In the last few weeks we had a chance to try out some great new gear while taking a trip to New York. The following is some of our finds on this excursion.
Bugera V-55HD: This is a great sounding all-tube 55 watt, 2 channel head by Bugera that runs on 2 6L6 power tubes. The street price in these is $350, and Guitar Center has been carrying them. The clean channel sounds crystal clear, and gets a nice bluesy dirty sound with the gain knob cranked. The second channel has a very usable overdrive that doesn't get as fuzzy as other amps in this price range, such as Epiphone's So-Cal head. All in all, it's a great budget head with some rather professional sounds. There's been some debate on Bugera's quality in the past, but we have seen no major issues with the newer gear they've produced. The goal of the V-55HD (and the V-55 1x12 combo) is to get that classic sound, and sound wise they nailed it. It gets a sound that some have compared to Fender's DeVille series, but this head has some better lows, and isn't as harsh as the Hot Rod DeVille.
Aria Pro II SB-1000RI: Probably the greatest boutique-style laminated bass to come out of Japan in the '80's was the old Aria Pro II SB-1000. This bass was meant to be a more affordable take on the American basses being made by Alembic and Ken Smith. They had 3 knobs; volume tone, and a 6 position active tone circuit knob to change voicing, and a toggle switch to turn the active off. These were notably used by Cliff Burton, and John Taylor of Duran Duran. Aria discontinued these, and focused more on cheaper basses that were more beginner based. Finally Aria has released the SB-1000RI, and the SB-CB (same bass, but black with black hardware). The SB-1000RI is every bit as good as the old 80's models we've tried in the past. The neck has a bit more beef than a Jazz Bass, but is still very quick. The electronics cover a wide spectrum of sound, and adjust so quickly, seemingly easier than modern 2-pickup basses that you have to dial away with tone and blending to nail that perfect tone.
There were several other pieces of gear that were fun to play around with, but these are new, and really deserve mentioning. The Aria model we actually came across was the SB-CB, but the specs are similar on both that and the SB-1000RI.
