Bugera G5 Infinium

The new Bugera G5 amp has more features than you´ll ever need!

T h e b u i l t i n P O W E R S O A K

First of all it has 5 watts of tube power, but has a built in power soak where you can switch it down to 1 watt or even 0.1 watt. That is very useful if you want to practice at low volumes at home. I play it mostly on one watt at home and use it with my Palmer 1x12 cabinet which is loaded with a Celestion Greenback speaker.

T H E C L E A N C h a n n e l

The clean channel sounds very beautiful, crystal clear and stays clean even if you drive it hard, depending on the pickups of your guitar. If you set it to 0.1 watt, you can drive it to a crunch sound. The reverb sounds fantastic, but be careful not to raise the reverb level too high or you might sound as if you play in a cathedral. The clean channel can be shaped with one several tone control, which works very well, you won´t miss a three band EQ.

T H E O V E R D R I V E C h a n n e l

The overdrive channel might be the reason why most people buy this amp. I would describe the sound of the OD channel as hot rodded "marshallish". But is has its own character. It can be shaped by a three band EQ and the special Morph EQ which shapes the midrange and helps you to realize more British or American style tones. I mostly use it on the UK side with my Les Paul (about 3 o´clock on the dial), with my Strat I often turn it to noon.
I play mostly rock or hard rock from AC/DC to Led Zep. to Guns and Roses or even 80s metal and it does a good job for this kind of music.


T H E E X T R A S of the Bugera - and the "I N F I N I U M" Technology


It comes with a well built footswitch, which can be used to go from the clean channel to the od. channel and to switch the reverb on and off.
It has a line out which can be used for recording (if you connect the head to a mixer or interface) or you can use it with headphones.
You can put the amp on standby, when used with headphones: This will mute the speaker cabinet and you can practice even at night without annoying your neighbours.
The infinium tube LED at the back of the head will indicate if your power tube has to be changed. If you have to change the power tube, you can just simply put the new tube in and the amp will do the biasing automaticly.
The G5 uses one ECC83a tube in the preamp and a 12BH7 tube in the power amp section.
I haven´t used the FX loop so far. The amp has a line in which can be used to connect the head to your MP3player/device so that you can practice to your music. The only point I have to criticize is that the amp produces an unpleasant smell when getting hot, for example if you have used it very long. But this is getting better and I think the smell will disappear in a few weeks and won´t bother me any longer.
Overall I´m very satisfied with the Bugera.

Edit: I have it for 5 weeks now and the unpleasant smell has disappeared completely! I´m still very happy with this amp!

I was waiting for this amp for 5 weeks or so... No blaim at Thomann. It was worth waiting.
First time Bugera buyer. I only had transistors in my life (line 6, marschal, fender, Peavey)
As I stacked in 80's ! and I love thrash metal, I have been constantly struggle to archive decent tone on budget. It's over now!
This amp is great. I get close to Killem All/Never Neverland/Peace sells kind of tones - but not quite there. There was a lack of last touch!
To boost crunch channel I use Deamon Tube screamer (cheap as chips) in the front of amp, 10 band EQ (Donner Seeker) and Rowin Noise Gate (another cheap pedal of Amazon) FX LOOP - after tweaking everything I am so happy with the tone! To make it even better I have added TCe Mimiq Doubler (I know - in mono is bit overkill the purpose - but it makes a difference and makes me even happier - you won't really need it - and it's bit priceyyyy)
To archive 90's tone I have added TC Fangs Metal (another great cheap pedal) and bingo - Master of Puppets, Rust in peace, Black Album and more ....
To get a modern metal I am using Behringer UM300 (cheap cheap cheap) modern, distord ... Not a big fan of it (might be a reason of sufficient performance for this genres)
I am mainly using for old school thrash kind of metal, and my chain looks like: guitar with Seymour Duncan Distortion Mayhem- Deamon Tube screamer - Bugera G5 - EQ 10 band - Noise Gate - back to Bugera G5 - Harley Benton G112 Vintage - AWESOME !!
Clean channel - very simple, I have added chorus pedal and is ok - I don't care ! Who cares ! ;)
This amp is build great, heavy and sturdy. Feels solid and looks fantastic! Added footswitch is surprisingly good quality (heavy and sturdy) but with bit lack of button feel when stomping...

Negative things I have found:
* Small tiny imperfections in finish (tolex in some corners - very minor thing)
* Quality check missing ( one screw on a side was half way out, same thing with footswitch, one screw loose at the bottom of unit)
* Lack of this final bite in tone without boosting

No regrets of buying it, lot of features (FX loop, attenuator, cab sim for headphones or recording, standby for silence practice and even line in for backing tracks) and all that for under £200 !! What else you need ! It's fantastic for this price! It's coming with European power plug... However... Thomann gifted me UK plug for free! (Kettle type cord) Thank you Thomann! (Great service btw)

This review could be much longer......

