NAD: Uber Ultra

Ive owned alot of ubers over the years, rev blue boosted has been my favorite for a long time, i played the rev green and it was nice, i havent played rev 2, i didnt like my TJ at all, i played the TJ for a couple months and sold it because i wasnt a fan, this new ultra seems like a cool amp on ch2, not sure i that i would like ch1, but ive enjoyed reading peoples reviews of this new amp and listening to the clips.
 
I’m with @PurityS.L.G on this, channel 1 is the only thing I don’t like about it so far. I assumed Uber mode on channels 1 and 2 would sound the same and could just be eq’d differently, definitely not the case. Still trying to get rid of that clanky djenty sound. Channel 2 is definitely where it’s at though, can be super thick and meaty or tight and cutting.
 
So far I would say yes because again, ch. 1 is just like TJ ch.1 but with 3 modes. You can actually get a beautiful clean with the UU. Also Ch. 2 can get more gnarly than the TJ. The only thing is the TJ ch.1 is thicker than the UU ch.1.

For sure man! And yes @ZEN Amps I will be micing them up all on the Uberkab to start for that thread. I will reamp through other cabs down the road on another thread.

Way too early to say but I give the edge to rev blue for now only because I'm so familiar with it and know exactly how it sounds and plays with all my guitars, cabs and the 40+ OD boosts I have LOL

Yeah that was puzzling for sure. My clips will be on a drop F# baritone and a C standard guitar so no worries there. @hellzington review was a little baffling but in his defense, I can see why he was complaining about the brightness and having excessive feedback. Telling you man, those switches on the power amp can fuck everything up and I'm still not seeing the purpose for them. Perhaps they are supposed to be used with a combination of settings/switches engaged that I haven't discovered. The manual doesn't give any examples either. Also channel 1 is so thin and clanky. Tomorrow I'm going to spend some major time on that channel and see if I can figure it out. It doesn't seem promising as I already spent a little over an hour on that channel so far and can't find what I'm looking for. I play fairly loud as it is but you have to REALLY crank it to get some punch with the crunch mode.
I read your numbered feedback at the top of this thread and honestly I feel like we're saying a lot of the same things. My feedback on the other thread was very similar to yours. For example:
  • The "U" power amp setting being extremely harsh and hard sounding
  • Hair+ clearly being the best sound
  • Channel 1 being insanely bright when compared to Channel 2
  • The Density control being of limited use (you'll probably never set it below 2/3)
  • Lots of top end clank you can't dial out
  • General ear fatiguing frequencies
Again, I want to be clear, this obviously isn't an amp for me and is why I moved it on; however, if you didn't see my second video, I did get some good tones out of it at the end of the day. But generally it wasn't for me and I have amps that do the tones I got out of this amp better, IMO.

 
Out of curiosity did you buy this one from hellzington ?
No I bought through my local dealer.
i have no idea if your with me i was also quite disappointed with the TJ i got pretty much the same Mid,Treble, Presence and bass settings on your TJ you posted... i think the gnarly part is when the mids of the second channel of the TJ gets pass 11am without the treble dim up further.... it gets like a thin out mid heavy sound which ya wont like without the bass and depth.... is that what ya describe as the UU being like the TJ ?
Yeah even for an experienced Uber user, its not an easy amp to dial in the tone you're looking for unless you are easy to please, ya know?

And to answer your second question, yeah sort of but it still behaves a little different and I liken that to the added power section controls.
 
@PurityS.L.G This might sound obvious when you say it out loud, but when you mess with channel one of the UU, being that you’re saying it’s overly bright, don’t be afraid to set the treble and even mids full counter clockwise and see what happens then. Go nuts with it. Maybe that's unnecessary to say but I’ve seen a lot of people say they have “fully experimented” with amps but really have never turned anything beyond 10-2. Twist those knobs, that’s what they’re there for. :)

One more other thing to note, I’m not completely sure if the new Uberschall works like this, but every other Bogner amp I’ve played behaves in the following way: the treble knob is audio taper and doesn’t really do anything between fully off and like 1:00, and when the treble knob is set lower than around, say, 2:00, the mid knob acts as basically a high shelf that starts in the mids, so it controls the treble just as much as the mids. In other words, when the treble knob is set to “normal“ values, it's not doing a lot and instead the mid knob kind of takes over everything above the bass frequencies and raises / lowers them all fairly equally. So even if you zero the Treble control you might still get some shrill highs if the Mid knob is too high, but you just never think to adjust it because it's labeled "Middle," you know?


