Bugera G5 Infinium

The new Bugera G5 amp has more features than you´ll ever need!

T h e b u i l t i n P O W E R S O A K

First of all it has 5 watts of tube power, but has a built in power soak where you can switch it down to 1 watt or even 0.1 watt. That is very useful if you want to practice at low volumes at home. I play it mostly on one watt at home and use it with my Palmer 1x12 cabinet which is loaded with a Celestion Greenback speaker.

T H E C L E A N C h a n n e l

The clean channel sounds very beautiful, crystal clear and stays clean even if you drive it hard, depending on the pickups of your guitar. If you set it to 0.1 watt, you can drive it to a crunch sound. The reverb sounds fantastic, but be careful not to raise the reverb level too high or you might sound as if you play in a cathedral. The clean channel can be shaped with one several tone control, which works very well, you won´t miss a three band EQ.

T H E O V E R D R I V E C h a n n e l

The overdrive channel might be the reason why most people buy this amp. I would describe the sound of the OD channel as hot rodded "marshallish". But is has its own character. It can be shaped by a three band EQ and the special Morph EQ which shapes the midrange and helps you to realize more British or American style tones. I mostly use it on the UK side with my Les Paul (about 3 o´clock on the dial), with my Strat I often turn it to noon.
I play mostly rock or hard rock from AC/DC to Led Zep. to Guns and Roses or even 80s metal and it does a good job for this kind of music.


T H E E X T R A S of the Bugera - and the "I N F I N I U M" Technology


It comes with a well built footswitch, which can be used to go from the clean channel to the od. channel and to switch the reverb on and off.
It has a line out which can be used for recording (if you connect the head to a mixer or interface) or you can use it with headphones.
You can put the amp on standby, when used with headphones: This will mute the speaker cabinet and you can practice even at night without annoying your neighbours.
The infinium tube LED at the back of the head will indicate if your power tube has to be changed. If you have to change the power tube, you can just simply put the new tube in and the amp will do the biasing automaticly.
The G5 uses one ECC83a tube in the preamp and a 12BH7 tube in the power amp section.
I haven´t used the FX loop so far. The amp has a line in which can be used to connect the head to your MP3player/device so that you can practice to your music. The only point I have to criticize is that the amp produces an unpleasant smell when getting hot, for example if you have used it very long. But this is getting better and I think the smell will disappear in a few weeks and won´t bother me any longer.
Overall I´m very satisfied with the Bugera.

Edit: I have it for 5 weeks now and the unpleasant smell has disappeared completely! I´m still very happy with this amp!

I was waiting for this amp for 5 weeks or so... No blaim at Thomann. It was worth waiting.
First time Bugera buyer. I only had transistors in my life (line 6, marschal, fender, Peavey)
As I stacked in 80's ! and I love thrash metal, I have been constantly struggle to archive decent tone on budget. It's over now!
This amp is great. I get close to Killem All/Never Neverland/Peace sells kind of tones - but not quite there. There was a lack of last touch!
To boost crunch channel I use Deamon Tube screamer (cheap as chips) in the front of amp, 10 band EQ (Donner Seeker) and Rowin Noise Gate (another cheap pedal of Amazon) FX LOOP - after tweaking everything I am so happy with the tone! To make it even better I have added TCe Mimiq Doubler (I know - in mono is bit overkill the purpose - but it makes a difference and makes me even happier - you won't really need it - and it's bit priceyyyy)
To archive 90's tone I have added TC Fangs Metal (another great cheap pedal) and bingo - Master of Puppets, Rust in peace, Black Album and more ....
To get a modern metal I am using Behringer UM300 (cheap cheap cheap) modern, distord ... Not a big fan of it (might be a reason of sufficient performance for this genres)
I am mainly using for old school thrash kind of metal, and my chain looks like: guitar with Seymour Duncan Distortion Mayhem- Deamon Tube screamer - Bugera G5 - EQ 10 band - Noise Gate - back to Bugera G5 - Harley Benton G112 Vintage - AWESOME !!
Clean channel - very simple, I have added chorus pedal and is ok - I don't care ! Who cares ! ;)
This amp is build great, heavy and sturdy. Feels solid and looks fantastic! Added footswitch is surprisingly good quality (heavy and sturdy) but with bit lack of button feel when stomping...

