Bugera V5

Just checked this out for ten minutes with a road worn tele, and it sounds way nice indeed.
Polished, ample tone, not much gain on tap, very good reverb and tone knob that works musical.
Way better than the valve junior I had, and any of the tranny little amps except ibanez tbx15r.
For the price asked you get a lot, and you still can use any box you want with this v5.
I will get one one of these days, I had good results with a Bugera 333 so far (no noise and reliable).

Input, Gain, Vol, single tone control, attenuator [5,1 and 1/10 watt] and it has reverb! Headphone jack too, but I'll never use it.
In my 8x10 studio 5 watts is way loud 1 watt is still loud and 1/10 watt is low enough so the neighbors can't hear me at all.
I was looking for a modernized version of the many vintage low power amps I've had - Kalamazoo, Alamo, Fender Champ and many Univoxes to mention some, and this amp is more than I expected.

Ooooo, very nice crunch and growl out of the box - then I swapped the spkr for a Weber Sig 8 I had laying around and swapped tubes for a JJ EL84 and Tung-Sol 12AX7. Nothing dramatic, just a little smoother and more focused. Nice usable clean tone - not quite Fender Blackface, but much better than I expected.
I play classic rock and blues mainly with a custom made Firebird I with a vintage P-90 that brings out the best of any amp I plug it into. I also have a 1967 SG STD [like Angus'] that sounds kind of muddy and dead thru the amp. I do agree it would be nice to have a bright switch.
I would add that it does have surprising bottom for an 8" speaker, though I must say I'm looking forward to hearing it thru a Vintage 30 and a G12H30.

I've only had it for a few days and it's a new model-who knows?
I am stunned at how good it looks [baby Matchless] and the apparent build quality.
Sure it was made in China, but I remember when everything made in Japan was considered to be junk.

Same here - I just hope I never have to find out!

I've been playing since the Beatles first toured the states and have owned over 50 amps [I had to try everything - thanks Ebay!]including one low watt boutique amp that couldn't compete with the V5.
I agree with Vic - dark, inspiring tone, I crank it up and get pulled in by the saturation and I just play and play.
Add to that the ridulously low price and you have bang for the buck
off of the charts.
I still have the $2000 I saved by picking the V5 over a Carr Mercury - and reverb to boot:

Well the expression sounds to good to be true, just about sums up this amp. not the tone but the marketing strategy. a well made 5 watt boutique style amp with a 5watt,1watt,0.1watt switch and reverb!!! wow I got myself a little Carr Mercury here for under two clams is what comes to mind. wake up! you get what you pay for and what you got here is a heavy ,pretty, piece of junk! I had high hopes thought that my first test was poor due to unseasoned tubes so I let the tubes heat up and cool down for a week. tested again amazing! I have never came across a tube amp that delivered virtually no tone! Custom shop nocaster, 52 reissue tele and dano pro 1 all sounded the same, i mean when you can't get a high note out of a tele . This may quite be the worst amp on the planet today!

a very generic tone almost P.A. like

very beautiful amp well built and impressive looking, like a ferrari without an engine.
i'm sure it will go on sounding crumby for many years to come.

never dealt with them, but I may just call and ask them what they were thinking.

i'm a solid thirty year blues player always in search of the holy grail of tone, in both guitars and amps. I like low watt class"A" point to point amps so far nothing beats a new fender 600 with a Dano BLT for a smokey bar room slap back and a good 52 reissue tele with the strings set at 1/16 of an inch at the 17 fret. you can carry this set up into any joint and play the blues! if you got the cake a Carr mercury is the best amp in the world in my opinion.

Year 2009
Inspiring dark tone
I use this amp by itself with or without pedals
Using a Vox wah and a Fet Dream pedal and only Planet Waves cables

Using a PRS CE24 with guitarworks tone mod and a SOLO smg 900 with HiZ EMG pickups.
Great guitar tone and overdrive on every watt setting but exceptional on .1 watt setting.

Using the headphone out doesn't cut it for me and is a useless component.

donno
We had 1 v22 come back to the shop, but not v5's

I just play and keep on playing with this sweet overdriven tone.
I also use a H&K Red box to power a Marshall EL84 20/02 amp and send to pa.

As below. Was suckered in by the great features: headphone out, switchable power and reverb, and the great looks.

