Bogner Alchemist 212 Combo

It worked great in the store. It had to be on for at least 45 minutes and I never heard any hum and it never cut off with me. But when I brought it home its like something happened to it. I played it for about 15 minutes and it starts humming. So I make sure the tubes are plugged in good and I turn it back on. It then makes a loud hum, then a slight pop and there's no sound. The lights are on and the footswitch worked; so I have no idea what happened.

40/20 Watt tube amp with 5 12AX7-s in the preamp section and two 6L6-s in the power amp. Two channels with separate gain, volume and tone controls. Input character selection on both channels plus bright, deep and mid shift switches. Boost for both channels. Footswithable delay and reverb. Paralel effects loop. Two Celestion speakers: a Greenback 25 Watt and a G12H 30 Watt. Although a master volume could be useful still very versatile.

I'm a sound tech and i worked with bands using all kinds of amps including different Bogner amps (Ecstasy, ??berschall etc) Although this one is obviously different from those and also much cheaper being made in China still sounds very good to me. I don't want to go in details now coz i'm writing for a different reason. In general this amp has a nice singing tone, smooth highs and natural sounding low end response. Regardless of channel selection and settings you can hear your instrument's voice nicely and it responds well to the playing style too. Surprisingly good dynamics.

I didn't use it for long enough to tell.

Because it is made in China, it has the same customer support team that Line6 products have. I sent them an email because i wanted to know how to set the amount of boost a little higher but i didn't get any answer. Then i sent the same email to Bogner in America. I got a response almost immediately telling that Line6 can supply the necessary technical information. Then i sent another email to Line6 and also forwarded the message from Bogner to them. I still didn't get any answer from them.

I give an 8 only because the customer service is useless otherwise the amp itself would get a 10.

This amp is a 30W tube amp and is somewhat versatile. I bought it new from my local music store. It ranges well from clean breakup to heavy distortion. However, it is much better suited to a single coil pickup/strat than a Les Paul. It was next to impossible for me to get any clean headroom at volume with my 2008 LP standard. So, if you play a guitar with humbuckers and want a lot of clean headroom at volume this is not the amp for you. This amp has enough power for home use and a small club venue, but again you'll want to use a strat if you want clean headroom. It does get some great breakup and distortion sounds, but unfortunately I question it's reliability.

Once again I am using a 2008 LP Standard with Burstbucker pro pickups. They do tend to be a little hot, but all the advertisements for this amp claim sparkling cleans. I again found it hard to get any clean headroom unless I kept the amp volume low and backed way off on my guitar volume. This amp did have some great distortion and breakup sounds very Bogner like. For the price it has great boutique level tone. Distortion gets very high with high gain setting and has a nice growl to it. Once again I had bad experience with reliability.

This amp is not reliable. After less than an hour of home use with it it cut out on me and I could get no output at all. The front panel lights were all on, tubes were glowing, and the fuse was not blown, just no sound. I took it back to the store immediately and they couldn't explain it. They immediately exchanged it for an amp of another brand. I have since read similar reviews of this amp where this same problem occurs. For $1300 to $1500 quality and reliability should be A LOT better. I would not buy this amp again.

I didn't bother to call the company I just took it back as I could tell that it wasn't going to be an issue that could have been fixed without a great deal of hassle.

I have been playing guitar for over 30 years. I have owned many amps and guitars. I currently Play LP's and PRS and also have Mesa Boogie amps. Again it had good tone, but unfortunately tone is worthless if it is not a reliable amp.

Amp was made in 2009 brand new. I play many styles of music, rock, jazz, blues etc. so I need a versatile amp. This is a 2 channel tube amp with an effects loop. There are some nice tone shaping features. So far I have only used this amp for in home use. Did not have a chance to gig with it. Very little clean head room though. It gets a great breakup sound but at any reasonable volume you can't get a straight clean sound. Amp is not reliable. It died on me after an hour of light usage. Don't buy this amp. It's really a cheap Line 6 tube amp with Reinhold Bogner's name on it.

I am currently using a 2008 Les Paul Standard with "Burstbucker" Humbucker pickups. The amp fit my style and got some great breakup and distortion sounds, but it is just not worth the money in terms of reliability. If you spend an extra $200 to $300 you can get a much more reliable amp.

YOU CANNOT DEPEND ON THIS AMP DON"T BUY IT. I had it in my home and played lightly for about an hour and it just cut out and stopped working. I have since read other blogs with similar reports. DO NOT BUY!

Taking amp back ASAP not even bothering to call support. Once again this is a line 6 amp and support is all through line 6.

Very frustrating do not buy.

This is a brand new 2009 Bogner Alchemist 212 combo. I palayed it 8 hours in G.C. before the purchase. It covers everything I play, period. I had to enlist the help of a tech for about an hour to tweek it. I play a CCR show and a bevy of classic rock tunes. I've played for 41 years and played and owned almost everything out there including some hot rod stuff. I use a custom paul and several strats. Also, BLOCK (blues/rock). It's almost everything I wanted. A little more treble bite is preferred. It comes with a 12" greenback and a G12H30. Just a shade warm. Plenty of power. All tube channel switching, verb, delay, all excellent.

