Spent Enough Time With The Bogner Ecstasy 104BV to Have An Opinion

[Rackman]

So I've played a couple gigs, a jam, and a few rehearsals with it at this point. Plus of course recorded for the neo-soul competition. It's still new-ish, but I've used it enough to have an opinion.

First off a couple global things. Yes, it's damn expensive - sucks, but there it is. Like all Ecstasy models, it's dark sounding. The presence seems happiest about 3:00 although the presence vs. highs tradeoff is still something I'm experimenting with. The highs pots are log pots it seems like, so most of the response is between about 2:00 and max, which is where they live. It looks odd, but it's the way the amp works.

The loop is good. Transparent. Hot, with no level controls. I don't think you want to be running some BOSS pedal. Pro rack gear is fine. I'm running an Eclipse in the loop with a 300ms digital delay set at 14% wet and its analog block mapped for MIDI volume control. Works good, no integration issues.

MIDI is the biggest quality of life improvement on this amp. Awesome to have and has been foolproof with a small RJM comtroller.

The front panel master is post-loop. Nice. Sounds good.

The amp overall is tweaky - lots of switches and knobs provide both pre- and post-EQ. I don't think it's hard to dial, but there is some dialing to be done and the controls are pretty interactive.

The channel number scheme is, sadly, retarded. In order of gain from lowest to highest the channels are:
1, 0, 2, 3
In order on the face of the amp they are:
1, 0, 3, 2
And on the footswitch they are:
1, ZERO (spelled out), 2, 3

WFT? No big deal, and the engineer in me likes the idea of zero indexed channels, but they should be in gain order. This is just short bus material. Of course with the MIDI controller I'm looking at preset #s and don't have to worry about it.

Now the channels:
Channel Green/1 (Clean) - Sounds good. Since purple/zero channel is harder to dial and they share an EQ, you're going to end up dialing that and taking what you get on green. Which is fine - it sounds good when purple sounds good. It has two modes - vaguely fendery or sort of a "boutique" more mid heavy clean. It seems to be pickup dependent which is better but it's pretty obvious for any given pickup. I set it for clean cleans, but there is a gain pot if you want some breakup. You can do jazz neck humbucker cleans here fine. You can do funk.

Channel Purple/0/ZERO (Blues Breakup) : I set this for SRV sounds which is on the low end of the gain range. It works good. This is the new innovation relative to the 101B/Aniversary/Pandora and I'm here for it. With a bridge single coil/tap/parallel mode it also gives a stones type vibe. This is the hardest channel to dial but I have managed to get what I want with a wide variety of pickups. I use it almost entirely with single coils/split/parallel but it does do OK with buckers for sort of an old Gibson in the delta sounding thing.

Channel Blue/2 (Mid-gain Rock) : This channel is configurable - you can make it a blue, a red, or plexi mode. I use it in blue. It does the mid-gain master volume Marshall type thing, but with typical Bogner mids. It's comfortable for rhythm or lead with a wide range of pickups without setup changes. Cover band rock songs you're going to live here a lot. The leads are really nice, not totally over the top. It works best to dial the EQ for channel 3 and take what you get on channel 2. That hasn't been a problem - they're related enough that if red sounds good blue does too. The opposite is not necessarily true.

Channel Red/3 (High-gain Rock) : This also has options - blue (same as above), red, or 80s. Red and 80s sound similar to my ears, but Red has more gain and more bass. Which you're going to use depends on the guitar. You can get very similar sounds at the high end of the gain pot in 80s or 2:00 on Red. Again, Bogner style mids. Red will do modern high gain, maybe not the most brutal but I'm the wrong person to ask about that. Either 80s or Red depending on the pickup will do a really nice moded Marhsall type high gain. Garry Moore, Van Halen, Guns, whatever. Generally it's a little thicker sounding than those reference tones. Lots of nice texture with the presence and treble high.

Overall, I'd say this is the nicest sounding rock amp I own. I'm gigging it over my JP2C, my X88IR/SM100R rack, and my synergy rack although I like all of those as well. It sits in a mix nicely. It seems to record easily at least room miced. I haven't gotten to close-micing experiments yet but I don't expect trouble.