Here are two tracks I made with my Helios 100 a few months back. Both setups were identical except in the "darker" track, the Mid knob is turned down several o'clock settings. That's it. Presence, Treble, Bass, Gain, and Volume were untouched.

Helios Mid knob set higher:


Helios Mid knob set lower:

Not a dumb question since there are more people here than who care to admit that they dial with their eyes instead of ears. I learned a long time ago this was a big no-no. I did dial back the treble AND presence to fully OFF together along with other extreme settings and the clank is still there no matter what but just a wooly blanketed cloudy mess with the clank in the background. Its really shitty. Today I'm going to hook it up with IR's to my computer and in my DAW with a GEQ to figure out what fkn frequency it is that is killing that channel. My MXR 10 band and Boss GE7 couldn't dial it out.
 
Do you have any Mark series amps? I'm curious to see how the Ultra compares to a V or VII? BTW congrats on the new amp! Hopefully after spending some time with it you will be able to figure out all the nuisances with it.
 
This amp seems pretty polarizing. Waiting to see if one comes up for sale when someone decides that it isn’t for him.
 
I'm really curious about this treble frequency you can't dial out in channel 1.

I had an Ecstasy 20th head for a couple weeks and both gain channels also had high end you could dial out. However, in the Red channel it sounded good, but in the Blue channel, it sounded pretty bad. The Ecstasy 101B doesn't do this, btw, just the Ecstasy 20th Anniversary.

The 20th's Red channel had high end you couldn't dial out but it sounded great, so it wasn't an issue. It was crunchy and sizzly in a good way, like a great modern high gain tone should be. You could make it brighter or darker but that crunch and sizzle and enhanced articulation was always there. The Blue channel also had high end you couldn't dial out, but it sounded bad. It was harsh and raspy, like overdriving a solid state transistor or something, where it always sounded like there was some spikey, ice-picky, Presence-turned-up-too-high kind of thing that you couldn't get rid of.

I suppose I'm saying that I don't mind amps with elements you can't dial out so long as those elements are nice to listen to. I wonder how the new Uber's can't-dial-it-out highs in channel 1 compare to the same highs in the XTC 20th.

And not to get too get extreme, but I also wonder that if that thing turns out to be all bad, if it's not something that you couldn't mod out with like a resistor or two somewhere on the board. I know that sounds like a lot, but again if every other aspect of the channel is great except for that one thing, well...
 
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For those who have owned other Uberschalls, is it possible to get the same tones on the earlier Uberschalls with a boost in front that one can get with the UItra Uber? I understand that it's not going to be exactly the same, but I'm just wondering whether it's worthwhile to try an Ultra out when I already own the other Uberschalls.
 
Well just got mine in and I absolutely love this thing. It is just incredible and next level stuff. This is meant for high gain and metal… by metal I mean the chugga chugga stuff. Channel 1 is kind of strange how it operates. But channel 2 holy crap. Capable of all the old Uber stuff and something totally new, and that new thing beats the old Ubers IMO. You don’t need a boost or anything although on the crunch and Uber mode with low gain it’d take it well. My only complaint is no built in noise gate with how much gain is on tap with this thing but the fortin Zuul in front fixes all that. Bravo Bogner. This is THE metal amp.
 
Well just got mine in and I absolutely love this thing. It is just incredible and next level stuff. This is meant for high gain and metal… by metal I mean the chugga chugga stuff. Channel 1 is kind of strange how it operates. But channel 2 holy crap. Capable of all the old Uber stuff and something totally new, and that new thing beats the old Ubers IMO. You don’t need a boost or anything although on the crunch and Uber mode with low gain it’d take it well. My only complaint is no built in noise gate with how much gain is on tap with this thing but the fortin Zuul in front fixes all that. Bravo Bogner. This is THE metal amp.
is the floor noise really that bad thou?
 
This amp seems pretty polarizing. Waiting to see if one comes up for sale when someone decides that it isn’t for him.
Yeah it’s kinda odd honestly . I’m starting to wonder if there are inconsistencies from amp to amp with these. I have one and don’t find it harsh at all. On mine all three poweramp settings are usable in Uber, Hair and Hair +. I’m still not 100% on which of those I like most.

