Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
TC Electronic BG250 Club (Part 2)
- Thread starter drpepper
- Start date
Agreed its a nice sounding amp, does need side handles and a tougher covering but a nice amp for the price.
Now, while i certainly dont wish to rain on the BG, and agreed that while "most" users certainly do not have problems, there certainly have been plenty of 2nd or 3rd units delivered in this thread to members due to QC reasons. As an engineer of 35yrs, in this engineering age returns really should be <1% so there is not much doubt in my mind that there is unacceptable test & QC control at the factory, and this in itself leads to questions about other aspects of the design....
My first unit?.. a dead LED. If you know anything about LED, they pretty much just dont die...MTBF range in the 50,000-250,000hr sorta numbers.. The LED most likely was inserted in reverse...so either bad test or bad QC (and this is common with China built stuff)...other reports in the thread are similar.. stuff that should not have got out the door.
The second?.. poor signal /noise on the DI output.. and given i was more concerned with actually playing with the amp, and then fixing the vibrating metal panels (poor mechanical design) i simply had not got around to using the BG in a recording situation.. and when i did it was beyond 30days... so no, i didnt keep a bad amp around just to get pity points on TB...lol
FYI, There frankly is no need to "burn-in" SS amps at all.. 30 years ago, mebbe. Above and beyond the whole bathtub theory, initial failure mechanisms & modes are now well understood and most quality designs have well calculated MTBF and some nominal burn-in/soak at factory.. sub level assemblies, devices and components are stress tested/qualified beyond their expected range of operation to ensure guaranteed performance within limits..
Equally so, and good news for the lazy, there is no need to baby the amp either..so if you want to leave it on, do so. i leave mine turned on for days at a time since i have the pedal and mute switch... after all the weak link in most MTBF calculations are the switches.
So, conventional failures aside, from a system Q&R perspective, what does not get calculated, nor can be, is non electrical/electrostatic/thermal/mechanical reliability.. ie reliability of any firmware code running, and if the software code is not subject to significant QC in the design phase then it is open to sporadic failures from unforeseen/unexpected/untested conditions... (in IC design the test & validation accounts for about 70% of the development cycle specifically due to this).. and so after seeing how the two GC units seem to be hung up..i would be concerned about issues in this area.. Not a lot any user can do, but since any type of clock/bus/communications glitches can corrupt a non robust system I would hedge my bets and always run (even at home) the BG250 on a power conditioner...
so thats my story and am schticking with it..... its a nice amp at a good price , but personally i would not buy one used, nor do i expect this to last more than a few years...on the latter part i hope i am wrong, only time will tell.
Now, while i certainly dont wish to rain on the BG, and agreed that while "most" users certainly do not have problems, there certainly have been plenty of 2nd or 3rd units delivered in this thread to members due to QC reasons. As an engineer of 35yrs, in this engineering age returns really should be <1% so there is not much doubt in my mind that there is unacceptable test & QC control at the factory, and this in itself leads to questions about other aspects of the design....
My first unit?.. a dead LED. If you know anything about LED, they pretty much just dont die...MTBF range in the 50,000-250,000hr sorta numbers.. The LED most likely was inserted in reverse...so either bad test or bad QC (and this is common with China built stuff)...other reports in the thread are similar.. stuff that should not have got out the door.
The second?.. poor signal /noise on the DI output.. and given i was more concerned with actually playing with the amp, and then fixing the vibrating metal panels (poor mechanical design) i simply had not got around to using the BG in a recording situation.. and when i did it was beyond 30days... so no, i didnt keep a bad amp around just to get pity points on TB...lol
FYI, There frankly is no need to "burn-in" SS amps at all.. 30 years ago, mebbe. Above and beyond the whole bathtub theory, initial failure mechanisms & modes are now well understood and most quality designs have well calculated MTBF and some nominal burn-in/soak at factory.. sub level assemblies, devices and components are stress tested/qualified beyond their expected range of operation to ensure guaranteed performance within limits..
Equally so, and good news for the lazy, there is no need to baby the amp either..so if you want to leave it on, do so. i leave mine turned on for days at a time since i have the pedal and mute switch... after all the weak link in most MTBF calculations are the switches.