 

[roodboy]

does it do 101b blue channel tones?

 

[Rackman]

Yes. I had a 101B from like '99 I think, and I would say it's blue an the 101Bs blue are similar as far as I can remember.

 

[ChurchHill]

View attachment 450783

So I've played a couple gigs, a jam, and a few rehearsals with it at this point. Plus of course recorded for the neo-soul competition. It's still new-ish, but I've used it enough to have an opinion.

First off a couple global things. Yes, it's damn expensive - sucks, but there it is. Like all Ecstasy models, it's dark sounding. The presence seems happiest about 3:00 although the presence vs. highs tradeoff is still something I'm experimenting with. The highs pots are log pots it seems like, so most of the response is between about 2:00 and max, which is where they live. It looks odd, but it's the way the amp works.

The loop is good. Transparent. Hot, with no level controls. I don't think you want to be running some BOSS pedal. Pro rack gear is fine. I'm running an Eclipse in the loop with a 300ms digital delay set at 14% wet and its analog block mapped for MIDI volume control. Works good, no integration issues.

MIDI is the biggest quality of life improvement on this amp. Awesome to have and has been foolproof with a small RJM comtroller.

The front panel master is post-loop. Nice. Sounds good.

The amp overall is tweaky - lots of switches and knobs provide both pre- and post-EQ. I don't think it's hard to dial, but there is some dialing to be done and the controls are pretty interactive.

The channel number scheme is, sadly, retarded. In order of gain from lowest to highest the channels are:
1, 0, 2, 3
In order on the face of the amp they are:
1, 0, 3, 2
And on the footswitch they are:
1, ZERO (spelled out), 2, 3

WFT? No big deal, and the engineer in me likes the idea of zero indexed channels, but they should be in gain order. This is just short bus material. Of course with the MIDI controller I'm looking at preset #s and don't have to worry about it.

Now the channels:
Channel Green/1 (Clean) - Sounds good. Since purple/zero channel is harder to dial and they share an EQ, you're going to end up dialing that and taking what you get on green. Which is fine - it sounds good when purple sounds good. It has two modes - vaguely fendery or sort of a "boutique" more mid heavy clean. It seems to be pickup dependent which is better but it's pretty obvious for any given pickup. I set it for clean cleans, but there is a gain pot if you want some breakup. You can do jazz neck humbucker cleans here fine. You can do funk.

Channel Purple/0/ZERO (Blues Breakup) : I set this for SRV sounds which is on the low end of the gain range. It works good. This is the new innovation relative to the 101B/Aniversary/Pandora and I'm here for it. With a bridge single coil/tap/parallel mode it also gives a stones type vibe. This is the hardest channel to dial but I have managed to get what I want with a wide variety of pickups. I use it almost entirely with single coils/split/parallel but it does do OK with buckers for sort of an old Gibson in the delta sounding thing.

Channel Blue/2 (Mid-gain Rock) : This channel is configurable - you can make it a blue, a red, or plexi mode. I use it in blue. It does the mid-gain master volume Marshall type thing, but with typical Bogner mids. It's comfortable for rhythm or lead with a wide range of pickups without setup changes. Cover band rock songs you're going to live here a lot. The leads are really nice, not totally over the top. It works best to dial the EQ for channel 3 and take what you get on channel 2. That hasn't been a problem - they're related enough that if red sounds good blue does too. The opposite is not necessarily true.

Channel Red/3 (High-gain Rock) : This also has options - blue (same as above), red, or 80s. Red and 80s sound similar to my ears, but Red has more gain and more bass. Which you're going to use depends on the guitar. You can get very similar sounds at the high end of the gain pot in 80s or 2:00 on Red. Again, Bogner style mids. Red will do modern high gain, maybe not the most brutal but I'm the wrong person to ask about that. Either 80s or Red depending on the pickup will do a really nice moded Marhsall type high gain. Garry Moore, Van Halen, Guns, whatever. Generally it's a little thicker sounding than those reference tones. Lots of nice texture with the presence and treble high.

Overall, I'd say this is the nicest sounding rock amp I own. I'm gigging it over my JP2C, my X88IR/SM100R rack, and my synergy rack although I like all of those as well. It sits in a mix nicely. It seems to record easily at least room miced. I haven't gotten to close-micing experiments yet but I don't expect trouble.

