UberMetalDood
New member
One big gripe and one revision. First, the revision...
There's a little trim knob on the back that controls how much gain the boost has. When I first got it, the knob didn't turn very far. I recently reached back there to adjust it and it clicked but then I was able to turn all the way. I opened it up to check things out and nothing appears broken so I assume it was just stuck or something. It has been working perfectly ever since. So what I said before about the Goldfinger not having as much gain as a Shiva with the boost was wrong. It has quite a bit of gain with the boost.
However, the boost is pretty neat in that it acts kind of like a transparent boost when you turn the trim pot past 1/2 way. It doesn't change the tone or get thicker or anything. It just adds transparent gain. If you want a more saturated sound, you use an overdrive and boy let me tell you that it handles pedals and has less noise than almost any other amp I have had. The transparency of the boost allows you to leave the boost on and add an overdrive pedal in front of the amp to get saturated overdrive. It doesn't add noise and lets your pedal do all the coloring of the tone. Normally, I wouldn't ever use the boost function on an amp if I'm using an OD pedal, but the Goldfinger works well.
Now my gripe is major in a way, but kind of negligible in another way. See, there are two FX loops. One is a pre-FX loop which is designed for overdrives, boosts, and wah pedals. The 2nd FX loop is for all of your delays, reverbs, flangers, etc... The 2nd FX loop works extremely well. I run my Line6 M9 and it sounds great. However, the first FX loop (the Pre-FX loop) screws things up. First of all, it's extremely noisy. It also does something weird because all it does it get noisier when you try to turn your gain up on your OD pedal. It doesn't allow the signal to get gainier, just noisier.
I called Bogner and they acknowledged that this was a design flaw. They said that they don't have a fix for it and probably won't for a long time because no one else is complaining about it. That kind of sucks because I was really looking forward to using it. I'm also surprised that Bogner doesn't already have a cure for it. Essentially, this feature is useless. What sucks the most about it is that it WAS one of the factors that I based my decision to get it on since I wanted an amp with enough gain on it's own but that's also superior with pedals.
The good news is that it's not necessary. The input of the Goldfinger is so very quiet even with lots of OD going into it. It sounds incredibly good and makes love with every single pedal I've put in front of it. There's kind of no point to having the pre-FX loop.
So, there's my gripe that's kind of pointless anyway. The Goldfinger is freaking awesome. The honeymoon period is long over and I'm still impressed by it.
If you compare it to an Ecstasy, it's actually pretty much on the same level. The Goldfinger 90 actually has a better clean channel than the XTC. I know people will say that's debatable, but play the Goldfinger clean channel yourself. In comparison, the XTC has the blue and red channels which, respectively, do the crunch and high gain thing really well. Although the blue channel has enough gain for soloing and shredding, I kind of think of it as the rhythm channel. The red channel is the compressed, high-gain channel. The Goldfinger has basically 3 sounds. It has clean, vintage plexi, and 80's hot rod gain. The XTC also has a plexi setting which kind of corresponds with the Goldfinger's clean channel with boost on. The Goldfinger 69' (vintage plexi) and 80's (hot rod Marshall) also corresponds with the XTC blue and red channels. The 69' setting is the open, less gainy, extremely expressive crunch channel. It has enough gain for soloing and a feel that makes it easy to play a lot of solo stuff without all the gain. The 80's setting is similar to the XTC red channel in that it's more compressed and higher gain than the 69' mode.
What the Goldfinger has that the XTC doesn't have is a real nice reverb and several power options that comes stock. A stock XTC has only a 1/2 power switch. The 1/4th power switch will cost you another $485 on the XTC. All the features and functions of the Goldfinger are pretty cool considering that it's priced at $2600 compared to the XTC which starts at $3400.
There's a little trim knob on the back that controls how much gain the boost has. When I first got it, the knob didn't turn very far. I recently reached back there to adjust it and it clicked but then I was able to turn all the way. I opened it up to check things out and nothing appears broken so I assume it was just stuck or something. It has been working perfectly ever since. So what I said before about the Goldfinger not having as much gain as a Shiva with the boost was wrong. It has quite a bit of gain with the boost.
However, the boost is pretty neat in that it acts kind of like a transparent boost when you turn the trim pot past 1/2 way. It doesn't change the tone or get thicker or anything. It just adds transparent gain. If you want a more saturated sound, you use an overdrive and boy let me tell you that it handles pedals and has less noise than almost any other amp I have had. The transparency of the boost allows you to leave the boost on and add an overdrive pedal in front of the amp to get saturated overdrive. It doesn't add noise and lets your pedal do all the coloring of the tone. Normally, I wouldn't ever use the boost function on an amp if I'm using an OD pedal, but the Goldfinger works well.
Now my gripe is major in a way, but kind of negligible in another way. See, there are two FX loops. One is a pre-FX loop which is designed for overdrives, boosts, and wah pedals. The 2nd FX loop is for all of your delays, reverbs, flangers, etc... The 2nd FX loop works extremely well. I run my Line6 M9 and it sounds great. However, the first FX loop (the Pre-FX loop) screws things up. First of all, it's extremely noisy. It also does something weird because all it does it get noisier when you try to turn your gain up on your OD pedal. It doesn't allow the signal to get gainier, just noisier.
I called Bogner and they acknowledged that this was a design flaw. They said that they don't have a fix for it and probably won't for a long time because no one else is complaining about it. That kind of sucks because I was really looking forward to using it. I'm also surprised that Bogner doesn't already have a cure for it. Essentially, this feature is useless. What sucks the most about it is that it WAS one of the factors that I based my decision to get it on since I wanted an amp with enough gain on it's own but that's also superior with pedals.
The good news is that it's not necessary. The input of the Goldfinger is so very quiet even with lots of OD going into it. It sounds incredibly good and makes love with every single pedal I've put in front of it. There's kind of no point to having the pre-FX loop.
So, there's my gripe that's kind of pointless anyway. The Goldfinger is freaking awesome. The honeymoon period is long over and I'm still impressed by it.
If you compare it to an Ecstasy, it's actually pretty much on the same level. The Goldfinger 90 actually has a better clean channel than the XTC. I know people will say that's debatable, but play the Goldfinger clean channel yourself. In comparison, the XTC has the blue and red channels which, respectively, do the crunch and high gain thing really well. Although the blue channel has enough gain for soloing and shredding, I kind of think of it as the rhythm channel. The red channel is the compressed, high-gain channel. The Goldfinger has basically 3 sounds. It has clean, vintage plexi, and 80's hot rod gain. The XTC also has a plexi setting which kind of corresponds with the Goldfinger's clean channel with boost on. The Goldfinger 69' (vintage plexi) and 80's (hot rod Marshall) also corresponds with the XTC blue and red channels. The 69' setting is the open, less gainy, extremely expressive crunch channel. It has enough gain for soloing and a feel that makes it easy to play a lot of solo stuff without all the gain. The 80's setting is similar to the XTC red channel in that it's more compressed and higher gain than the 69' mode.
What the Goldfinger has that the XTC doesn't have is a real nice reverb and several power options that comes stock. A stock XTC has only a 1/2 power switch. The 1/4th power switch will cost you another $485 on the XTC. All the features and functions of the Goldfinger are pretty cool considering that it's priced at $2600 compared to the XTC which starts at $3400.
