol.


And I should have phrased my statement about 5150's and EQ pedals more clearly..... "I" couldn't get a good sound out of a 5150 without an EQ pedal, just because the 5150's tone knobs have such a limited range. It basically does one sound, with slight variation. And that sound its definitely great; I am NOT knocking the 5150.... i used one for YEARS, so duh...obviously I liked it. But if you want to really dial in your tone and taylor it to be unique to your tastes, you need an EQ pedal, or you need to replace the pots for the tone knobs with ones with a wider range.



But i have to say, even with the stock bullshit re-branded Bugera chinese tubes (same construction/plate structure as Ruby, GT 12ax7c and every other chinese origin tube...) I am absolutely in love with this amp. The sound is fucking incredible. I really couldn't believe it. If you think all the youtube videos sound at all good...then wait till you play one in person. Its unbelievable. The RANGE of this amp is absolutely crazy. And truth be told, someone could put the gain knob on like, oh....6 or 7, and I wouldn't even be able to tell it wasn't maxed until someone put it up to 10 without me seeing them. This thing has so much gain, its unreal. I actually don't put it on 10, because it compresses it too much for my tastes... its just SOOOO much gain.

i'm fucking drooling over what its gonna sound like when I get my JJ 6L6's and Tung-sol 12ax7's in the mail.......ugghhhhhhhh haha


BTW, I might probably end up selling a bunch of the Tung-sols in case anyone is interested.......i bought them to try out, because really all you need is a high gain tube in V1, and sometimes also in V2 if the amp uses one side of V2 for the overdrive channel. I did a bunch of testing with my Carvin, and replacing ONLY the V1 tube made so much difference, i was actually dumbfounded. I thought a tube is a tube is a tube. NOPE. I mean, if you aren't crazy analytical about your sound, you may not be able to notice it so much, but when you A/B/C/D/E 5 different tube brands, it becomes readily apparent.

I'm using a JJ in V1 of my carvin: Not QUITE as much gain as a Chinese tube, but Chinese tubes have this stupid 'fizziness' that sounds like ur using a fuzz pedal, and not overdrive/distortion. Electro Harmonix tubes had slightly less gain, but the gain was more "real" and full bodied and thick, except the low end was flabby. The JJ tube is exactly like an Electro Harmonix tube, except its fucking TIGHT!!! The bottom end is so tight...the tube is so crisp.

I would SOOO recommend JJ's for anyone looking to try out a different tube for a first time, because you can get them dirt cheap from Bob at Eurotubes.com And he'll be patient with you.... i emailed him like 7 times before I finally made an order, and his replies only got longer with each reponse and email...... he didn't become curt and short with me because he was frustrated i was asking so many questions. He's a great guy, and he gets his shit DIRECT from the factory, and sends back most of the tubes he gets because they don't meet his exacting specs.


but anyway....yeah. if you want a tube amp with SIIIIICK metal tones, or even hard/classic rock, but you've got a tight budget.....i'd say the Bugera is the way to go, for sure. Plus it comes with a gnarly footswitch that lets you turn reverb on and off, turn the FX loop on and off, switch channels, and turn the Crunch of the clean channel on and off.

 

[lolzgreg]

!!! The bottom end is so tight...the tube is so crisp.

I would SOOO recommend JJ's for anyone looking to try out a different tube for a first time, because you can get them dirt cheap from Bob at Eurotubes.com And he'll be patient with you.... i emailed him like 7 times before I finally made an order, and his replies only got longer with each reponse and email...... he didn't become curt and short with me because he was frustrated i was asking so many questions. He's a great guy, and he gets his shit DIRECT from the factory, and sends back most of the tubes he gets because they don't meet his exacting specs.

I would stay far away from JJ. Their current production tubes are shit. The tooling on the machinery for the current batches made is worn and poorly functioning.

I would stick to Sovtek or SED power tubes and either EH or POSSIBLY JJ for preamp tubes.

 

[Wolfeman]

I would stay far away from JJ. Their current production tubes are shit. The tooling on the machinery for the current batches made is worn and poorly functioning.

I would stick to Sovtek or SED power tubes and either EH or POSSIBLY JJ for preamp tubes.

+1, but I would spend the extra dollar on Tung Sol for preamp tubes...

 

[Harry Hughes]

This thread makes me want a Bugera.
In my neck of the woods, a 6505 is 2.5 grand, I shit you not.
A 6260 is 900 bucks and it just boggles my mind these can sound so good for less than a grand.
About 10 years ago, 1500 for a solid state didn't even yield a tone is good.

 

[iamandy]

This thread makes me want a Bugera.
In my neck of the woods, a 6505 is 2.5 grand, I shit you not.
A 6260 is 900 bucks and it just boggles my mind these can sound so good for less than a grand.
About 10 years ago, 1500 for a solid state didn't even yield a tone is good.

yeah, i used one for a gig once, and it was amazing.

cheapest one i've seen aswell is for 320 pounds! my modefour cost nearly 500 brandnew, and the 6260 shits all over it!

 

[updog]

This thread also makes me want a Bugera, although I'm not sure if I could live with the fear of it breaking any moment. That shit is a bitch to return anywhere.

 

[Ermz]

Just swap everything out as soon as you get it. Re-knob, re-cap, re-tube, re-tranny, re-everything it.

I've got one sitting right next to me atm but the stock tubes are showing their age now and I'm still wondering whether to get it modded up a bit. I honestly prefer the raw tones of both the 333 and 333xl to this amp. It's my least fave of all the Bugeras.

