A Bogner Alchemist recap/commentary?

[humblepie]

I've heard and read it all, from praise to parody, from love to hate, etc.
I traded into one of these through some odd circumstances. Mainly I had a gig opportunity come up that required something more like this as opposed to something single channel, vintage, no extras, type of thing.

I must say that I've gotten the hang of how to set the tone controls, how to use the delay and reverb, using the clean vs. lead channels, the crunch and drive toggles, and I must say I'm really enjoying this amp.

Sounds great with a nice strat or Gibson style instrument.

It's got loads of vintage "type" tones and a very good feel, better than most of what's out there until you hit the boutique and/or PTP threshold price-wise.

The amp sparkles and sings, runs cool, can tear down sheetrock or whisper. I do think the V30 is a little bright or brittle, but nothing too bad.

I really like the amp and I don't understand all the harsh criticism.

Anybody?

[Lance]

I don't get it either. Lotsa peeps talk about grab n go, and this amp is one of the best for something like that. Down the road, I'll get one used, for little gigs and such. The price keeps coming down, so yay us!

[Bstring]

I with you. I've never had a bad experience with one. Come you guys! What's your beef with this amp. Wrong vintage? Too many tannins?

[humblepie]

Seriously!!!

Also, it gets a killer smooth jazz sound, no pedals necessary. As far as the purported Bogner face melting thing, I never get it much past a healthy singing gain. It does the Robben Ford thing extremely well, too. I play slide and use a pedestrian setting on Allman Brothers and Jackson Brown and wow, I love it, it's SWEET!!!

[B Money]

count me in. I just got one of these and I'm loving it the more I play it. The clean sound is amazing, the Crunch is rightous once you get it dialed in. The built in effects are good quality, certainly good enough for any live gig. Mine is built like a tank too.

What gets me regarding the negative comments about the Alchemist is the repeated mantra "not enough gain for metal." Seriously?! Unboosted, mine has too much gain beyond 7 on the gain knob. It's insane. I'll admit that the Mercurcy channel takes a little while to dial in, and it's finnicky about speakers. I'll also admit that when I first tried one out in Guitar Center, I didn't like it too much. I was comparing it to my Ecstacy. Well, it ain't an Ecsctacy and it's not supposed to be.
It's got its own unique thing happening which I really like. Guess I must be a Bogner man

[V-Type]

Most of the critics views are dimmed by the MIC and Line6 aspect of the Alchemist imo.
Not the amp itself.
If Reinhold produced this amp in his US shop and charged the $2000 plus it Would cost Im sure a lot Less folks would complain.
Ive played them and they are stellar amps on par with anything out there.
Thanks too the negative reviews you can find them cheap on the used market.

[boldaslove1977]

i have one and i never understood the hate.

does it sound a little bit more "processed" than other amps i use? yeah... sure. but it's totally a gigable amp. the red channel never really did it for me... but the green channel is great. i set it to an edge-of-breakup kinda sound and put pedals on top of that. i've gotten several compliments from sound techs on the sound of that... one girl we work with regularly told me she had to do almost nothing to the sound... and she said that never happens. she's used to having to do lots of tweaking at the board to some of the amps that come across her stage...

[Guitarfool]

I think some of the remarks are due to the China/Line 6 connection. I think its a very usable amp head, cleans are nice and clean (not a fender ) but nice dare i say almost chimey. There is a crunch mode that im not a big fan of on the clean but i do think the clean is very usable and nice.

The OD channel is nice, i like it its kinda warm and marshally meets 6L6 (if that makes sense) the other thing i like is there no harshness on the OD channel, its pretty warm and gets into hard rock or met type types with ease. I think the amp is slightly compressed as well but not to bad. I like that when you turn a knob the tone really changes (want 2 scoop, go knock yourself out, more bass or trebs go for it and the tone changes)

I think the onboard delay reverb are usable (not great but not bad) and the other thing i like is that it sounds reasonably good at lower house type volumes. the master volume 'taper' is pretty good, i think overall its a good amp and not worthy of any 'hate' lol, if you can snag one for $650 used or so go ahead and have a blast