Dear Flux’D,
We see that you just joined the forum, specifically “mentioning” a competitor while criticizing our brand.
Allow us to correct some of your statements.
The amps you are referring to simply cannot compare in complexity and component count. The BUGERA 333 and 333XL amps shown here are highly complex products with many more channels and controls, our Infinium Micro-Processor to bias the power tubes, a digital reverb, and much more complex circuitry that results in a vastly increased component count and complex wiring.
If you like to compare simple designs and PCB layouts, perhaps you should look at our V5 or V22 which are more in line with the simple PCB designs you are referring to.
When it comes to component quality, we use FR4 double-sided fiberglass PCB’s, full steel chassis, oversized transformers, 105 degree e-caps, etc. Rather than making derogatory statements about our overall quality, perhaps you would like to discuss individual components in detail so we make this a more meaningful discussion?
Failure reports stem from an early defective connector, something we fixed 5 years ago. Unfortunately, these things happen in any industry otherwise there wouldn’t be any car recalls or plane groundings over a battery problem. This problem is long gone, we stood up and helped our customers. Based on feedback from our dealers such as Thomann and Guitar Center, we have one of the lowest failure rates in the industry.
This has made it easy to offer a 3-Year Warranty Program on all products. But rather than taking our word for it, please reach out to these retailers and get first-hand information.
As I mentioned earlier, we are proud to be Europe’s number one tube amp brand and the V22 is the best-selling amp overall based on Europe’s largest retailer Thomann who publishes its numbers. We are also very pleased that GC is about to expand the BUGERA offerings due to the very positive response the V22 and V5 have achieved.
We have been building products for over 24 years and our factory makes over 5 million products a year. You can easily understand that with the small margin we are making on our products, any major failure rate would easily bankrupt our Company. That’s why our focus on quality is a constant never-ending process.
The rule in manufacturing is that the higher the production volume is, the more attention you have to pay to quality and that’s why we have a rigorous quality department where we “torture” components in temperature, humidity, and salt water corrosion chambers, do drop tests where we drop products to simulate shipment conditions and life cycle tests where we move VR’s and switches hundreds of thousands of times.
Two years ago, we invested over $20 million in one of the most sophisticated and automated plants. By making products in our own factory, we are able to control quality and cost. Unlike other competitors who often use 3rd party manufacturers, our factory does not have to make a profit. In many cases, we are buying the exact same components but in millions of quantities and so we get prices for a fraction of what other manufacturers have to pay.
It has always been our philosophy to pass on these savings to the end users and this is the reason why we can offer BUGERA amps at such low prices.
Best regards,
Joe Sanborn
Manager, Channel Marketing
MUSIC Group
BUGERA