FWIW, here's a reamp I did with it recently via the Harley Benton 2x12, all raw except for HP and LP: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/285689/Reamping/Sly-3.mp3

Kind of shows you where the tonal characteristics lie. Before you say it, mids were on '0' or '1'.

 

[updog]

FWIW, here's a reamp I did with it recently via the Harley Benton 2x12, all raw except for HP and LP: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/285689/Reamping/Sly-3.mp3

Can a HB cab really sound that... Non-shitty? :zombie:

I never thought I'd say this, but I want the guitarists of my band to use Behringer and Harley Benton!


(they use Valveking 100's without TS... Not the heaviest tone imaginable. I'm going to at least make them get tube screamers soon)

 

[DigitalMetal]

8) Bias. It has a bias knob and a bias test point. ANd it has a switch to select for either EL-34 or 6L6 power tubes. Unfortunately, it doesn't say much about it in the manual, except what the bias is set to for each switch setting. However, there is nothing labeled on the knob, so you have no idea what its set at unless you use a multi-meter.

You might be interested on this:

http://www.behringerdownload.de/_Bugera/manuals/ValveBiasInstruction/BUGERA_ValveBiasInstruction_2008-09-10_Rev.1.pdf

Which i found on the product page here:

http://www.bugera-amps.com/EN/products/6260.aspx

 

[Sloan]

1) Knobs. You can wiggle them. Up, down, side to side.... i'm sure excessive knob-twisting will eventually either break the pot, break the pot off the circuit board or break the circuit board its connected to.

These are just pcb mounted plastic shaft junk, they are short and the knob actually has a shaft that slips over the pot shaft, kind of a lame design to me, but just be careful not to hit them with shit.

3) Tube sockets. The guy shipped it w/ tubes removed, and when putting them back in, whatever the sockets are connected to moves. Like, when you press down, like you have to to put tubes in, its springy; you can move it. Not a whole lot, but enough to notice and be some cause for concern.

On my 333xl, the tube sockets are pcb mounted - this is very normal for modern production amps, dont' press real hard (you generally shouldn't have to anyway).

What was kinda dumb is that they have these redundant tube holder things for the 12ax7s.... like these spring-loaded caps that are supposed to hold the tubes in, apparently.

These also act as shields for rf frequencies and stuff. I had them off my ampeg and would pick up radio stations at practice. Keep them on.

3A) Tubes. The manual says it comes with 2 12ax7A's and 3 12ax7's. However, my amp has one 12ax7A, one 12ax7B, and three 12ax7C's. Yet, they ARE THE SAME TUBE DESIGN. They're Chinese, like Ruby and Groove Tubes (which are both rebranded Chinese tubes). Same plate structure. My only guess is that the A, B, C listing is maybe a grading system? Kinda like Groove Tubes does.... but I dont know, because they are ALL the same plate structure. Sounded fine, though, for being Chinese tubes.

I have found chinese preamp tubes to be ok, jj's can sometimes muddy your sound right up. Experimentation is key here.

8) Bias. It has a bias knob and a bias test point. ANd it has a switch to select for either EL-34 or 6L6 power tubes. Unfortunately, it doesn't say much about it in the manual, except what the bias is set to for each switch setting. However, there is nothing labeled on the knob, so you have no idea what its set at unless you use a multi-meter.

But the test point is only a single contact/jack, so I'm not sure how thats supposed to work, yet. I'm VERY tempted, though, to have someone SLOWLY turn the bias knob while I play in order to find my own personal sweet spot. It sounds great now, but I'm just curious.

The eurotubes guy suggested not using the bias point built into these amps because they are just like the Peavey design and only show the negative voltage. Since there is only one point, I'm assuming you would clip one lead to the chassis for ground and the point is for your positive probe. Also, if you want to do your own biasing, just a get a cheap probe for your multimeter or shell out and get like the Compubias or Weber Bias Rite, which makes it easy as hell, especially since you've got the bias pot right there.

 

[Sloan]

FWIW, here's a reamp I did with it recently via the Harley Benton 2x12, all raw except for HP and LP: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/285689/Reamping/Sly-3.mp3

I like the mids, shit is rad.

 

[xAzagthothx]

so ive had it for a while, and I like it. FOr the money, its a fucking steal. Its kinda fucking stupid that they need 10 screws for the 2 metal grills.... 6 front, 4 back. And I found 4 more screws on the bottom of the head that hold the chassis inside the head enclosure.


I don't get what you all say about JJ's; maybe its just the amps you're using vs. mine, but the JJ's are perfect. Tight, punchy bottom end, really crisp razor sharp tone, and enough high end and brightness to give clarity, and those things fucking ring FOREVER.


I got a bunch of Tung-Sols... meh. I hate Russian tubes. The only thing TS are good for, imo, are their absurdly abundant overtones. Those things sing like fucking crazy, i just hate Russian tubes; the bottom end is too spongey and they have a hazy fizziness.

Bear in mind, ANY tube analysis is moot unless you're swapping them in and out one after the other, and playing the same riff. ANd you have to listen really hard. Theres differences, but they're not always glaringly obvious. I fucking love the JJ's though, absolutely gorgeous.



I just got a Digitech RP355 tho for looping and whatnot, and so that I could have different delays and pedal combinations set up for solos without having to turn on 2 or more pedals at once (like flange and delay) so that I could just turn on the FX loop, but the Digitech sucks so much tone... its actually kinda sad.

 

[Sloan]

there's a dude selling a 6260 here for like $375, but i ain't got $375! fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu