Guitar Tube Power Amp For Sale (2024 Update)

This week I bought a duellist overdrive pedal from king of Tone, the Revival Drive from Origin Effects and this lovely little amp. The two pedals cost nearly £700 between them and the Bugera only £189 but my favourite tone comes from the Bugera itself largely because the built in attenuator allows you to really cook the single valves at pre amp and power amp stage without annoying the neighbours. This makes the Bugera a lot of fun. It’s tone control could be improved to raise the brightness but for the price I’m not complaining. This is definitely more of a British than an American tweed sound. And the addition of pedals – which it takes well – can potentially increase the brightness. The onboard 8 inch speaker is fine for practice and the amp is just about portable enough to use for travel. The speaker jack is accessible on the back panel, so it can be swapped easily for a guitar cabinet if you wanted to gig this machine or open up the sound (it’s 5 watts can still be loud enough for small venues). If, like me, you have been dependent on fender amps for home playing and you want a good alternative ‘Marshall’ sound at bedroom levels, then look no further!

To be honest, when I opened the box and saw the actual size of the amp, I thought, "Save the packaging. It's going back." For the money, there's not a lot here. I have a bunch of low wattage, boutique tube amps – Tweed Deluxes, Tremolux, hand wired Princeton's, brown Princeton's, even the Magnatone Panoramic in stereo. I didn't think this Starlite would make the cut. Then I plugged it in. Holy cow! This thing is a blast. Absolutely killer tones. It rips. It cleans up well. It's inspiring. It handled my Strymon Flint (reverb / tremolo) in the front end beautifully. I doubt an overdrive pedal would improve the natural break up on this little dude. I didn't bother. I just used my volume knob on the guitar. If there a more dynamic, low wattage amp that won't rob you of your hearing, I don't know about it. I couldn't stop playing it. For the bedroom / living room guitarist, it would be hard to do better. It doesn't need to be loud to do it's thing. But it does seem to be a robust five watts. For the gigging guitarist, I think if you're mic'ed up with a good mix in the monitor, you'd be more than happy. I'm going to mic it up for rehearsal this week. If that doesn't work, I'm going to try my Boss Tube Amp Expander in to a bigger speaker cab. I'm motivated to use this. But if I can't, this is definitely going to be my go-to recording amp. It's Tweed-y, it's Deluxe-y, it's even kind of Marshall-y in the Bluesbreaker sense. Most of all, it's just fun. They dropped the price on these. Get one while you can!

I have several rehearsals and a few gigs under my belt with the Pano. I feel confident that I now know it well enough to write a review. The first thing I'll say about this amp, and it's true with all the Maggies I've played, the EQ section is more dynamic in its range and curve than your standard Fender variant. You have to spend time with your guitar of choice while twisting the tone controls on this amp to understand. This is a very clean amp. But it's not exactly "clean" in the JC or Twin Reverb category. It's super clear and defined with a hint of grit that goes where your pick attack and playing dynamics want to go. If you hit harder, it responds perfectly – but still maintains its clarity. Sloppy players will be revealed. Clean players will be rewarded. Note and string definition is just stellar. The Pano is also much louder than every other 12-watt amp I own. If you want a ton of clean headroom in a 2×10 stereo format, this is hard to beat. It doesn't break up on its own until you're well in to the upper decibels. Honestly, that tube saturated break up occurs when it's too loud for the folks I play with. A good drive is pedal is essential for playing rock or blues. However, the vibrato is so good, I tend to leave it on more often than not and adjust controls accordingly. It does surprisingly well at adding that extra harmonic distortion that inspires you to play your best. You may be able to leave the drive pedal at home. If you're a classic country player or playing pedal steel style licks, this amp is probably all you need – for pedal steel, it's better than my Twin. (But I'm a student level steel player so buyer beware on that bit of advice.) The reverb and AM / FM vibrato are beyond fantastic. The stereo spread certainly helps. The stereo field isn't huge like running two amps but it's full enough to take notice. If you're in the sweet spot in front of the amp, it sounds "amazing" with the vibrato pulsing. I used quotation marks because I really mean "amazing". It's truly panoramic. Just like a hi-fi system, when you leave the sweet spot, you can't detect the stereo imaging. As a pedal platform, it's a lot of fun. I run a Fulltone Tube Tape Echo in to it at the rehearsal space and wow, pure joy. It's addictive. However, at this price point I would prefer the option of an effects loop but that's not really a thing in the 12-watt world. Ultimately, the Pano is a very different amp, a very good one. I see no resemblance to tweeds or Princeton's as some have mentioned. I see even less resemblance to the Vox or Marshall sound even though it's an EL84 based amp. The Pano is it's own beautiful thing. It truly is a high fidelity experience. Advanced players will be rewarded.