Negative things I have found:
* Small tiny imperfections in finish (tolex in some corners - very minor thing)
* Quality check missing ( one screw on a side was half way out, same thing with footswitch, one screw loose at the bottom of unit)
* Lack of this final bite in tone without boosting

No regrets of buying it, lot of features (FX loop, attenuator, cab sim for headphones or recording, standby for silence practice and even line in for backing tracks) and all that for under £200 !! What else you need ! It's fantastic for this price! It's coming with European power plug... However... Thomann gifted me UK plug for free! (Kettle type cord) Thank you Thomann! (Great service btw)

This review could be much longer......

If you want play metal on budget - get Line 6 Spider 4 15W for home practice (£40 second hand) and enjoy music. However, if you looking to upgrade/evolve to next step while still maintaining budget - GET THIS THING!
Thanks for reading

All the best for all musicians around the world!

I never owned a Bugera amplifier before this wonderful device and after ten days of use I can confirm the great choice I've made.
The built quality is really high-grade: materials, components, manufacturing, assembly are conform with top brands.
I also own Marshall, Laney, Roland and Vox amplifiers and this Bugera G5 is perfectly in line with those acclaimed brands.

Features are incredible; there is nothing more one may ask to an amplifier: two channels, reverb unit, UK/US morphing feature, an effective EQ, effect loop, bundled foot-switch for channel selection and reverb On/Off, line input, emulated output/headphone (1x12 and 4x12), 5W/1W/0.1W power attenuator, Tube Life Multiplier technology and auto biasing system.

And what's more, it's a full tube amp!

Sound palette is astonishing: one can choose between a really clear clean channel and a very powerful overdrive channel, playing with an infinite set of intermediate sound configurations. Noise is very well controlled and the output power flexibility gives this amp the capability to be used for home recording, practicing and rehearsal sessions as well.

Both pre-input and in-loop effects are well handled: I prefer to use OD / DIST stompboxes before the input socket but placing them on the FX Loop gives a great sound flexibility (this amp also has a level switch to accomodate the signal level of stompboxes and rack unit EFX).

At the end, the overall rating of this amp (taking into account its target price) is top level!
I know this is a cheap replica of another tube amplifier head but the implementation quality of Bugera is really surprising.

UPDATE after a month of use: I confirm my absolutely positive opinion and with a 12" cabinet loaded with a Fender-Eminence speaker the voice of my Bugera is simply astonishing!!!

This little amp surprise me:
- It's Budget friendly
- It's well build. Most than expected. Specially at this price
- It's has two separate channels
- The include footswitch is very well made
- It has an FX Loop
- It's use 8 Ohms cab
- It's an real valve amp
- It has an inbuilt power soak
- It has an line in jack
- It's lightweight
- The only option witch is not include is the dust cover Bugera G5-PC (item number 384410) but it's cheap too

For the sound:
- The clean tone are pretty basic. It's not bad but I actually prefer Fender sound. Just personal preference
- The overdrice chanel is good.

In conclusion:
- It's actually a good surprise for an valve amp on a budget
- The sound of cannot reach the famous brand valve amp... but those one are way more expensive.
- I suppose it's where the miracle of having tons of features on a budget ends
- If you are looking for a practice / rehearsal valve amp, this could definitivly be the one

This amp head is excellent for the price and solid quality. I played bands in college, a few of my friends broke and are world famous musicians. I am still at that intermediate advance stage, small gigs with buddy,s (Bugera V22). I wanted a practice amp that is loud enough for practice, but retains the exact 5 Watt sound at 1 and .01 watt. You can practice, write and really dig in at 1 watt and be able to hear what a 22watt amp head will sound like, and don’t get that “too loud” knock on the practice, sound studio door.
If you are looking for a tube practice amp, that can get loud, but emulate loud at 0.1 watts, this is the amp for you, great support too!

Overall amp sounds good with one major flaw (at least for me) - it lacks decent low end. So for overdrive it is very good, for strumming it is quite good too but it does poor job for more melodic music because low E string sounds very tight and lacks extension to the bass, so not so good for clean tones.
Bass knob has no effect from the middle position and it looks like that hardware just cuts low end intentionally - you cant add more bass with pedals too, if you pass music to line in it is filtered too - low end just erased. Headphones emulated output produces the same sound - without decent low end.

Pros
* decent build quality
* nice tremble and middle tones
* nice overdrive sound
Cons
* thin clean tone because very weak low end

Overall, it would be ideal amp, for home, if only it had more punch in low end. For me it is deal breaker because most of the time I use clean tones.

I'm a "bedroom player" now but had been playing in a band for many years and played through many tube amps. I swapped my Blackstar HT1R combo for this head because it has two channels, a proper FX loop and other attracting features but I have to say that it sounds really lifeless compared to the small HT1R. Dynamically poor distorted sound (whatever gain setting you use) and flat clean (but that's fine considering it's a 5W amp). I swapped the chinese tubes to better ones but with no results. The overall quality and functionality is quite good but it simply doesn't sound right.
Again I'm not expecting a fair comparison with a Mesa Mini Recto but the Blackstar HT1-R, through the same 1X12 cab, sounded way better.
After 6 months I'm selling it.

I would type a better review if I ever receive a working unit or a refund so this will have to do. Right out of the box, this unit did not last even a few minutes. This unit had a defective reverb channel as well, it wouldn’t turn off even when you moved the knob. When the reverb was on, it would make a terrible repeating popping noise. Upon warming up the unit, the change tube light would go and no sound could be made when linked with a guitar. After changing the tubes, it would still be defective with the same problems. This all happened within warranty right out of the box. Don’t buy these, I thought they would be good upon previous reviews.

1) The components are not of the highest quality.
For example - the Treble/Mid/Bass pots all require a bit different force to move them. Not a big deal, but leaves an impression of a budget product, which this is.

2) To my ears, the tone is useable only if the morph pot is all the way in the "USA" section.

3) Clean tone is good enough, I have absolutely no complaints here.

4) The tone changes quite a bit depending on the amount of gain you have. Which is to be expected.

Small amount of gain produces a very thin tone in my opinion. But I am sure it can be compensated by playing with the EQ a bit.

Tone gets much better with full gain, but then you get...too much gain :)

I have managed to find a tone I fully enjoy with the gain on 3/4 of the way and by tweaking the EQ section.

5) Reverb is digital, but sounds good. Having the ability to switch it on/off with a standard footswitch is an amazing feature.

CONCLUSION:
If you want a metal amp with lots of features for a small amount of money - I fully recommend this product. Even without an overdrive pedal, it produces a great sounding (but not very tight) distorted sound. And for 5 watts it is VERY loud :)

I did a lot of research before taking he decision to buy the Bugera. It is not a mainstream brand at the moment however the brand is making serious efforts in producing good products. I Paired this amp head with a Jenson 10" speaker and I have to say the sound is great. On Clean channel it is very crisp and sustains well. On Drive it produces the distortion one would expect, nothing fancy but the classic distortion which you hear everywhere. I use the Reverb a lot as well which is subtle yet useful. I have been using it for 6 months now everyday and for the money it is more than worth it. it is also very well finished in terms of esthetics.
So far the only improvement I would like to have is to save the preference to switch on on Drive channel straightaway as opposed to have to enable it every time you turn on. however the pedal for reverb and gain is handy. I suggest one also buys the cover for it as it looks stylish and found it useful to protect from dust.

For the money I don't think you can get anything in the same quality level.

Update few months after warrany and thing is producing no sound. it seems a common issue. Bugera support is useless and the thing is basically to throw away. i have moderatley used the amp and always taken care of it , never abused and almost always on 1w setting. Bugera s'quality is not for long lasting equipment.