I hate it when a company sends a totally unprepared guy from the Marketing department to interface with the technically inclined members of their target market. The conversation always ends up peppered with marketing doublespeak; all too often the Marketing guy gets lost in a technical conversation where the subject matter goes over his head and his only recourse is to BS his way through the conversation. The companies would be better served by sending an engineer with technical knowledge to answer questions, so that the company doesn’t lose face when a non-engineer tries to hide his ignorance behind embarrassing statements that are based upon BS and marketing noise, if not outright lies.
I am an old-timer engineer from the Golden Age of Thermionics. I was designing classified military radios before the transistor was invented, long before most of the highly revered boutique amp building circuit copycats were born. I've seen a lot of people in the industry come and go.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't own a Bugera amp, and I don't look up or down at them. I came to this thread via Google, solely because I was having difficulty finding service documentation on a Bugera product and the search led me here. More on that later.
I was troubled to find someone representing themselves to the public as an official representative for a company, given that they were pontificating utter non-fact nonsense. That some of these untruths have been left standing uncorrected for the past four years prompted me to register and make this post.
Here are some statements that I think need to be rebutted so that the uninformed user is not misled:
Joe Sanborn":15086dtl said:
Nowadays, tubes are only made in three locations; China (Shoguan), Russia (Sovtek) and Yugoslavia (JJ). All labeled tube brands come from one of these factories.
...
Joe Sanborn
Manager, Channel Marketing
MUSIC Group
BUGERA
A little fact checking is in order for new-hires who don’t have a good knowledge of Who’s Who in the industry. JJ is based in Slovakia, not Yugoslavia. JJ was founded using facilities derived from what used to be state-owned Tesla/Teslovak company prior to the breakup of Czechoslovakia.
Ei-RC is a different company based in Yugoslavia, and was founded using technology derived from Telefunken. The Ei facilities were largely destroyed during the 1999 NATO bombings and the company was subsequently crippled economically by the 1999-2000 UN Embargo.
Based upon his post, I get the impression that Joe Sanborn has confused Ei-RC with JJ. I guess that ignorance about the European competition is something that should be expected of a Chinese company that uses Chinese suppliers.
VPIADIVISION":15086dtl said:
... we've done our best to make sure that our amplifiers are ALWAYS operable and sound as intended by designing the INFINIUM tube life extender and incorporating it into many of our classic design models. Basically a tube can fail completely and the amp will auto bias the remaining tubes and redirect power there to get you through a gig. On many of our amplifiers (with INFINIUM),
you can swap tubes with virtually anything you can socket - similar to the old THD trick (i'm a big fan of Andy's designs
…
Dan Gallagher
VP Instrument Amplification Division
The MUSIC Group
dan.gallagher@music-group.com
Let’s set aside the subtle attempt to gain street cred through name-dropping and view the technical statements for what they are – rubbish.
First, regarding pin-compatibility: It’s an utter non-truth that all 9-pin (noval) tubes are interchangeable just because they are pin-compatible. Anyone with a good knowledge of miniature noval tubes that goes beyond the common twin triode tubes used in guitar amps will know that there are many noval tubes that will fit in the socket but are not pin-compatible. Not all tubes place the same internal devices within the tube on the same external pins. Plugging in a tube that is not pin-compatible with another tube is the electrical equivalent of mis-wiring a tube socket. Going one step farther – some noval tubes don’t even have amplifiers inside them. Try plugging an 6CA4/EZ81 rectifier (9-pin noval) into a 12A?7 socket or an EL84 socket and tell us how well your Infinium system deals with that. I guarantee that the amplifier stages that are expecting to have triodes or pentodes plugged into them won’t function properly when a diode is used in their place. No matter how good your Infinium system may be, it can’t turn a diode into an amplifier. Using the right tubes matters. Always.
That kind of universal pin compatibility statement suffers from the misheld belief that all noval tubes are pin-compatible, and that all octal tubes are also pin-compatible. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are certainly tubes that will fit into the socket, but will not function properly because the pinouts to the internal devices, and perhaps the internal devices themselves, are different.
