UberMetalDood
New member
First of all, I have to give a lot of credit to Bogner for their great customer service and quick build time. I ordered a custom amp near the end of last week and it shipped yesterday. The build time was initially estimated to be about 4 weeks, but those guys cranked away and had it out in no time. I must have called Bogner a dozen time with all kinds of questions before and during the build, and they were extremely helpful every time. I've always been a fan of Bogner amps, but now I'm a real fan of Bogner. There's no doubt that I'll be a return customer.
So about my NAD... I think that I posted a thread some time back, maybe a year ago or so, and vowed to save the money for a Bogner Shiva 20th Anniversary - with reverb. Well, I saved and saved and my dream finally came true. This one is even better (hopefully) because I ordered it with EL34's instead of KT88's. It's not the stock model, but Bogner is cool enough to put whatever tubes you want, even 6550's if you want.
I elected to go with EL34's because they have more of an overal midrange and not as much emphasis on the high mids and thick bass. KT88's are wide open and has such great separation that it sounds almost magical to play. I'm not entirely sure if EL34's will cause me to lose some of the blossom and detail that I could enjoy with KT88's, but it's apparently only the minor addition of a piggyback resistor that allows the bias to be set for KT88's. Even though I'm very familiar with the KT88 model and have a ton of experience with EL34's in general, I'm not certain what qualities are mostly inherent in the amp or the KT88 tubes.
I'm thinking that the amp has the overall character, definition and dimension and that the EL34's will basically cause an EQ shift, spongier attack, and a bit of haziness in the mids and treble. I'm not sure how much bigness of the KT88's, if any, will be lost.
Although the KT88 version always sounded just fine to me, I wanted to reduce the bass just a little bit and add more natural mids. Don't get me wrong because I never thought the KT88's were too bassy. Frankly, I'm not sure why some people hate them so much because I think they're fantastic. It's great to have the option of switching to those tube types and only requiring a minor resistor change and re-bias.
Another great thing about it is that Bogner uses Winged-C's and Shuguang preamp tubes so there's no compromise on quality anywhere in the amp. If there is a single thing that I regret is that the wheat grill cloth is no longer available. I would have preferred the old style tolex and wheat grill cloth to the new cosmic tolex and salt/pepper grill cloth. Still, I think the new look is also very cool so no complaints here.
Now is the hardest part - waiting for the shipment to arrive. Looks like it won't be until next Tuesday... dang!
So about my NAD... I think that I posted a thread some time back, maybe a year ago or so, and vowed to save the money for a Bogner Shiva 20th Anniversary - with reverb. Well, I saved and saved and my dream finally came true. This one is even better (hopefully) because I ordered it with EL34's instead of KT88's. It's not the stock model, but Bogner is cool enough to put whatever tubes you want, even 6550's if you want.
I elected to go with EL34's because they have more of an overal midrange and not as much emphasis on the high mids and thick bass. KT88's are wide open and has such great separation that it sounds almost magical to play. I'm not entirely sure if EL34's will cause me to lose some of the blossom and detail that I could enjoy with KT88's, but it's apparently only the minor addition of a piggyback resistor that allows the bias to be set for KT88's. Even though I'm very familiar with the KT88 model and have a ton of experience with EL34's in general, I'm not certain what qualities are mostly inherent in the amp or the KT88 tubes.
I'm thinking that the amp has the overall character, definition and dimension and that the EL34's will basically cause an EQ shift, spongier attack, and a bit of haziness in the mids and treble. I'm not sure how much bigness of the KT88's, if any, will be lost.
Although the KT88 version always sounded just fine to me, I wanted to reduce the bass just a little bit and add more natural mids. Don't get me wrong because I never thought the KT88's were too bassy. Frankly, I'm not sure why some people hate them so much because I think they're fantastic. It's great to have the option of switching to those tube types and only requiring a minor resistor change and re-bias.
Another great thing about it is that Bogner uses Winged-C's and Shuguang preamp tubes so there's no compromise on quality anywhere in the amp. If there is a single thing that I regret is that the wheat grill cloth is no longer available. I would have preferred the old style tolex and wheat grill cloth to the new cosmic tolex and salt/pepper grill cloth. Still, I think the new look is also very cool so no complaints here.
Now is the hardest part - waiting for the shipment to arrive. Looks like it won't be until next Tuesday... dang!
