Herbert, VH4, XTC, Uberschall - review/comparison

nbarts

New member
I guess I should start with that these are very different animals. Bogner XTC 101B with no doubt is the most versatile head I’ve ever had to deal with & very complex. I really can not picture somebody demoing it in the store; hell, it took me about an hour only to figure out what is what on this amp. If a studio owner asked me for a single head to cover a wide variety of music (pop/jazz/blues/rock/metal/etc), I would recommend an XTC 101B without hesitating for a second. I find it difficult to imagine something that it won’t do. That said I find myself reaching for 101B very rarely next to my other amps. There is something sweet & unique about the Diezels & the Uberschall that tends to draw my attention, for me the sweet channel of 101B is the clean channel, I can't get enough of it.

I’m gonna compare all the 4 amps at once so I don’t have to come back to this again.

Bogner Uberschall Blue Revision - Stock Chinese 12AX7s / JJ EL34s (preferred pickups: EMG81s)
Bogner XTC 101B 2008 - Stock Chinese 12AX7s / JJ EL34s (preferred pickups: Duncan ‘59/JB)
Diezel Herbert Second Revision - Penta Labs 12AX7s / 4 SED EL34s & 2 JJ E34Ls (preferred pickups: Burstbuckers, 490/498)
Diezel VH4 2007 - TAD 12AX7s / TAD EL34s (preferred pickups: Classic 57s, 490/498)

My comparison will be for studio performance & not live playing. I’ve tested my amps with various Bogner & Mesa (1x12, 2x12, 4x12) cabinets & I always like how they glue with Bogner cabinets. I really like to have V30s mixed with some other speakers to get the best out of them, I especially like EVM12L & V30s combination.

Cleans & not only:

101B Channel 1 - Clean channel on XTC can go from fender tweed cleans (which sounds mind blowing good with the nicest top end I’ve ever heard; you can find great instructions how to dial the amp on Bogner amp forum) to dirty cleans & a few other variations of clean tones all sounding from amazing to good & non less (imagine 3 pre EQ settings + boost + 3 different variations of excursion (tight/medium/loose) on each channel, these features already make your head spin & yet in addition to this plexi mod, old/new style, A/AB switch if you get the option! I’ll be honest with you, there are a lot of sounds in this head that I’m not even aware of, it can take forever to explore it).

VH4 Channel 1 - VH4 cleans are not really clean cleans, the channel breaks up pretty fast. I found VH4 to be very specially voiced amp on all the 4 channels, that’s where its strong point is, this amp sounds like a grown up musician in his 60s, calm, but experienced, not aggressive, but can kick the young man’s butt if he has to. VH4 is an amazing addition to any studio, especially if you already have another amp or two; it blends with other amps wonderfully. VH4 is very very tight, I haven’t experienced this even with VHT amps, which are tight as hell & dryer than the Diezels. If you mute the strings, expect a full stop; I don’t know how, it’s like there is a short attack & release noise gate, only there isn’t one! VH4 comes to live with master high & I mean it; 2-3:00 is the sweet spot for me. Cleans go from somewhat gritty cleans to a little breakup cleans. You could sit down I play this channel & feel like you had an acoustic guitar in your hands; some cool arpeggios, some blues, some classical, some strumming - all sound non less than amazing & tight & if you have a good sounding guitar you will notice the wood, as you would with an acoustic guitar. If I was sitting home & wanted to enjoy playing some clean electric guitar, VH4 ch1 is what I’d be turning on. Compared to 101B this sounds nothing alike, but mixed together they blow my mind.