If you want play metal on budget - get Line 6 Spider 4 15W for home practice (£40 second hand) and enjoy music. However, if you looking to upgrade/evolve to next step while still maintaining budget - GET THIS THING!
Thanks for reading

All the best for all musicians around the world!

I never owned a Bugera amplifier before this wonderful device and after ten days of use I can confirm the great choice I've made.
The built quality is really high-grade: materials, components, manufacturing, assembly are conform with top brands.
I also own Marshall, Laney, Roland and Vox amplifiers and this Bugera G5 is perfectly in line with those acclaimed brands.

Features are incredible; there is nothing more one may ask to an amplifier: two channels, reverb unit, UK/US morphing feature, an effective EQ, effect loop, bundled foot-switch for channel selection and reverb On/Off, line input, emulated output/headphone (1x12 and 4x12), 5W/1W/0.1W power attenuator, Tube Life Multiplier technology and auto biasing system.

And what's more, it's a full tube amp!

Sound palette is astonishing: one can choose between a really clear clean channel and a very powerful overdrive channel, playing with an infinite set of intermediate sound configurations. Noise is very well controlled and the output power flexibility gives this amp the capability to be used for home recording, practicing and rehearsal sessions as well.

Both pre-input and in-loop effects are well handled: I prefer to use OD / DIST stompboxes before the input socket but placing them on the FX Loop gives a great sound flexibility (this amp also has a level switch to accomodate the signal level of stompboxes and rack unit EFX).

At the end, the overall rating of this amp (taking into account its target price) is top level!
I know this is a cheap replica of another tube amplifier head but the implementation quality of Bugera is really surprising.

UPDATE after a month of use: I confirm my absolutely positive opinion and with a 12" cabinet loaded with a Fender-Eminence speaker the voice of my Bugera is simply astonishing!!!

This amp head is excellent for the price and solid quality. I played bands in college, a few of my friends broke and are world famous musicians. I am still at that intermediate advance stage, small gigs with buddy,s (Bugera V22). I wanted a practice amp that is loud enough for practice, but retains the exact 5 Watt sound at 1 and .01 watt. You can practice, write and really dig in at 1 watt and be able to hear what a 22watt amp head will sound like, and don’t get that “too loud” knock on the practice, sound studio door.
If you are looking for a tube practice amp, that can get loud, but emulate loud at 0.1 watts, this is the amp for you, great support too!

1) The components are not of the highest quality.
For example - the Treble/Mid/Bass pots all require a bit different force to move them. Not a big deal, but leaves an impression of a budget product, which this is.

2) To my ears, the tone is useable only if the morph pot is all the way in the "USA" section.

3) Clean tone is good enough, I have absolutely no complaints here.

4) The tone changes quite a bit depending on the amount of gain you have. Which is to be expected.

Small amount of gain produces a very thin tone in my opinion. But I am sure it can be compensated by playing with the EQ a bit.

Tone gets much better with full gain, but then you get...too much gain :)

I have managed to find a tone I fully enjoy with the gain on 3/4 of the way and by tweaking the EQ section.

5) Reverb is digital, but sounds good. Having the ability to switch it on/off with a standard footswitch is an amazing feature.

CONCLUSION:
If you want a metal amp with lots of features for a small amount of money - I fully recommend this product. Even without an overdrive pedal, it produces a great sounding (but not very tight) distorted sound. And for 5 watts it is VERY loud :)

I did a lot of research before taking he decision to buy the Bugera. It is not a mainstream brand at the moment however the brand is making serious efforts in producing good products. I Paired this amp head with a Jenson 10" speaker and I have to say the sound is great. On Clean channel it is very crisp and sustains well. On Drive it produces the distortion one would expect, nothing fancy but the classic distortion which you hear everywhere. I use the Reverb a lot as well which is subtle yet useful. I have been using it for 6 months now everyday and for the money it is more than worth it. it is also very well finished in terms of esthetics.
So far the only improvement I would like to have is to save the preference to switch on on Drive channel straightaway as opposed to have to enable it every time you turn on. however the pedal for reverb and gain is handy. I suggest one also buys the cover for it as it looks stylish and found it useful to protect from dust.

For the money I don't think you can get anything in the same quality level.

