Joined
·
1,882 Posts
I have had a lot of amps in the past 5 years. Most of them haven't lasted more than a couple of months with me for one reason or another (didn't like it, changed bands etc). This has left me pretty disillusioned with amps in general. I've always wanted a high gain amp that was capable of higher gain marshall tones and a GOOD clean channel in one package. Not too modern but not to old school either. Well, I may have found that amp in the Bogner Shiva.
The clean channel is great...it's not the stiff, lifeless clean you find on most high gain, el34 amps. It's beautiful with equal parts marshall, vox and fender (really...it's hard to nail down the sound as just "fender" or something) feels great, has tonnes of head room if you want it and breaks up nicely as the master is pushed. It has lots of charachter, depth, bounce a sparkle...I don't if that means anything or not but it's good.
The gain channel has a great versatility to it. I don't know why someone would say it's dark (mines not a 2006 with the bright switch...it's older) because it's not. It's not icepicky or thin like many amps but it's not dark! Highs are seated right where they ought to be IMHO. Lots of gain on tap and this channel can feel really agressive or sort of vintagy depending on how it's set. Just lovely. Cleans up pretty well too with my strat. I spent most of my 5 hours with this amp on the gain channel using the volume pot and occasionally hitting to boost for some extra gain.
Suprisingly the amp is not very loud...80 watts and it feels less loud at noon than my DRRI does at 5 (and the drri has a new speaker, bright cap clipped and NOS tubes to darken it up...but it must still be a frequency thing). It's a great feeling amp...not too easy to play but not to hard either. Just right. For me it's as close to perfect as I care to spend money to get. Maybe a CAEOD100 is a better fender/marshall amp but the Shiva is so good that I don't care to look. The Master Volume works really well too...played it last night at noon for an hour just to let the amp make it's best first impression but played with it at 9 oclock for 3 hours this morning and i was still loving it.
The clean channel is great...it's not the stiff, lifeless clean you find on most high gain, el34 amps. It's beautiful with equal parts marshall, vox and fender (really...it's hard to nail down the sound as just "fender" or something) feels great, has tonnes of head room if you want it and breaks up nicely as the master is pushed. It has lots of charachter, depth, bounce a sparkle...I don't if that means anything or not but it's good.
The gain channel has a great versatility to it. I don't know why someone would say it's dark (mines not a 2006 with the bright switch...it's older) because it's not. It's not icepicky or thin like many amps but it's not dark! Highs are seated right where they ought to be IMHO. Lots of gain on tap and this channel can feel really agressive or sort of vintagy depending on how it's set. Just lovely. Cleans up pretty well too with my strat. I spent most of my 5 hours with this amp on the gain channel using the volume pot and occasionally hitting to boost for some extra gain.
Suprisingly the amp is not very loud...80 watts and it feels less loud at noon than my DRRI does at 5 (and the drri has a new speaker, bright cap clipped and NOS tubes to darken it up...but it must still be a frequency thing). It's a great feeling amp...not too easy to play but not to hard either. Just right. For me it's as close to perfect as I care to spend money to get. Maybe a CAEOD100 is a better fender/marshall amp but the Shiva is so good that I don't care to look. The Master Volume works really well too...played it last night at noon for an hour just to let the amp make it's best first impression but played with it at 9 oclock for 3 hours this morning and i was still loving it.