Streamliner by Bugera?

[bobcruz]

Well, my first gig with it is this evening, so I'll know better then... BUT!!!! Since you asked.....

First. a little about me, so you know where I'm coming from: My personal taste (for when I'm not doing a session for someone who want's a particular sound) is clean, bright, round, with lots of booty... My personal favorite sound is GK heads through SWR or Eden 2x10 or 4x10 cabinets...

What drew me to the Bugera was the output power to go along with my power hungry Greenboy F112 cabinet, and the fact that people were comparing it to the Streamliner 900... Being an Ed Friedland fanboy, I had to give it a shot...

Last night, I tried it with my F112 and a SWR Goliath Jr. 2x10... I was able to dial up a tone I was happy with pretty quickly, although, I have to say that with GK, I'm happy with the tone controls set to 12:00, but had to mess with the Veyron. (but I guess the GK 12 o'clock position isn't exactly a flat response either). I played my P-Bass with flats, my Carvin B-50 funk machine, and my Yamaha BB425x (a P/J workhorse) and was pleasantly surprised with each of them...

The response was fast, the compression was nice when set to about 9:00, (past that it was real noticeable to me), the tone controls worked well, and were voiced good to my ear, and it got LOUD!! I'm hoping that this can replace my BBE BMAX-T/Carvin DCM2000 rack setup to power the F112. (Did I mention that I'm an Ed Friedland fanboy??)

I'll know better after tonights gig...

If the tone controls are similar to the Streamliner, you may have to do a lot of knob turning to get your preferred sound. On my Streamliner, I cut bass to about 10:00 and the mids at 600 Hz and treble control are dimed--no kidding. I play into a pair of 12s I built, one with an Eminence Deltalite and one with a Basslite (it used to be 2 Basslites but I blew one when using it alone). Each cab has a piezo tweeter (filtered) that's very smooth but less efficient than the 12s so the dimed treble makes a nice balance rather than adding a lot of hiss and clank. This gives me the best tone I've ever had in a church band with drums, guitar and amplified grand piano backing around a dozen singers. Bass is not in the mains so my speakers carry the room. It's tone heaven. I hope your Bugera gives you some great tones too. Bob

 

[Willy Franklin]

That being said, the Veyron has been on my "short list" for a while now, and I'd love to hear more from Willy about how it performs on his gigs!

Based on ONE gig, I really can't say anything bad about it... I played an outdoor gig with it and it performed admirably. It sounded great. I have to say that I'm still getting used to my F112 cabinet, after playing SWR and Eden cabs for ~25 years... That said, the bottom was full, the highs rang out... It had a fast response, and it was freakin' loud! 1000 Watts into 8 ohms?? ...probably not... But powerful enough to drive my F112 without farting out.

The preamp -15dB pad seems to be more than -15dB to me... Without it engaged, it was pretty easy to cause the clip LED to engage. BUT, take that with a grain of salt, as I was playing through my pedalboard... Octave and Envelope filters, and a boost pedal for solos. The onboard compressor seemed good to me at about the 9:00 position. Any more than that and it was real obvious with an active Jazz style bass... It's going to take a little tweaking to get that just right. I need a lot more time with it...

Previously, I was driving the F112 with a BBE BMax-T preamp and a Carvin DCM2000, bridged for (I think) 2000W at 8 ohms. ...and, I didn't miss it. I've been struggling with the BBE for a while and have kind of lost my personal identity as far as tone is concerned. Mostly because I've been experimenting, trying to get more traditional sounds for studio stuff.

One of these evenings I'm going to do a demo video of it. Hopefully I'll have my personal kinks worked out by then...

Behringer has a questionable reputation, I know... ...and I had to pinch my nose to pull the trigger on this head... But, at this point, I'm glad I took a chance on it. Behringer seems to be stamping out some quality stuff (From personal experience: x32, xAir, PowerPlay 16's, xTouch). For some reason I hate to say it, but this thing is right up there.

Give it a shot, you can always send it back...

 

[Willy Franklin]

I couldn't get my "personal kinks" worked out so I'm sending it back.... I get (I believe) too much compression from the preamp tubes. When I want it to spank, it seems hindered to me, like something is holding back even without the compressor turned on... Another problem is that the input clips too easily, even with a passive bass... and when you turn on the -15dB attenuator, then you have to crank up the output stage and that causes a lot of hiss...

I have to say I really liked the sound at lower volumes when I was playing more sensitive...

Your mileage may vary...