Pucho812 - Yeah I love Fender amps, I truly do, and the Vibro King is just sublime. The natural vibrato out of that thing with Jensen airy speaker vibe going on in tandem is so wonderful. But at least for the type of sounds I want to get, Fender amps to me are always just one sound. It is a truly pristine sound, and just magnificent at what it does, but I find it gives me the same dillema as it's alter ego, the Marshall stack does - it just suffers a similar limitation. To me this is where Boogie is at its best. Two truly wonderful sounds. Maybe not either of them perfect replicas of Fenders and Marshall's, but really pleasing to me and I have owned and tried to make many different amps along the way.
Oh and as I ramble here (forgive me
), there is another consideration about Fender amps that I forgot to throw in. - Finding the right one that works for you can truly be something of a black art. The reason for this is because there are just so many different versions and sadly I have learnt like others have learnt, that you need to try many of them till you decide which one is right for you. By contrast, up until more recent times, Mashalls only ever really came in 2 kinds - old school vintage (eg plexi, jtm45) or modern higher gain (eg jcm800/900). A player got to choose between a 50w or 100w, but even with those the difference between the 50 and 100 was not all that large. One had only slightly more headroom before the power tubes started to party and other let the power tubes start the party slightly earlier! In essence, this meant that you always knew what you were going to hear or "feel" with a Marshall amp. Fenders on the other hand simply have so many different iterations and they all "feel" different, they really do! I mean there are Deluxe Reverbs, Bassmans, Tweed Deluxes, Super Reverbs, Princetones, Twin Reverbs, Vibro Kings, Bandmasters, Champs etc the list just keeps going on and on. Then there are blackface and silverface versions and then modern re-issues of both of those as well. The iconic Twin Reverb for instance must have at least six different versions floating around from originals to current re-issue. Sure there are ostensibly two main Fender themes going on, cranked tweed or chimey lots of headroom blackface sound, but really each model of Fender amp has a different feel to it, not just in sound, but how it "feels" when it breaks up and what speaker configuration it comes with.
Now back on my Boogie love - as for Boogie as a company, I think the success of the Rectifier series amongst the hard rock scene was so epic, particularly from that 90's and 2000's "nu metal" scene, that sadly it put Boogie in a very stereotyped corner. It's name has become associated with that chainsaw grindy modern heavy metal sound. Sadly this kind of typecasts boogies to only this tone when really, the Mark Series is a true vintage classic and newer designs like Lonestars can replicate absolutely beautiful vintage tones but with a lot of other benefits. I just think that for me, putting a Mark Series Boogie against many other high price amps often revealed to me how much I loved the Boogie over a lot of those others.
In its crudest sense, the reason I dig Boogies is because they feel and sound to me like a fender amp that has been massively hotrodded with extra gain stages. When I look at the circuit topography their schematics show this hotrodded fender platform- where as a lot of the other boutique channel switching amps are mostly Marshalls as a baseline with hotrodded circuits added on.
Insomniaclown - I have an idea for you. Given your move and the impending separation betwen you with your amp, and given the context of this web forum - WHY NOT BUILD AN AMP?
I reckon this is the perfect time for you to do it. There are so many great designs out there, and you can build one combining all the sounds you want. Maybe a blackface clean channel, a JCM800 middle, and Mark IV or Dual Rect lead channel? Theres so many projects out there on the net its impossible to not find anything you need. Oh, and do come on a holiday to Australia when you can!