I agree that channel 2 is where it’s at . Channel 1 would be good for clean or mid gain. The Uber mode on channel 1 is not as good as Uber mode on channel 2. Like someone else mentioned I also wish Uber mode was the same on both.

For me so far channel 2 Uber mode boosted and Ultra mode not boosted are my favorite tones. I haven’t explored that much with clean and mid gain though it def can do that stuff pretty well it seems.
 
So I got a chance to play the Uber Ultra in my studio.

Good news: Channel 1 is only overly bright and harsh/clanky with the Density turned too far counter clockwise. With the Density set relatively high, Channel 1 smooths right out and that extra built-in brightness is no longer harsh, but actually helps to improve clarity. This is most apparent in the Ch1 Crunch mode, where setting the Density control too low totally kills the tone and turns the amp into a horrible ice-pick machine, but setting it high actually gives the amp a really smooth crunch tone that even Andy Timmons would like. In Uber mode, in my opinion Channel 1 with the Density set high is even sometimes better and fuller sounding than Channel 2.

Again, with the Density turned down, the reports are correct, Channel 1 is overly harsh. But the good news is that this can absolutely be tamed into not just no longer being a problem, but an actually desirable trait of the amp simply by turning up the Density knob.

The Uber Ultra is incredible overall, btw.

Also, I think I figured out the mechanics behind how the "Doom / Focus / Bright" switch works in Channel 2. Focus mode applies both high and low cut filters to the guitar, "focusing" the emphasis on the mids. "Bright" seems to bypass the high cut, meaning all of the high frequencies are allowed to pass through, but leaves the low cut in place for a brighter tone. "Doom" seems to bypass the low cut and leave the high cut in place for a darker tone. The good news is that the high cut filter is not too aggressive so it doesn't kill the definition of the guitar.
 
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@TheGreatGreen I agree with all of your statements. I still find ch. 1 a bit bright for my tastes even with density on full blast but I've learned to manage much better with a proper mix of the presence at around noonish. Its much more tolerable for sure. I still can't find any use of the U switch setting on the power amp section.

I hooked the amp up to my daw and it seems to be 2.5K and 7.1K that are giving the amp the excessive clank that can't seem to be dialed out. Once I precisely cut those frequencies with a narrow Q, problem solved and sounds incredible. I love me some Marshall clank, don't get me wrong, but this was just too much especially at band volumes.

@leib10 I think this amp would be up your alley. Ch.2 is so mean sounding. Not sure why Reza said it can't cop TJ tones but it for sure can. I've A/B'd with both of my amps quite a bit at this point and I'm digging the Ultra the most currently. Just way more versatile and punishing sounding. You won't regret it. In fact I'm most likely going to sell my other Ubers since this one is head and shoulders above them. I still do love my Rev Blue though so I might keep that one but not 100% sure yet. I'm plan on putting up some clips by this weekend for you guys.
 
@TheGreatGreen I agree with all of your statements. I still find ch. 1 a bit bright for my tastes even with density on full blast but I've learned to manage much better with a proper mix of the presence at around noonish. Its much more tolerable for sure. I still can't find any use of the U switch setting on the power amp section.

I hooked the amp up to my daw and it seems to be 2.5K and 7.1K that are giving the amp the excessive clank that can't seem to be dialed out. Once I precisely cut those frequencies with a narrow Q, problem solved and sounds incredible. I love me some Marshall clank, don't get me wrong, but this was just too much especially at band volumes.

@leib10 I think this amp would be up your alley. Ch.2 is so mean sounding. Not sure why Reza said it can't cop TJ tones but it for sure can. I've A/B'd with both of my amps quite a bit at this point and I'm digging the Ultra the most currently. Just way more versatile and punishing sounding. You won't regret it. In fact I'm most likely going to sell my other Ubers since this one is head and shoulders above them. I still do love my Rev Blue though so I might keep that one but not 100% sure yet. I'm plan on putting up some clips by this weekend for you guys.
Those upper frequencies in a band mix cut great. Especially on the lower tunings. D standard and lower. I’m with you, I loved my rev blue but this thing is so damn crushing. Might be my favorite metal based amp I’ve played.

I will add my favorite cab I’ve been playing it on is my emperor loaded with dv-77s which sound super close to a Celestion creamback m65. Some guy made a video pretty shocking how close they are.
 
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