Herbert Channel 1 - Herbert cleans have incorporated some modern cleans in the tone. This is a true clean channel with some tweedish vibe with a distant voicing/grit of the old man (VH4). This is the disciple of the VH4, young, a lot of energy, aggressive & in some way this is like the pupil has become the master, only the old man can kick the young man’s butt if he has to :) . At about 8-9:00 you get some woody cleans, very big lows, real LP big cleans, nice jazz sound, great rock, metal ballad sound, all around super big cleans that will clearly stay out of the way of vocals & drums. NICE! Go around 12:00 & you get a lot of bite & iron. Experiment with highs & mids in both gain stages & you’ll get a lot of cool clean sounds. Midcut feature gives additional variety of tones, I keep finding more & more with different EQ & midcut settings, the midcut on Herbert is really not one day job to comprehend. Compared to VH4 & XTC, Herbert cleans are exactly in the middle of the two IMO. The clean channel of any of these 3 amps is a work of art, I personally have never heard cleans as good as these, whether live or recorded & I’m not talking about metal or rock sound only.

Uberschall Channel 1 - Uberschall cleans are really not voiced to be used as a clean channel as far as I’m concerned. This channel was voiced to run pedals with it & since I don’t use pedals (besides of EQs & WAHs) I can’t really tell how good it is. However you can get some nice rock cleans out of it & with the right guitar it can sound pretty damn good & warm. I’ve tried to clean boost this channel to get into the blues territory & it didn’t sound good at all. Next to the other 3 amps this channel will possibly sound bigger, however it is not even in the same league to compare IMO.


Channel 2

Blue Channel 101B – this is a channel with a very special voicing, which can go from mild dirty to blues dirty, rock & all the way to metal dirty riffing if you want. It sounds very romantic as well as probably every channel of 101B does (for lack of a better word). I bet people who solo a lot would dig 101B ch2 & 3 big time. Put some delay with a good player soloing on it & it will probably make you shed a few tears. Ch2 has a very smooth distortion to it, although it can get really dirty, it’s not really aggressive & is pretty loose. I find this channel voiced very smart, it is not a channel that will get lost in the mix, but also will stay out of the way of vocals. I find this as an important quality, because mixes sound wider this way & guitars surround vocals, instead of forcing you to bring them down in the mix & sound far or in the back. Again having excursion with 3 modes will just make your head spin. I have to say that running 101B with Mesa Traditional 4x12 with v30s was a nightmare, it wasn’t really able to handle this beast, half of excursion settings were useless with this cabinet. It’s a totally different experience running it with a Bogner cabinet.

VH4 Channel 2 – this is the single do it all Diezel channel, dirty cleans, blues, rock crunch, metal riffing & all of it using one gain knob. It’s more dynamic than ch3 & ch4.
Although this channel is very versatile & it can do many things, it does it in its special VH4 way, this is not the usual guitar sound you’re used to hear on the radio. Compared to the 101B blue channel this is very different, although there are some very distant similarities. VH4 is dry, tight, not mid heavy; 101B is the opposite. I really liked the blues sound of this channel. To avoid any confusion it doesn’t sound like classic American blues sound at all, it’s very innovative blues channel that has 21st century voicing with vintage vibe to it. If a blues band performed using this channel it would sound killer & it would be difficult to pass around it without a notice. This channel can be easily used in pop music, where vocal & beats play a big role, it would be a nice track for a mixing engineer to work with, transparent & present. It is also a great rock channel & not extreme heavy metal. For styles like alternative/progressive (is that what they call it?) I would more gravitate towards Herbert ch2.

Herbert Channel 2 – in “-“ position - There is some serious variety of tones here. Gain below 9:00 for some great clean tones, go above for some slight breakup, get a light crunch at noon. Now turn the gain to 2-3:00-ish & discover one of the greatest tones that can be had on this channel, beautiful Marshall 800 like crunch with good deal of highs, just all around great crunchy sound to fit many styles. Stunning sound, seriously! Do ballads, rock, metal, whatever. The cleans on this channel sound wider than the ch1 cleans, which works very well by mixing the 2 of them together. “+” position goes from rock crunch to heavy metal, very brutal & transparent at the same time, smooth & wide. You can do a lot on this channel, it can cover all kinds of music & whatever you do you are not going to sound like the millions of other bands you’ve been hearing for the last 50 years & yes, this is the reason I like the Herbert over any other amplifier I’ve tried. Again, the midcut feature gives additional variety of tones & again, I keep finding more & more with different EQ & midcut settings. Still I keep coming back to noon on pretty much everything, with midcut intensity from 8:00-11:00. The sweet spot to me master around 11:00-12:00. Compared to the other 2 amps this is nothing similar, the only thing that makes it a little similar to VH4 CH2 is being a Diezel, other than that this is a different territory IMO. Next to 101B & VH4 I wouldn’t use this channel for blues. EVM12L & v30 combination is your friend here.