VPIADIVISION":15086dtl said:
... Basically a tube can fail completely and the amp will auto bias the remaining tubes and redirect power there to get you through a gig…
Dan Gallagher
VP Instrument Amplification Division
The MUSIC Group
dan.gallagher@music-group.com
When a single tube in a single-ended amplification stage fails, you lose that amplification stage. Period. No amount of “redirecting power” will fix that.
When a single tube in a push-pull pair fails, you lose one side of the amplifier. Period. No amount of “redirecting power” will fix that, either.
When a single tube in a parallel push-pull circuit (such as a 4x6L6 amp) fails, the options available are limited: a) do nothing and continue operation at full power with 3 of the 4 tubes working, b) shut down the amp; c) reduce output power so that the remaining tubes are not subjected to overcurrent conditions. There aren’t any other choices to be made.
Unfortunately, amps that choose Option A basically have no protection circuit in place, and they’ll go through a process of overcurrent-based self-destruction. Option B is used by amps like the modern SVT, which use comparators in the cathode circuits to monitor current in each amplification device. If an overcurrent/undercurrent condition is detected the comparators invoke the protection circuit and the amp is shut down in a failure mode. Any amp that attempts to continue has to use Option C, which amounts to power reduction.
I applaud Bugera for deploying the Infinium system across it's entire amp line. You've raised the performance bar in the industry by installing circuit protection devices into all of your amplifiers. All other amp manufacturers should take notice and follow suit.
Unfortunately, in describing your magical Infinium system, you make it sound like a tube can fail completely and the amp will magically continue without it as if nothing happened. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
For the amp to continue to operate safely, the Infinium amps would have to decrease power output in order to remain in the Safe Operating Area of the devices in use. The comment that the amp can just “redirect power” around a failed tube is utter nonsense. This isn’t science fiction like Star Trek, where every equipment failure can be cured by re-routing power through an auxiliary conduit. When an output device fails, the power provided by that device is lost. Period. The only option to provide full power output requires stressing the remaining components of the parallel circuit to operate outside of their SOA. That will result in failure, as in Option A described previously. Any responsible protection circuit has to decrease the amp’s power output so that the remaining devices will operate in their SOA. Current is reduced in order to prevent the remaining devices from being subjected to overcurrent conditions and causing a magnificent failure mode.
It’s funny that you use terms like “auto bias the remaining tubes
and redirect power there” instead of "re-bias the tubes to
“reduce power.” I get the impression that you either don’t understand how the protection circuit actually works, or that you do understand how the protection circuit actually works and you’re attempting to deceive potential customers.
To be fair, based upon your job titles you guys aren’t design engineers, so I have to grade your answers on a curve. Clearly, Bugera sent their Marketing guys and Managers, rather than Engineers, to respond to a technical discussion. Those boys sent to do a man's job made some silly statements, but now that those statements have been corrected for the record, I think it’s fair to thank them for doing the best job that they could in answering the concerns of their target market. There responses may not have been perfect, but I have to applaud them for being willing to respond in a forum like this one.
In this thread there has been a lot of back and forth argument among Bugera amp users and non-users about whether or not the amps are sufficiently reliable. I think that part of the discussion has been particularly short-sighted. The conversation here has consistently focused on the wrong questions – like whether or not the amps use quality components, use reasonable build quality, or have a bad failure rate. A more important question to ask is this:
“What is the user supposed to do when the amp fails after your 3-year warranty period has expired?”
While a 3-year warranty is encouraging, it’s insufficient. We currently live in an era where cheap Chinese manufactured electronics are treated as disposable/non-servicable items once the warranty has expired. Is that what we really want in a guitar amplifier? Are these things intended to be thrown away when they fail after the warranty expires? What happens to the poor guy who spends $700 to buy a TriRec, and has it fail 37 months after his purchase? Is the user expected to treat his purchase as a disposable amp, such that his $700 investment has $0 salvage value on the day that it breaks after his warranty expires because he can’t get it fixed?
When an amp fails out of warranty, what are the user’s options?
Can it be repaired?
Is having it repaired at the factory-approved site going to be cost-prohibitive, such that the owner is expected to throw it into the garbage and buy another one, as if it were a Wal-Mart DVD player?
If the owner wants to have it fixed, who can perform the repair? Will Bugera perform out-of-warranty repairs at a “reasonable” cost, or will Bugera’s service center treat the amp as a “constructive total” thereby forcing the customer into buying a new amp?