So, conventional failures aside, from a system Q&R perspective, what does not get calculated, nor can be, is non electrical/electrostatic/thermal/mechanical reliability.. ie reliability of any firmware code running, and if the software code is not subject to significant QC in the design phase then it is open to sporadic failures from unforeseen/unexpected/untested conditions... (in IC design the test & validation accounts for about 70% of the development cycle specifically due to this).. and so after seeing how the two GC units seem to be hung up..i would be concerned about issues in this area.. Not a lot any user can do, but since any type of clock/bus/communications glitches can corrupt a non robust system I would hedge my bets and always run (even at home) the BG250 on a power conditioner...
so thats my story and am schticking with it
..... its a nice amp at a good price , but personally i would not buy one used, nor do i expect this to last more than a few years...on the latter part i hope i am wrong, only time will tell.
Not to discount your experiences or anyone else's, I just don't believe there is anywhere close to enough of a sample here (or in most forum threads) to drill down to any truly meaningful statistics. I mean, we got to 1,000 posts, but [del]923[/del] 924 of those post are from stepswork4me
j/k.Any of us is perfectly free to and even justified in taking whatever we want from the stats that we see...they don't have to be "truly meaningful" for your comfort or mine, but you can't know from posts here whether overall, we're talking about <1% or something much higher than that.
can't argue that....lol..
and just think, i was being nice with the 1%, after all, 100% of the TC BG250 i have seen in my entire life have been faulty!..lol
Stats are simply politicians disguised as numbers
I mean, we got to 1,000 posts, but 923 of those post are from stepswork4me
.
and just think, i was being nice with the 1%, after all, 100% of the TC BG250 i have seen in my entire life have been faulty!..lol
Stats are simply politicians disguised as numbers
can't argue that....lol..
and just think, i was being nice with the 1%, after all, 100% of the TC BG250 i have seen in my entire life have been faulty!..lol
Stats are simply politicians disguised as numbers
Haha, and I guess politicians and too small sample sizes are the same, because they'll both tell you things that aren't true.
And hey, I'm at 50% for the ones I've owned, but I wouldn't tell someone that I think buying one is a 50/50 proposition. From my experience, I'm more inclined to not be one to push in either direction.
I was curious, about the number of buyers in the first thread. I gave up trying to weed through and count pretty quickly, ha, but I don't guess that there are too many more than 50-60. If there were no problems with those, which could happen by coincidence with such a small number, it'd be just as wrong to assume that globally, the rate was 0%.
Bump from the end of the previous thread.
So, does anyone have any thoughts about the BG250 VS the Markbass CMD 151P Jeff Berlin?
I Know that we are talking about apples and oranges, but the 2 are built to meet the same need, although at different price point and with different tonal goals.
I have a Markbass 151P cab as well as the BG250.
I broke my left wrist and the cast comes off on Monday. If my wrist will let me, I'll make some recordings next week.
Until then, I would like to know what other people think.
DS
So, does anyone have any thoughts about the BG250 VS the Markbass CMD 151P Jeff Berlin?
I Know that we are talking about apples and oranges, but the 2 are built to meet the same need, although at different price point and with different tonal goals.
I have a Markbass 151P cab as well as the BG250.
I broke my left wrist and the cast comes off on Monday. If my wrist will let me, I'll make some recordings next week.
Until then, I would like to know what other people think.
DS
Since you have both, I'm curious what impressions you're interested in hearing from someone else.
But just to comment, I've played a 151P a few times. Same guy's amp, a few times at gigs and a little bit at a GTG. This was not side by side or for any kind of comparison. Also, I didn't touch the controls on his amp.
I found it unremarkable and a bit hairy for my tastes. I would have liked a fatter, smoother sound with a lower punch. That could have been mostly or entirely due to the owners settings.
That said, the 151P is obviously pretty much an unassailable piece of gear. At as much as 3 times the price, I have difficultly finding a useful comparison between the two since selection, whether for a purchasing decision or selling decision, is what comparisons like that usually come down to.
