Bugera V5 infinium or Boss Katana 50 mk2?

[Chas007]

Sorry people. Help me out one more time. All I have is YouTube to go by.

My Squire Classic Vibe 70s HSS is on the way.

I'm asking for opinions on these two different amps. I could not find a comparison on YouTube. I assume because they are not similar enough.

Bugera V5 infinium or Boss Katana 50 mk2?

[Rogerblair]

I’ve owned both and I still own the Bugera. Sold the Katana.

I’m older and play mostly clean or with a little breakup, and the Bugera is PERFECT for that. Probably a good pedal platform as well. I also just play at home and it is plenty loud for that. I play single coils and humbuckers through it with equal enjoyment.

I’m guessing you will hear from Steve DeRosa before long. He is a Bugera expert.

Id recommend the Bugera without reservation.
Roger

[Chas007]

Originally Posted by Rogerblair

I’ve owned both and I still own the Bugera. Sold the Katana.

I’m older and play mostly clean or with a little breakup, and the Bugera is PERFECT for that. Probably a good pedal platform as well. I also just play at home and it is plenty loud for that. I play single coils and humbuckers through it with equal enjoyment.

I’m guessing you will hear from Steve DeRosa before long. He is a Bugera expert.

Id recommend the Bugera without reservation.
Roger

I did hear from Steve and I'm afraid I wanted the strat with the hss and Steve suggested the sss due to the Bugera's tendency to be a little muddy. I was worried about that after I chose different than he suggested on the guitar, but the heart wants what it wants you know.

I'm the same as you, a little older and I will just use it at home. I'm just going to quit worrying about it and get the Bugera. I found a used one for a decent price.

Thanks. Should have never questioned Steve :-)

[Chickee]

Originally Posted by Chas007

I did hear from Steve and I'm afraid I wanted the strat with the hss and Steve suggested the sss due to the Bugera's tendency to be a little muddy. I was worried about that after I chose different than he suggested on the guitar, but the heart wants what it wants you know.

I'm the same as you, a little older and I will just use it at home. I'm just going to quit worrying about it and get the Bugera. I found a used one for a decent price.

Thanks. Should have never questioned Steve :-)

Chas, I am not saying this as an insult in any way, so please understand my reasoning.

Your only experience with an amp and electric guitar was a Silverstone beater and a crazy contraption amp in a case. You wouldn’t know “muddy” if it hit you in the head right now. It’s time to step away and enjoy your gear without twenty guitar, amp, sound engineer, tube and transistor mavens telling you what’s right for you.
And that’s me included. Just pick an amp, have some fun. If you don’t like it, get something else. But I have my money on whatever you do you are going to have the time of your life!
Pick an amp, plug in and rock on brother.
frank d.

[Chas007]

Originally Posted by Chickee

Chas, I am not saying this as an insult in any way, so please understand my reasoning.

Your only experience with an amp and electric guitar was a Silverstone beater and a crazy contraption amp in a case. You wouldn’t know “muddy” if it hit you in the head right now. It’s time to step away and enjoy your gear without twenty guitar, amp, sound engineer, tube and transistor mavens telling you what’s right for you.
And that’s me included. Just pick an amp, have some fun. If you don’t like it, get something else. But I have my money on whatever you do you are going to have the time of your life!
Pick an amp, plug in and rock on brother.
frank d.

Hey, I totally know where you're coming from. But, I do know when the more experienced people speak I should listen. After agonizing about the decision it is done now. And I did stick with my choices. Found a used Bugera and got it for $150. And I found a guy in a city 30 minutes from me that works on guitars, so I will have him setup the guitar.

Thanks

[Brent Hutto]

You've done the right thing. Or getting a Katana, if that's the way you went would have been the right thing. You just gotta choose one and find out.

In my opinion, much less informed by experience than some of the other advice you've gotten, there's a certain range of interesting tones that the Bugera will give you right off the bat just by a few minutes of knob twirling, if that. It can't make every sort of tone under the sun but it'll make some "classic" tones that a lot of guitar players dig.

The Katana on the other hand will right off the bat give you a lovely, simple clean tone but (in my experience as a Katana owner) getting a listenable version of some of those "classic" tube amp tones will take lots of knob fiddling and more likely some deep diving into menus using an attached laptop or tablet.

The advantage to Katana is, with enough deep menu diving it'll cover an enormous range of sounds. Far beyond what you can get with a simple tube amp like the Bugera. But for a total beginner, you'll come up with twenty crap sounds for every "classic" sound you try to emulate on Katana.

So it's going to come down to whether you find yourself digging the limited but time-tested set of sounds that Bugera is built to provide. It's tweakable by careful knob adjustment but over a fairly limited range. Beyond that you get into tube rolling or speaker swapping or other customizations that I personally see no appeal in.

A month from now you'll know the Bugera sounds "do it" for you. If so, you'll get an authentic version of those sounds that it would be rather silly to try to emulate by spending hours downloading Katana patches. If not, you'll probably end up with some other amp and the Bugera will be a $150 second choice or backup alternative. No way to know without trying it.

[SalFromChatham]

I am loathe to pipe in; I’m not a good electric gear head. I just know I like well made products with no hassles from good companies with great service.