It's awful. What can I say? I waited excitedly for this amp since January, and what a bitter disappointment. It has some warm cleans for soft jazz. But when you add volume and start to crunch it, it just sounds thin and harsh. Not digital, just tinny and unsatisfying and cheap-sounding. Tried the power switches--it just sounds worse when you lower the power. Unusable. Tried the headphone out thinking maybe this was all the speaker's fault. Yikes! The headphone out is super harsh bright, sounds nothing like the speaker out, but equally as bad. But the real dealkiller is the reverb. In the phones, the reverb tail/fade is mixed with noise. I mean noticeable white noise. Brutal. O, and there's a creepy electronic SNAP occasionally in the headphones when you hit certain notes. This amp is a disaster, unless you wanted a cheap amp to play some quiet jazz gig someplace. When you add TREBLE with the single tone knob, it just adds a little harsh, thin treble, there's no pretty top end to speak of.

Based on the reverb FAIL in the headphone out and weird headphone EQ and that SNAP/CRACKLE noise, it's just not a viable, reliable product. Too bad because the looks are awesome, the handle is rich leather and thick, and the cab build seems rock solid.

No idea.

I own and have owned many great amps. This V5 clearly had its circuit designed by somebody who doesn't know amp tone. At all. Then it was badly manufactured from an electronics standpoint. It's a great idea, but it needs a major, and I mean major, overhaul circuit design-wise to be a viable, useful amp for the general market. It looks great, and it's PHYSICALLY solid as a rock.

Made in June 2009. This amp is rated at 5 watts with a power attenuator at the back so you can switch to 5, 1 or 0.1 watts. It has one 12AX7 valve and one EL84 valve (or tube depending on which part of the world you come from). There is only one channel and you get gain, tone, volume and reverb controls. It has an 8" speaker rated at 30watts.

I have a Fender Hot Rod 52 Tele, Fender Lite Ash Strat & an Ibanez SZ320 with two Duncan/Ibanez humbucker pickups. It suits my style of playing (classic rock & blues) really well. I mainly use it as a practice amp at the 0.1 watt setting - which is surprisingly loud. I also have a Fender Champion 600 amp which has a good clean tone but I can't get a decent distortion sound out of it. The Bugera fits the bill nicely! When you put a decent overdrive pedal in front of the amp it really ROCKS. I use a MI Audio Blue Boy Deluxe overdrive pedal.

Can't comment on reliability I've only had it for a short time (couple of weeks). Everything is still working fine...

No comment on customer support...haven't had to use it.

I've been playing over 20 years and have had many different amps. If this amp were stolen or lost I would definitely get another one - for the price it won't break the bank! I like the way it looks and sounds. The build quality seems on par with amps that cost much more. Before I bought this amp, I was looking at several other low wattage amps including the following: Blackstar HT5, Black Heart Little Giant, Egnator Rebel 20, Ibanez Valbee, Laney Lionheart L5T-112, Matchless Little Monster, Messa Boogie Express 5:25 combo, Orange Tiny Terror combo, Swart Space Tone, Ulbrick Fire Bottle, The Valve 105 Bimbo, Vox AC4TV, Vox Night Train & Zvex Nano. For the price you just can't beat this little amp...it quite literally punches way above its weight. This review is subjective of course, you need to get out there and try as many amps as you can before you make your own decision.

ultra-low wattage(5w,1w,.01w) tube amp with reverb and headphone jack. 8" speaker in combo but speaker out is there to go 10" or 12"

The big question concerning this amp was what would the distortion sound like? It has a blues/classic rock sound to it. No metal distortion sound here.

I picked this up ahead of the retail market in the US. Overall amp construction is plush, better than fender at 3 times the price range.
It sounds solid in a bedroom. I thought the 8" speaker would cut out on the bass, but it has a full sound in the bedroom

At .01w and the gain cranked all the way up its loud enough to be heard outside of the bedroom.

I will put in my 8" weber soon.

No reason to go 12au7, plenty of headroom out of the box.

I played a solid state amp of similar size and then this one, wow, tubes amps just sound so much nicer don't they?I've read that folks think this is a vox ac30 clone ,but I think this amp is much more inline with jsx mini colossal minus the effects loop.

Overall, the price is right, the quality is there, and i don't see why this won't eventually eclipse the epi jr and killer ant since it has reverb.