Edit: To expand (or prattle on, ha), that's not to say that I think they can't be compared. They can be and IMO it's only an apples and oranges comparison where price is concerned. The 151P costs what is costs because that's how much it costs (tongue in cheek), not because it's objectively worth 3 times as much. Music gear is an area where you often have huge price differences while objective performance differences or their effects are marginal.
I have never owned the Jeff Berlin combo, but have played it. I only like MarkBass heads and have really never liked the way their cabs sound. With that being said I can't speak for loudness, for tonality the BG250 is more diverse and has more character to my ears.
Picked up a gig for tomorrow on short notice. I haven't been there, but it's supposed to be a decent sized room, not huge - tables for 70 people plus dance floor etc. I'm going to try the BG250 without PA support and see how it does. I'll be ready to mic or DI it in case I have to.
I guess it depends on how loud the band is more than room size. Unless you're just wanting to run a test to satisfy your curiosity, if it was me and it's there, I'd just run DI.
Right on, Doc. We gotta have some fun with this thing.
Dig, timber. I'd definitely like to hear how it goes.
Dig, timber. I'd definitely like to hear how it goes.
We are using our own PA, so It's always an option to run it through the PA. I'm curious how it will do "naked". I'll try it in sound check.
The BG250 did a fine job last night. It was not a great room acoustically (all hard surfaces, except the people!), but the combo worked great, and had plenty of volume. Our guitar player keeps telling me how he loves the tone I'm getting. He says it sounds so "full". So, I'm happy with it.
I had a weird problem though. I had my pedal board (just a Korg tuner, VT Bass, TC Corona Chorus, Line 6 wireless) right in front of the amp because space was tight. I was getting strange feedback. I moved it away a couple feet and everything was fine. I've never had that happen to me before. Anyone else experience this?
I had a weird problem though. I had my pedal board (just a Korg tuner, VT Bass, TC Corona Chorus, Line 6 wireless) right in front of the amp because space was tight. I was getting strange feedback. I moved it away a couple feet and everything was fine. I've never had that happen to me before. Anyone else experience this?
Awesome to hear that it had the venue covered. My gutarist keeps making the same comment on my sound.... full. I got some feedback when I started running the spectracomp and tubetone on both and just dialed back those seetings and it went away.
ok i had my bg250 for a couple of weeks now and i play it at church at home and did 2 concerts with it , i take care of it like a baby and the material tolex or whatever it is is very very bad quality , i have a cover since day one and i do the carry my self and somehow the material is coming off on the back of the amp like it needs to be glued back . and it didn't turn on , on the last gig that i was using pa , and i got a weird noise when i was turning on and off even when all volumes where at 0 and mute was on ... i really love the power 250+watts and it is light to carry and spectracomp is awesome but i dont think this is a work horse or the type of amp that will last at least 5 years ... very disappointed , i will return it or sell asap .. great concept and very promising but i dont know about how long will it last ... sorry tc i want it to love it but not for me i guess , back to amp hunt lol ...
Yes. As said, that is a shame, especially since I recall the durability of the covering/cabinet was a concern for you going in. I believe that's the first I've heard of the the covering separating. I did get one that was virtually doa, but the replacement has performed well. It's wearing a couple of minor scars, but I've hardly been babying it, and it's wearing well.
I know the feeling of wanting to like something but having to decide against in the end. I got an MB200 that was unacceptably hissy, exchanged it and the second was the same. Life's too short. The GK and Carvin lightweight combos look nice. At least it's a great time to be in the market...I guess that would be the bright side.
Edit - Funny too...I was thinking about the idea of a "workhorse" character to an amp seems to go along with more heft. I've had two accidents with mine (the second was protected by the LeCover) and neither of those things would have happened to a heavier piece of gear because I wouldn't have been able to manage the carry that put the BG in either situation.
ill see if i can upload some pics when i get home , i bought it at zzounds , i can still get my money back but ill have to pay the shipping so they can get their amp ... any ideas how much that will be for a 35 lbs amp ??? then i will be going with the gk mb115 i guess , that was my second option ... and the cab itself looks better and not as quite as fragile as the bg ... bg is louder , but this minor issues are too much for me as the bg was my main amp ... im back to the acoustic b200 for now , while ill get my $ back ...