This is my very first guitar amp head, and I can say that it was worth the investment. You have a very nice clean warm tone, and with a bit of reverb you can quite reach a 'real', studio sound (I paired this with the Buger 112TS) . The drive channel is also nice and you can go from blues, crunch tones up to quite metal sounds. Recently I've been using it with several effects in the fx chain, and with a simple distortion pedal you can even reach quite djent-ish tones (I was also interested in getting such type of tones).
Pros:
-nice tones on both channels
-stand-by switch
-the 3 power switch which allows you to let your cool neighbors to sleep and the less cool to party all night long
-footswitch included
Cons:
-maybe the reverb sound a bit odd (to me) if you turn it above 12 o'clock, but is totally usable (you usually don't need that much)

Almost perfect amp, feature/price ratio is unbeatable.
For aggressive tones I lacks a bit of push when compared to Blackstar HT1R, but I believe it is just lacking blackstar's solid-state part, which is easily compensated with pedals.
With built-in Attenuator set to minimal 0.1Watt the sound gets muddy, but this allows to play at levels of a bedroom with other people sleeping in it! I haven't seen any other amp attenuating to 0.1Watt! With attenuator set to 1Watt the sound is much more clear.
I have no complaints about quality, but my use case is just to set it on the cabinet at home once and for all.
Clean channel is just there, nothing to be impressed with, without the 3 band eq even for the pedals use I prefer setting gain somewhere at minimum and still use overdrive channel.
One annoying thing is that when you switch it on it won't remember the channel set before and fall back to clean with reverb.
All in all, for the price you pay it's a no-brainer.

This little amp does everything I could possibly want from a small amp, and even the attenuator is very well executed.

General equalizer, reverb, and "Morph" control knob for crunch and clean channel, gain and tone knob, and volume control for clean channel. The tone knob is the same as the tone knob on Les Paul.

The reverberation in the amplifier is digital. It sounds fine for short tails, but for anything else I'd prefer an external delay pedal. I'm just not crazy about the digital reverb on this device.

About Morph control ... it's not something new in the world of amplifiers, but it works well here. Turn left and get a more modern American Peavey 5150 sound, at the same time when we turn the knob to the right and get a sound like Marshall. But don't be fooled - this is not a Peavey 5150 and not MESA BOOGIE TRIPLE RECTIFIER or a MARSHALL JCM800 ... it just sounds like them.






The footswitch included with this amp is the only thing I don't like, not to say that it doesn't work at all, no just it's not as comfortable as on other amps. The pedal controls channel selection and reverb. Just you will feel that you still have another ... BEHRINGER.

The back of the amp has an effects loop I haven't tried yet, a power attenuator for 5 watts, 1 watt, or 0.1 watts (awesome!). It works really well and I can finally play in my bedroom on normal sound. There is also a line-out, speaker output, and Cabinet emulation. The idea here is to use the Bugera G5 Infinium for recording or monitoring in headphones.

This amp will stay in my bedroom and plugged into a 2x12 guitar Cabinet. I have Les Paul as well as Les Paul hollowbody. Every guitar loves this amp in my bedroom - although the P90 can get a little angular BUZZY. I am constantly satisfied with the sound that comes out of the overload channel with my Les Paul.

I was in the market for a practice amp and needed something small that sounded great.

PRACTICE AMP CONSIDERATIONS

For a practice amp, I have two main non-negotiable items that I needed, i) namely a line-in so that I can have backing tracks playing through the amp, and ii) a headphone out so that I can practice in quiet when the kids are sleeping.

There are quite a few solid-state combos that meet these requirements, although not that many solid-heads that do. However, I still recall the first time I played on a proper valve amp and the stupid grin shortly after I struck the first power chord and I was not going to go with anything other than a full valve amp.

So, when looking at valve amps, suddenly I needed a fx loop. If you wish to use the overdrive of your valve amp, it is preferable to plug in pedals after the signal has been overdriven, otherwise the effects just get muddied up. Once you start looking for a valve (or hybrid) amp, that have a line-in, headphone out and a fx loop, you may find that there are not that many options available.

I was pretty hesitant ordering this amp due to the Bugera's (admittedly older) reputation, but decided to give it a chance, since I could always return it and get a Marshall DSL5C (which also ticks all of the boxes).

FEATURES

This is one of the more feature-laden lower-wattage valve amps out there. I discussed most of the features above, except for the auto-biasing feature (Infinium). I can't really test this, but in theory, it should extend tube life, while also maintaining a consistent quality of tone during the various cycles of a tubes life. It will also allow the use of newer tubes (although they need to be the same type) without the need to have a tech bias them.

QUALITY

In any case, when it arrived, I was pleasantly surprised at the build quality. It is pretty sturdy and looks like a top notch product. I have not looked at the internals, but from the outside it looks just as well built as a Marshall.

SOUND

Yes, this amp can also elicit a stupid grin when playing power chords. I get great AC/DC sounds in 0.1W mode with a little bit of gain for the preamp and a lot of volume for the power amp. When I want 80s metal sounds, I turn up the gain and turn down the volume.

The clean channel works quite well at home, but I never pushed it to the max. I spend most of my time on the dirty channel and just control that with the volume pot which suits my needs perfectly.