Nice review, thanks for posting this! I've heard clips but am not convinced I need one. If I didn't have a 101B, I would. Good to hear that the blue and red channels aren't too different. From some of the clips I've heard, I wasn't too sure.

Nice Mockingbird, too! What year is it? I've always been a fan of BC Rich, Mockingbirds being one of my favorites.

 

[Rackman]

I think the big difference to the 101B is MIDI. And the Purple channel I guess. But if I had a 101B I wouldn't be running out to get one.

80s is more similar to Blue then Red is but shared EQ hasn't been a problem as long as it's set up on the higher gain channel.

The Mockingbird is a '24 or '25 Casey Crabtree build. It's got Alnico II Pros which seem to pair well with the 104BV.

 

[ChurchHill]

Nice! The guitars their custom shop is making these days are really good. I'll bet the Alnico II Pros do go well with both the guitar and amp. They're one of my favorite Duncans.

 

[Music&Chaos]

"The channel number scheme is, sadly, retarded."

IDK why but I read that like 5 times because it was so funny.

 

[tonedog]

I love these amps and really dig both versions.Owned a ton of amps over the years but none better than these.
Glorious tones can be found if you have the patience to figure what works for your situation. The master volume is great so it can do a lot at low volume in full power.

 

[inyarak74]

View attachment 450783

So I've played a couple gigs, a jam, and a few rehearsals with it at this point. Plus of course recorded for the neo-soul competition. It's still new-ish, but I've used it enough to have an opinion.

First off a couple global things. Yes, it's damn expensive - sucks, but there it is. Like all Ecstasy models, it's dark sounding. The presence seems happiest about 3:00 although the presence vs. highs tradeoff is still something I'm experimenting with. The highs pots are log pots it seems like, so most of the response is between about 2:00 and max, which is where they live. It looks odd, but it's the way the amp works.

The loop is good. Transparent. Hot, with no level controls. I don't think you want to be running some BOSS pedal. Pro rack gear is fine. I'm running an Eclipse in the loop with a 300ms digital delay set at 14% wet and its analog block mapped for MIDI volume control. Works good, no integration issues.

MIDI is the biggest quality of life improvement on this amp. Awesome to have and has been foolproof with a small RJM comtroller.

The front panel master is post-loop. Nice. Sounds good.

The amp overall is tweaky - lots of switches and knobs provide both pre- and post-EQ. I don't think it's hard to dial, but there is some dialing to be done and the controls are pretty interactive.

The channel number scheme is, sadly, retarded. In order of gain from lowest to highest the channels are:
1, 0, 2, 3
In order on the face of the amp they are:
1, 0, 3, 2
And on the footswitch they are:
1, ZERO (spelled out), 2, 3

WFT? No big deal, and the engineer in me likes the idea of zero indexed channels, but they should be in gain order. This is just short bus material. Of course with the MIDI controller I'm looking at preset #s and don't have to worry about it.

Now the channels:
Channel Green/1 (Clean) - Sounds good. Since purple/zero channel is harder to dial and they share an EQ, you're going to end up dialing that and taking what you get on green. Which is fine - it sounds good when purple sounds good. It has two modes - vaguely fendery or sort of a "boutique" more mid heavy clean. It seems to be pickup dependent which is better but it's pretty obvious for any given pickup. I set it for clean cleans, but there is a gain pot if you want some breakup. You can do jazz neck humbucker cleans here fine. You can do funk.

Channel Purple/0/ZERO (Blues Breakup) : I set this for SRV sounds which is on the low end of the gain range. It works good. This is the new innovation relative to the 101B/Aniversary/Pandora and I'm here for it. With a bridge single coil/tap/parallel mode it also gives a stones type vibe. This is the hardest channel to dial but I have managed to get what I want with a wide variety of pickups. I use it almost entirely with single coils/split/parallel but it does do OK with buckers for sort of an old Gibson in the delta sounding thing.