I use emg p/us with the strats and schaller p/us with the pauls. I'm a Fogerty and Joe Walsh fan. Much of my style is just like them. I play for me, not for others. If someone else likes it, cool! If not, cool. That's why so many amps and guitars and other gear are sold. To each their own. Plenty enough room for everyone in the guitar arena. Huge gain, not over the top, but very controllable. Clean channel is all it'own. If you want Fender clean, buy a Fender. This baby is an individual. Try it out. If you like it, buy it. If not leave it. I like it better than the 100w marshall it replaced. The 40/20 watt switch is wonderful. I swear I could gig on 20 watts! Try it out, you'll see. It's a pretty quiet amp. I love the cajun, bayou, swamppy chunk and searing light biting leads. It did Travelin' Band perfect. Stones, Eagles, Doobies, Skynard, CCR with out any worries...friggin' awesome.

Can't say yet, but G.C. offers a 2 yr if you break it, industrial warranty for $160.00.

Called these guys. Will spend all day with you answering any and ALL questions. They know their stuff. They answer quick and precisely.

$1 years on the strings of a guitar. I'd absolutely replace it with another one if it were lost, or damaged. I love the sound, simplicity, the design, and the absolute balls to the walls rock and roll this amp sings! I wish it had a little more bite at the upper end, but I also love the warmth. I looked at many amps for the last six months: Fender, Line 6, Egnater, Marshall, Peavey, Soldano, Crate, Mesa, Traynor, and a host of others. It was tough, but NO amp does it all.

Brand new 2008 model, I suspect one of the first in the UK.

I'm not going to go into too much detail on features now because I'll right a more in depth review once I've had chance to gig the amp a little bit.

Suffice to say that there's enough versatility to pleae most people here.

A word of warning though - this amp is HEAVY - I'm in my mid-to-late 20's so I'm alright, but if you have any back problems then I'd suggest looking at the head and cabinet as seperate, or even the head with a different cabinet.

Out of the box I wasn't blown away by the tone from this amp. I thought it was good, and definately a step up from the Fender Blues Deluxe it replaces, but it was missing a certain sparkle. But it's a tube amp, so I opened it up and replaced all the tubes with brand-new TAD ones and after making that substitution, it absolutely sings. I know it's cliched, but it was like there'd been a blanket over the amp with the old tubes - which BTW were a mix of EH and unamed chinese 12ax7's and Ruby 6L6's.

First impressions are that the clean channel is very much in the Fender camp being able to give a decent Blackface type tone (and I've played through a couple of 68 Super Reverbs so have a good frame of reference), I find that I switch the bright off and deep on when using my Strat and bright on and deep off when I switch to my Les Paul.

Switching across to the drive channel and you can get pretty much anything from a very bluesy just breaking up tone, to a thick sustaining Overdriven sound. Again using the various switching options here makes a huge difference to the sound you get.

This amp also seems to take pedals very well, I've found myself setting up the drive channel for use with the Les Paul (since if I'm using that guitar it's for overdriven sounds 95% of the time) and the clean channel for my strat then using a tubescreamer for overdriven sounds with the strat. The reason for this being that due to the difference in output between the 2 guitars I have to tweak the gain and volume when switching otherwise - and I like the sound of a strat through a Tubescreamer.

The reverb and delay are pretty good, as I understand they're Line 6 digital circuits and whilst not amazing they're good enough for me as I don't use a lot of reverb and rarely use any delay, besides once you're playing live I doubt you'd notice the difference.

The 20W output option is handy, though to my ears it robs the clean channel of some of it's depth and richness.

Overall I'm thrilled with the sound quality from this amp, but I would suggest if you're buying one to also invest in a new set of tubes as this really brings out the best in the amp. I've given a 9 here because whilst I had to change tubes to get the results, it's tube amp so I expect to have to replace tubes.

Well, I've only had it a week so can't comment, but I've had the amp open and it all looks very well built and very clean construction.

That said it's a tube amp so I'll always take a spare set of tubes with me if I'm gigging.

Not had to deal with them yet.

Distributed through Line6 and they were helpful when I was trying to track down someone with the amp in stock.

I play a variety of Blues, Rock, Pop - allsorts really as I'm a regular on the local jam night scene. My guitars are a Fender Stratocaster (a partocaster with neck and body from a Clapton Strat but with CS54 pickups and normal volume and tone controls in place of the EC Active electronics) and a Tokai Les Paul copy. I use a Toadworks Texas Flood (TS808 clone) and a Crybaby Wah and George L cables.

Overall I'm very, very happy with this amp. It replaced a Fender Blues Deluxe that broke down one too many times. I've only owned a few decent amps myself (70's Marshall, 60W Ashdown Peacemaker and Fender Blues Deluxe RI), but thanks to the local jam night I attend I regularly get to play through some very nice amps including 60's Fender Super Reverbs, 70's Fender Twins, a Fender Evil Twin, Fender 57 Twin reissue, original Marshall JTM45 and many more. My particular favourite I've played through is a Carr 1x12" combo (I think it's a Vincent). To my ears, the Alchemist can hold it's own against most of those amps, though the Carr is head and shoulders above anything else I've played through - but it should be for the price!!

If this amp was stolen I'm certainly replace it with the same model, though I would give serious consideration to the Head and 212 Cab due to the weight of this amp - it is heavy (but does come with castors).