If I were you I’d be looking at these:

Bugera V5
Katana 50
Katana Air
Yamaha THR30
Vox Mini Beetle
Fender 68 Vibro Champ Reissue

I don’t think you could go wrong with any of these.

If money is not an issue, I’d go Fender. It’s a 5watt beast that is perfect for a Strat or Tele.

The Yamaha at $500 is not cheap, but it’s killer. I bought one for my buddy, and he is head over heels digging it. Buy once cry once?

Boss products are renowned for their quality. Can’t go wrong. The Air is the direct competitor to the Yamaha.

The Vox at $400 is killer loud or soft. It has breakup. It has reverb. It looks great.

I am sorry to complicate things for you. But man… if this is your first journey into electrics, I want it to be a great one.

Confused? Close your eyes and buy the Yamaha. It’s super portable, can be wireless, and goes anywhere.

[mikealpine]

You got the Bugera, you’ll be happy. At some point you can get a couple of pedals or an all-in-one rig like a Tech21. Have a blast!

[SalFromChatham]

Hey….

I should read more throughly. You got the Bugera. That’s great! Ignore my other post. I am leaving it up just in case another person is looking for a good amp for the home, and stumbles on this thread.

[Glennwillow]

Originally Posted by Chas007

Hey, I totally know where you're coming from. But, I do know when the more experienced people speak I should listen. After agonizing about the decision it is done now. And I did stick with my choices. Found a used Bugera and got it for $150. And I found a guy in a city 30 minutes from me that works on guitars, so I will have him setup the guitar.

Thanks

Well, that's very cool! You will have fun with the Bugera! Congrats!

- Glenn

[Steve DeRosa]

Originally Posted by Chas007

Hey, I totally know where you're coming from. But, I do know when the more experienced people speak I should listen. After agonizing about the decision it is done now. And I did stick with my choices. Found a used Bugera and got it for $150. And I found a guy in a city 30 minutes from me that works on guitars, so I will have him setup the guitar...

Best course of action right now is to stick with your decisions, and see how things work out once you've gotten some real playing time under your belt - don't second-guess yourself at this stage of the game; on the other hand, don't hesitate to ask for suggestions/advice down the road, after you've gotten through the initial get-acquainted stage - we're all here to help...

[Rolph]

I've owned both. Definitely the Bugera. Much more exciting sounds than the Katana. The Katana is fun to waste time seeking some fun sounds, but something is always lacking. Good luck.

[Chas007]

Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa

Best course of action right now is to stick with your decisions, and see how things work out once you've gotten some real playing time under your belt - don't second-guess yourself at this stage of the game; on the other hand, don't hesitate to ask for suggestions/advice down the road, after you've gotten through the initial get-acquainted stage - we're all here to help...

I do have one more question. What strings would you recommend when I have this guitar setup? Brand, and size? And all I know about string height is I don't want them to buzz and I want it to be as easy to play as possible.

[Brent Hutto]

Originally Posted by Chas007

I do have one more question. What strings would you recommend when I have this guitar setup? Brand, and size? And all I know about string height is I don't want them to buzz and I want it to be as easy to play as possible.

It will come with a 9-42 gauge set that will be quite easy on your hands. I'd stick to those for at least a few weeks until you get used to the guitar and only change if you feel there's some problem that different gauge would help.

The factory strings are Fender brand (probably made under contract by D'Addario but I don't know that for sure) which are good quality. Plain steel E, B and G and nickel-plated steel wound D, A and E which is the most commonly used type of electric guitar strings. They retail for about $5-$7 a set depending on where you buy them which is a pretty normal pricing similar most brands.

But D'Addario EXL or Ernie Ball Slinky will be similarly priced as virtually indistinguishable from the Fender Super 250's that they put on at the factory. Any of them will work.

I'd say a large majority of people who play a Strat use nickel-plated steel strings and of those who use something else, the most popular are "Pure Nickel" strings. But it's a pretty subtle difference in tone and of course only affects the wound strings in any case. There are other alternatives like flatwounds that are pretty niche and not worth really worrying about.

P.S. If you're going to be working the whammy bar a lot and/or doing big bends D'Addario makes a premium-priced string that is supposed to stay in tune better and last longer under the stress of bending and "tremolo". They are called NYXL and cost about twice as much as conventional nickel-plated steel. Really cool strings and in theory may last enough longer to make up for the cost but probably overkill when you're just starting out.

[glaze3]

It seems the Katana doesn't get a lot of love here and I can't really understand why other than folks just don't know about the Facebook patch groups - Boss Katana Patches and Boss Katana Patch Central. There are so many great patches available for free to download, just need to upload them and then tweak to your liking for each guitar.

Don't get me wrong, there is always going to be something about tubes ( I use a Mesa Boogie Fillmore for about 80% of my playing) but there are 100's of Katana patches from JB Aubry for free (Look it up) that are so close to tube tones that as a newer player you might not even know. Add a GFAC foot switch and you 8 different amp sound with the push of a button. I would definitely go with the 100 over the 50 though.

I think it basically comes down to the style you want to play. My Mesa is a great amp and sits in the Blackface, Tweed arena, but can't really do high gain distortion very well in less you want to spend an hour tweaking knobs and messing around with pedal chains. The Katana will do this with a push of a button once you've uploaded a patch. Both have their place you just need to decide if going solid state rather than tubes is always going to make you want the other.