Uberschall Channel 2 - the king of nu-metal riffs with scooped sound, only you achieve this by NOT scooping the mids, instead you roll down the presence. You can try this with both Diezels & XTC & you will probably get somewhat close, but not really there. This channel rivals with some beautiful mids & low mids with extreme saturation. I remember reading somewhere that Uberschall dirty channel is like you have your car stuck on the last gear & that’s probably the best description of this channel. Whatever you do there is this chunk of gain accompanying you & amazingly the amp stays defined despite of it. This is a true very dirty, aggressive & loose metal channel, I wouldn’t even think of using it for anything else, which brings Bogner Uberschall being the most expensive amplifier out of all four, comparing them by price/versatility ratio, but no doubt it’s a very special metal machine. The sweet spot to me master around 12:00. This channel is more comparable to Ch3 Herbert, Ch3 101B & Ch4 VH4, it’s a lot more loose than the other 3. 101B with excursion set to L is starting to hit near this territory, but doesn’t get the type of saturation, aggressiveness & thump that Uberschall has. Herbert can get just as aggressive as the Uberschall, but tighter & they are just plain different whether you like it or not. VH4 Ch4 gets insanely saturated like the Uberschall with some good full mids, but the tightness of the VH4 is the exact opposite to the looseness of the Uberschall.


Channel 3

Red Channel 101B – this channel is slightly different voiced ch2 with more gain, enough different to make it aggressive & tight metal channel or a great lead channel. Trust me you won’t need to boost it with pedals; you most likely won’t even go over 1:00 on this channel. With all that said I find Ch3 of 101B pretty boring next to my other amps.

VH4 Channel 3 – I've been on & off with this channel since the first day with VH4. If you were to play really tight & dry this channel would be your definite friend, crank up the master & rock on, otherwise I prefer Ch4 with gain below 9:00. I can definitely hear some distant Marshall sound coming from ch3 & 4. VH4 ch3 is definitely designed as a rhythm channel, more low end, more forward, more tightness, very defined sound. You could easily use it as a lead channel too.

Herbert Channel 3 – All I can say here is WOW!! Man, I’ve heard many lead tones in my life, but this is just unbelievable. I put time factor in the loop & solo for hours and I hate soloing. Liquid lead tones with 498T just sound mind blowing, endless sustain, crunch, violin … every good quality I can think of for a great lead channel is here. Plays easy, sounds the way you have to hear yourself to believe it. Herbert channel 3 can be used both as an aggressive rhythm channel or lead channel. It can be very aggressive, loose or tight, depending on your settings, very responsive to the set of pickups you are driving it with. I remember running it with JB with Daddario 12-54s on the guitar & it sounded so tight it was frightening; I haven’t heard anything like this anywhere else in my life. Powerful low end of the Herbert makes this channel very interesting to me. Compared to ch2 it doesn’t sounds as full & wide, which makes sense, since this is a lead channel, but it seems to bring some beautiful midrange into the game, which can be really appealing. I have to say I prefer the feel of VH4 ch4 as a lead channel, however if you like more violin voiced soloing, Herbert is the amp that will make you happy. This is not a so-so lead channel, it is as killer as it gets. For less compressed, more romantic type of leads 101b (blue channel) might be a better choice sometimes, otherwise channel 3 Herbert is a higher level of clarity & tone compared to 101b ch3 IMO. For aggressive rhythm metal players channel 3 & channel 2 on this amp will probably outperform just about anything, this is the most aggressive metal sound I’ve ever experienced. It wouldn’t be my first choice for nu-metal loose type of sound, as loose as Herbert is, it is still tight, it’s loose compared to the VH4.

