Re: no longer a Bogner Fan
I'm starting to think that the source of your headaches is the tubes. Most amp company owners will tell you that it's a big source of frustration for them, sorting through many to get ones that are flawless.
Other points in the thread....
Yes, the white chassis Ecastasy's are exceptional. I feel bad that your financial situation at the time dictated that you must part with yours when you did. That sucks, because I love mine, and had a black chassis one next to it for awhile. The old white chassis sounded bigger and richer. But those were Reinhold built originals from the Make'n'Music location on Lankershim Blvd. Now, they're on Vanowen, and Reinhold isn't even there. He's in his home designing new things.
I'll never say a bad thing about Peavey. They make a very good amp at an affordable price, and 5150's have become a staple for highgain players. And the Classic 50 4-10, even with mediocre speakers has a BEAUTIFUL clean tone....and not a half bad gain tone. Their only shortcoming is that they get blatty when turned up really loud....on the gain side only. Their clean channel is really beautiful sounding. And I can only imagine how much better it'd be with Jensens, not Eminence.
To me, the Ubershall is very extreme in both it's tones. The cleans are very high headroom and not extremely sweet, but big. The gain tones are massive for metal, but it's hard to get them really dialied down and organic like the Shiva and Ecstasy are capable of.
As you well know, Bogner's greatest amps were probably the old white chassis XTC's of all types, The XTC Classic, and the 2nd generation Shiva. The Metropolis amps were cool too, and it's too bad the Caveman was too costly to manufacture, because it was also one of Reinhold's great creations.