Most importantly, will service documentation be made available to independent repair facilities? Or will service documentation be restricted only to Bugera’s repair centers?
In this thread we’ve heard Bugera defend themselves against claims of “stealing” other people’s designs. Bugera has responded that any non-patented circuits are fair game for copying. They’re essentially using the argument that any circuit that is not protected by patent amounts to intellectual property that falls into the public domain. I’m OK with that. We should all be OK with that. But by focusing on that, we’re missing the big picture.
The thing that bothers me is that I’ve been on the internet for several days searching for Bugera schematics for a dead amp that is out of warranty. I’d like to repair it as a favor to a friend. The problem is that Bugera doesn’t seem to be willing to allow anyone access to the schematics of their amps – especially those that involve the “Infinium” circuits. Try googling for them. They’re not out there.
This is particularly troublesome. In the Golden Era, when you removed the cover on an amplifier you’d find a copy of the schematic inside of the amp, so that anyone who had a reason to open-up the amp for service would know exactly what he’s dealing with. Sadly, that’s not the case with the Bugera amps. While Bugera seems to take pride in freely appropriating other peoples’ public domain circuits to build their amps, they are maintaining iron-fisted control of all service documentation on their products. This effectively makes it impossible for anyone but Bugera to service them. It’s like buying a car and having no option other than to take it to the dealership where you bought it for the rest of your life. Everyone knows that you don't want to take your car to the dealership for everything, because dealerships are part of a corporate monopoly that's intended to always bend you over. You want an Independent mechanic? Forget about it. Bugera is withholding all of the service documentation, which effectively makes independent repair impossible.
By not releasing service documentation on these amps, Bugera is effectively preventing their amps from being serviced by independent personnel once they are out of warranty. This would suggest that Bugera considers the amps to be serviceable, but only while they are in-warranty and only by Bugera. Once the warranty expires, the amps aren’t going to be easily serviceable by anyone else. In other words: when the warranty ends you get to start waiting for the day that your amp fails and becomes a brick that is too expensive to repair. Be prepared to throw your Bugera amp into a landfill, because the design is a “secret” and your amp can’t be fixed. Now you get to spend another $700 on another new amp.
All amps fail eventually. Unfortunately, the restricted availability of repair information on the Infinium system, coupled with the general nonavailability of schematics for all of the Infinium-type amps, suggests that Bugera has a well concealed, yet hostile attitude toward their customers. When your amp fails – and it will fail eventually – you’re totally screwed because Bugera built an incredibly complex circuit into their amp. Eventually that needlessly complex circuit will fail, as all complex systems eventually fail. Bugera knows that when your amp fails, nobody will ever to be able to fix it because they’re withholding all of the documentation.
The good news is that if you have a PV or a Mesa, you’ll be able to get service documentation out of the factory. If Bugera wants to survive in the market, they need to publish schematics for their amps. Seriously, Bugera has already admitted that their amps are based upon other peoples’ designs that were appropriated from the Public Domain. What’s left for them to protect from view by the public? Their Infinium circuit?
OK, consider this:
* If the Infinium circuit is patented, then release the service documentation and the schematics because the circuit itself is protected by patent.
* If the Infinium circuit is not patented, then it’s just another circuit that falls into the Public Domain. According to Buegra's own standards it’s intellectual property that is fair-game for everyone else to use.
Bugera, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
What's the most important take-home message from all of this?
* It doesn't matter how good the Bugera amps may or may not be.
* It doesn't matter how inexpensive they are at the front end of your purchase.
* Over the long haul, the Total Cost of Ownership on these amps is going to be higher than buying any of the premium amps. Why? Because the premium amps are serviceable if and when they break, while the Bugera amps are not. You can service a Marshall or a PV, but if you buy a Bugera you have to throw it away when in breaks.
* Total cost of ownership will always be higher for the Bugera because they're withholding all of the service documentation.
SMART CONSUMERS SHOULD REFUSE TO BUY ANY BUGERA PRODUCT UNLESS BUGERA PUBLISHES IT'S SERVICE DOCUMENTATION. UNTIL THEY DO THAT, BUGERA HAS ALL OF THEIR CUSTOMERS BY THE SHORT HAIRS.