Channel 4

VH4 Channel 4 – The first time I’ve tried this channel (gain at noon) I thought there was no way I would ever use this, waaaaaay too much gain. A few days later I gave it another try & this time I brought down the gain set before 8:00. I plugged my Edwards with Gibson Classic 57 pickups & played a few riffs & I was hooked to this channel. This is probably as good and relentless as it gets & the same time transparent, what a work of art! If you’ve ever heard Cameron modified Marshalls with extreme gain, this sounds pretty close. This is also an amazing lead channel, probably one of the best.

101B Plexi - Plexi mod on channel 2 & 3 sound the same to me. Like the manual says the more you crank it up, the better it sounds. Clips on Bogner website represent this mode very nicely IMO.


A few things I wanted to add:

1. The way speaker outputs/jacks are on Diezels is great; very easy & fast to switch cabinets. With Bogners if I need to change the impedance I have to go back there & turn the impedance switch with a screwdriver, big mistake! Annoying & time consuming, plus I actually need a screwdriver!
2. Parallel loops on Diezels leave the tone almost untouched. When I add a delay it’s like I add a delay. Now when you add a delay to the 101B you notice a major change in the way the amp sounds, definitely needs improvement. I really like the thru jack (despite the fact that the quality is not that good) & the ability to control the level of the parallel loop in front of the VH4. Now with Herbert you will have to go dig in the back to control the level of your FX, like with a lot of other brands of amps, really not fun! Of course having another master volume makes up for it.
3. I like that Bogner includes footswitches for their amps, but midi compatibility of Diezel amps is something worth appreciation on stage.
4. The 2nd & the 3rd channel of the 101B share the same bass, mid, treble controls. Makes no sense to me, especially if you were to play the amp on a stage..
5. The weight – a major inconvenience of all the 4 amps. I feel bad for the guys who have to regularly drag these things around.
6. The ability to adjust bias for each pair & external bias points of the Herbert is a major plus.
7. Herbert is probably the best power amp I've ever tried & with all the features that this amp has I think you get a lot for what you pay.
 
The ultimate in German amp reviews bro. Glad you put it over here so all could keep up with it. Still haven't pulled the trigger on the Herbert yet, but your description of Ch3 made my loins quiver :LOL: :LOL: . As a matter of fact, my girlfriend is wearing my Herbert on her wrist in the the form of a Rolex :cry: .

Steve
 
As a matter of fact, my girlfriend is wearing my Herbert on her wrist in the the form of a Rolex :cry: .

Well, an owner of a 5K amp has no excuse to judge his girlfriend for a Rolex. ;)
 
wow, that was an excellent review man! Spot on in my experience, although I've yet to try a VH4. Have to say though, I love the red channel on the XTC 101B. Mine seems to have a lot more gain than Ch2, and is just perfect for a gain whore like myself. I have a blast on that channel, love the way the midrange snarls and swirls for big chords, where the notes seem to seperate and bloom. It's also probably one of my favorite lead amps ever, the notes just seem to pop out with such clarity and sustain. For a novice player like myself, it makes playing leads a joy. Probably not everyone's taste, but man what a blast for someone like me. The only lead channel comparable IMO is the Herbert ch3, although very different. You covered it very well in your review. Great info, thanks! :thumbsup:

now I want a VH4 too though. :doh: :D
 
Grr.....Wish I could play these amps. :D Only amp I had a chance to play was a VH4, and I had to sit like a foot away from the cab with both volumes on 8:00. I'm going into Wichita, KS tomorrow to return some shit, hope I see a Bogner or a Diezel while I'm there. I'm taking my Les Paul and Mark IV to trade for it. JUST IN CASE. :D
 
With the VH4, add the Kruse Kontrol DeKompression mod and everything good is better, seriously. Some of the killer tones and dynamics that really come to life when opened up you can attain with the amp just barely on.
 
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