Channel Blue/2 (Mid-gain Rock) : This channel is configurable - you can make it a blue, a red, or plexi mode. I use it in blue. It does the mid-gain master volume Marshall type thing, but with typical Bogner mids. It's comfortable for rhythm or lead with a wide range of pickups without setup changes. Cover band rock songs you're going to live here a lot. The leads are really nice, not totally over the top. It works best to dial the EQ for channel 3 and take what you get on channel 2. That hasn't been a problem - they're related enough that if red sounds good blue does too. The opposite is not necessarily true.

Channel Red/3 (High-gain Rock) : This also has options - blue (same as above), red, or 80s. Red and 80s sound similar to my ears, but Red has more gain and more bass. Which you're going to use depends on the guitar. You can get very similar sounds at the high end of the gain pot in 80s or 2:00 on Red. Again, Bogner style mids. Red will do modern high gain, maybe not the most brutal but I'm the wrong person to ask about that. Either 80s or Red depending on the pickup will do a really nice moded Marhsall type high gain. Garry Moore, Van Halen, Guns, whatever. Generally it's a little thicker sounding than those reference tones. Lots of nice texture with the presence and treble high.

Overall, I'd say this is the nicest sounding rock amp I own. I'm gigging it over my JP2C, my X88IR/SM100R rack, and my synergy rack although I like all of those as well. It sits in a mix nicely. It seems to record easily at least room miced. I haven't gotten to close-micing experiments yet but I don't expect trouble.

Great review

 

[Anje]

Thanks for sharing, great review.

Those look like great amps; I've thought about getting a Bogner again for some time, used to have a fantastic early custom handwired 100B that I wish I still had.
The Blue channel especially on that old amp was something else; and this still is the only multichannel amp I've played I would put on par with my old vintage amps in the feel & tone department.

 

[Rackman]

Nice! The guitars their custom shop is making these days are really good. I'll bet the Alnico II Pros do go well with both the guitar and amp. They're one of my favorite Duncans.

Yeah. This is the first Casey Crabtree guitar I've ever held, and I'm really impressed. I don't know how it compares to the Neal Moser ones which I've never played, but it's the nicest made guitar I've ever owned. I just wish it had stainless fretwork.

The Alnico II Pros seem to mate up well with a mid-heavy body with that thick cap. Their high end extension helps with the dark nature of the Bogner too.

 

[Rackman]

I love these amps and really dig both versions.Owned a ton of amps over the years but none better than these.
Glorious tones can be found if you have the patience to figure what works for your situation. The master volume is great so it can do a lot at low volume in full power.

View attachment 450806

Just had to one-up me I have not had an opportunity to play the 104GV but I'm interested. I don't think interested enough to buy both though.

The master is REALLY good. On channels 1, 2 and 3 you can go exceptionally quiet even in 100w mode. 0/Purple I feel like needs a bit more output, but still not earth shaking by any means. But the low strings don't sound quite right until you turn it up a bit and the preamp distortion smooths out.

I use the global master as an overall level set, and then the analog block of the Eventide as my volume control while playing. I've got a 0dB to -30dB cut on a foot treadle.

 

[itsme]

I assume Presence is on the back?

 

[Rackman]

I assume Presence is on the back?

Yes, and it only affects channels 2 and 3. I guess 1/Green and 0/Purple get fixed values.

I think some of the difficulty of dialing purple may be that the presence is set lower than I would set it.

 

[Jccobb2]

Toying with the idea of upgrading from a 101b, but it’ll cost 2k out of pocket. For that I could buy a JB45 and get all those zero channel tones in a whole new amp…

 

[PBGas]

Really like this amp! Thx for the review and for your impressions!
May have to look at getting one at some point. The midi part was something I was hoping for on this model and it's great to see that Reinhold finally added it.

 

[chris lykins]

Is the zero the same as the jb45?
I dig my 101b but have to say I'm tempted by the bv!

 

[thegame]

Bogner really should make a 1 channel 100w Ecstacy based on the blue channel alone. After all these years that still seems to be Bogner’s most beloved tone. Keep the amp feature rich with the various voicing switches and perhaps some additional ideas but again, limit the scope to fundamentally a one channel Blue.

 

[Anje]

Yes, I would be all in for a simpler focused one channel true early 100B or Fish amp.
I wonder how the Helios is close to that btw?

