Re: Ever consider selling an amp you thought you'd NEVER sell?
i sold my peavey windsor half stack, which was my first real amp:crying:
to make up for it though, i'm gettin' a valveking 112 within the next couple weeks
Having played both of those amps, I'd have kept the Windsor.
Back in early 2008 I bought my Bogner Ecstasy 101B, which was my dream amp and the one I thought I'd never let go of.
After 2 and a half years of service, my style and the type of music I'm involved in had changed significantly, and over a gradual period of time I came to realize that the Bogner wasn't quite what I was really looking for in an amp anymore.
For starters, the core tone (while being fabulous) really wasn't sitting right with the kind of music I was making anymore. I found myself wanting something with an extended bass range, sharper highs, and less mids overall. Something less geared towards a "rock" amps and something more geared towards a hard rock/metal amp. After a while of changing pickups and speakers it became apparent that the amp itself was what needed to change.
Second, I've recently come to appreciate the straightforwardness of a simple amp. Something with not too many controls or adjustments - something that you can plug into and get a good tone right off the bat without messing with it too much. I've found that with really complex amps, you get a lot of versatility but the purity is diluted somewhat. Too much stuff gets in the way or can get moved or tweaked on accident. For all the Ecstasy's mini-switches and knobs and wattage options, I found I never really used them all... it was more of a set-and-forget type deal. I felt sort of guilty about not using the amp to it's maximum potential.
It took me a little while to coax the Bogner into the range it needed to be in for me, and even then there was always something that I felt I was missing, or something that didn't fir quite right.
As it happens I ended getting rid of the Bogner and a guitar I wasn't quite gelling with and getting a Mesa Boogie Tremoverb head and a 50W Plexi reissue (both of which I'm doing an NAD thread on soon). The Mesa barely needed any tweaking at all when I used it in rehearsal the first time. It's sound fit the music I'm writing and my style so well that it was almost frightening. The control interface is so much simpler, and that works well for me. As for the Plexi, that just fills in those vintage-Marshall vibe holes that the Mesa won't do, even though the Mesa more versatile and is perfectly capable of getting some nasty classic-flavored grit on it's own. But we're talking about a single channel NMV 50W British tube head vs. an American 100W high gain head.
Bottom line, I've found that simpler amps with the right core tone to start with fit me better than one big do-it-all head. The Bogner's an amazing amp and it served me well, but my needs have changed and I like different things now. I don't miss it very much to be honest.