 

[Jakem]

View attachment 450783

So I've played a couple gigs, a jam, and a few rehearsals with it at this point. Plus of course recorded for the neo-soul competition. It's still new-ish, but I've used it enough to have an opinion.

First off a couple global things. Yes, it's damn expensive - sucks, but there it is. Like all Ecstasy models, it's dark sounding. The presence seems happiest about 3:00 although the presence vs. highs tradeoff is still something I'm experimenting with. The highs pots are log pots it seems like, so most of the response is between about 2:00 and max, which is where they live. It looks odd, but it's the way the amp works.

The loop is good. Transparent. Hot, with no level controls. I don't think you want to be running some BOSS pedal. Pro rack gear is fine. I'm running an Eclipse in the loop with a 300ms digital delay set at 14% wet and its analog block mapped for MIDI volume control. Works good, no integration issues.

MIDI is the biggest quality of life improvement on this amp. Awesome to have and has been foolproof with a small RJM comtroller.

The front panel master is post-loop. Nice. Sounds good.

The amp overall is tweaky - lots of switches and knobs provide both pre- and post-EQ. I don't think it's hard to dial, but there is some dialing to be done and the controls are pretty interactive.

The channel number scheme is, sadly, retarded. In order of gain from lowest to highest the channels are:
1, 0, 2, 3
In order on the face of the amp they are:
1, 0, 3, 2
And on the footswitch they are:
1, ZERO (spelled out), 2, 3

WFT? No big deal, and the engineer in me likes the idea of zero indexed channels, but they should be in gain order. This is just short bus material. Of course with the MIDI controller I'm looking at preset #s and don't have to worry about it.

Now the channels:
Channel Green/1 (Clean) - Sounds good. Since purple/zero channel is harder to dial and they share an EQ, you're going to end up dialing that and taking what you get on green. Which is fine - it sounds good when purple sounds good. It has two modes - vaguely fendery or sort of a "boutique" more mid heavy clean. It seems to be pickup dependent which is better but it's pretty obvious for any given pickup. I set it for clean cleans, but there is a gain pot if you want some breakup. You can do jazz neck humbucker cleans here fine. You can do funk.

Channel Purple/0/ZERO (Blues Breakup) : I set this for SRV sounds which is on the low end of the gain range. It works good. This is the new innovation relative to the 101B/Aniversary/Pandora and I'm here for it. With a bridge single coil/tap/parallel mode it also gives a stones type vibe. This is the hardest channel to dial but I have managed to get what I want with a wide variety of pickups. I use it almost entirely with single coils/split/parallel but it does do OK with buckers for sort of an old Gibson in the delta sounding thing.

Channel Blue/2 (Mid-gain Rock) : This channel is configurable - you can make it a blue, a red, or plexi mode. I use it in blue. It does the mid-gain master volume Marshall type thing, but with typical Bogner mids. It's comfortable for rhythm or lead with a wide range of pickups without setup changes. Cover band rock songs you're going to live here a lot. The leads are really nice, not totally over the top. It works best to dial the EQ for channel 3 and take what you get on channel 2. That hasn't been a problem - they're related enough that if red sounds good blue does too. The opposite is not necessarily true.

Channel Red/3 (High-gain Rock) : This also has options - blue (same as above), red, or 80s. Red and 80s sound similar to my ears, but Red has more gain and more bass. Which you're going to use depends on the guitar. You can get very similar sounds at the high end of the gain pot in 80s or 2:00 on Red. Again, Bogner style mids. Red will do modern high gain, maybe not the most brutal but I'm the wrong person to ask about that. Either 80s or Red depending on the pickup will do a really nice moded Marhsall type high gain. Garry Moore, Van Halen, Guns, whatever. Generally it's a little thicker sounding than those reference tones. Lots of nice texture with the presence and treble high.

Overall, I'd say this is the nicest sounding rock amp I own. I'm gigging it over my JP2C, my X88IR/SM100R rack, and my synergy rack although I like all of those as well. It sits in a mix nicely. It seems to record easily at least room miced. I haven't gotten to close-micing experiments yet but I don't expect trouble.

Great review, thanks! This was a nice read for a 101B owner. I love Your top quality rack rig as well!