Drive these valves into banshee-league fury without waking up the neighbors.

The compact Bugera V5 Tube Guitar Combo runs on 1 power and 1 preamp tube and is all dressed up in classic 2-tone vinyl. The 5W amplifier's bone-simple controls give the Bugera V5 the look of a carefully constructed nostalgia trip. In fact, in many ways, it is! But plug into this beautiful little 8" combo amp and you'll not only find a sound that's caked in real vintage raunch, but you'll also have modern features that take this sound to places it couldn't go—until now.

Rock music brings to mind amplifiers as big as skyscrapers, dishing out irreversible ear damage at ruthless volumes. But a studio secret among guitar greats is that little low-watt valve combos like the V5 can be maxed out for red-hot overdriven tone without blowing fuses or incurring any property damage.

The Bugera V5 is a living, breathing homage to those half-pint screamers of the past, but with 2 very important improvements. See, this amp may be small, but 5W in Valvesville is still loud as hell when it's sitting in your bedroom. That's why the V5 combo amp features a switchable power attenuator —to reduce the amplitude of the signal without changing its sound—so you can run it at 5, 1, or 0.1 watts.

Finding a headphone out jack on an all-valve guitar amp is incredibly rare because the integration requires loading the output transformer and filtering the signal for a loudspeaker simulation. (Translation: it's a real pain in the patoot!) But true to form, Bugera has gone the extra mile to make late night practicing possible. Just plug a pair of headphones into the 1/4" phones jack on the back panel, and you're ready to keep the V5's all-valve sound all to yourself.

Then again, if it's more volume you need, the Bugera V5 amp has a 1/4" Speaker Out jack to connect an additional speaker with a minimum impedance of 4 Ohms.

This dangerous dandy also features the same studio-caliber digital reverb found in bigger Bugera amplifiers. The spring reverb found in the V5 amp's post-war predecessors sounds lovely, but is delicate and expensive to repair. This modern V5 update gives you an equally mesmerizing vintage reverb sound without the wallet-draining vintage amp's lack of reliability.

With a Bugera V5 Tube Combo amp in your home or studio, your tonal woes are over. The V5 brings the true sound of an antique 5W valve amp. It's built to survive abuse, and its price tag is tons lighter than the ones you'll find tied to its elders. Adopt a Bugera V5 tube combo amp today and get ready to pack 60 years of sonic inspiration into your recording or practice sessions.

Bugera V5 5W 1x8 Tube Guitar Combo Amp Features:

• Hand-built 5W Class-A amplifier driven by 1 x EL84 valve
• 8" Speaker
• Way cool vintage look and feel
• Authentic preamp design from the '60s featuring 1 x 12AX7 valve—everything from purring blues to mind-blowing crunch
• Integrated high-class reverb with dedicated Reverb control
• Vintage Equalizer with dedicated Tone control
• Built-in 2-way Power Attenuator allows you to get ultimate sound at any volume
• High-quality components and exceptionally rugged construction ensure long life

Get red-hot overdriven tone without blowing fuses or incurring any property damage.

Bugera V5 5W 1x8 Tube Guitar Combo Amp

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Bugera V5 5W 1x8 Tube Guitar Combo Amp

Posted by Play now think later from Florida on Nov 6, 2009

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Active musician

Reviewer's Play Style: Rock/punk/hardcore

Basically, I like my amps to have two things: an Effects Loop and built-in reverb. I was pretty much sold on a Tech 21 Trademark 30, until I went to Guitar Center and played this amp's bigger brother, the V22. I had decided to buy the Bugera v22 then, I just didn't have enough cash. so I went home and a few days later I had all the cash I needed, but to my dispair the v22 was not in stock for over a month from that date, and even later for the Tech 21. Impatience got the best of me, and I found myself ordering the smaller version of the v22, the v5.

After taking the amp out of the box, I immediately noticed the quality. The handle is heavy duty leather with plastic rings in the loops, assuring that the handle will never fail. The grill cloth, gold piping, jewel light and toggle are all high quality parts. There was not a screw out of lace inside the back of the amp. the hot glue residue was wiped nice and clean. Everything looked in order. Then I turned it on, and was immediately impressed. Breakup was nice, came pretty easily, but not very easily. I noticed the overdrive was kind of muddy, and the tone pot didn't have too much. Overall a pretty dark amp. Then I changed the tubes. I swapped out the stock Burgera tubes with Electro Harmonix 12AX7 and a medium El84 tubes. Wow. What an improvment! The amp really came to life.The tubes added alot more highs to the overall sound, and really made the overdrive something to be desired. A great improvment and well worth it for about 30 bucks.Im a player who runs an Overdrive pedal into a clean amp and adds a bit of gain from the onboard gain pot. The amp is still a bit dark sounding, but the pedal I use (Danelectro Drive pedal) has an onboard tone pot, so it compensates. Also, I'm a reverb heavy player. I use reverb in eveything I play. The reverb on this is good, its totally useable anyway, but it's not really accutronics or even lexicon, but for non-recording applications, it is totally on par. And the last thing I would like to point out about this amp is that it is Loud!! I mean deafening! It most certaintly could keep up with a drummer. It is a perfectly legit practice amp and maybe even a decent live amp for small shows. Very cool.

Overall, This totally defeats the Price:Quality ratio. For the $ (Plus a little extra for new tubes) this is the best amp you'll ever find, period. If you play metal, I think you're going to need a pedal. And don't expect vox-like sparkle, just not enough highs. I wouldn't mind seeing a top boost circut, though. So please, don't hesitate on buying this little beast!

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Practice with tone tone tone!

Posted by OldAxMan from Helena, AL on Nov 1, 2009

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Former Active Musisian, now Hobbist

Reviewer's Play Style: Southern Rock, and Blues

I was a little worried about buying this Buger V5 amp because I didn't have the oportunity to try one out first. I had been looking for a good tube practice/recording amp and had tried out the Fender Champion 600, Epiphone valve Jr, Vox etc. Each one had good tone for a 5W practice amp, but even 5W could get too loud at breakup. Then I read about this little Bugera V5 with reverb, tone, gain, volume, and an attenuater to boot. Add a headphone jack on a tube amp and the others could not compare. So I took the gamble, which considering the price was not that big a gamble, and could not be more satified with the purchase. The Buger V5 has it all and more. Tube tone, reverb if I want to surf abit, attenuation to get quiet, and a headphone jack if I need to get silent. Plus this amp looks great and is solidly built. For me its a keeper.

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Awesome But Not What I Was Looking For

Posted by Nick from RI on Oct 11, 2009

Experience w/product: I have used it

Reviewer's Background: Hobbyist

Reviewer's Play Style: Rock, Jazz

First and foremost, this is not a bad amplifier. If you're looking for a pallet of predominantly clean tones with maybe a little breakup, your search is over. You've found a star of affordable, class A tube amps.

The look of it is fantastic, the clean tone is superb, I loved the power attenuator and you don't see many dial-in options on low wattage tube amps so I thought the reverb was a nice addition. Having said that, tried as a might I couldn't get a good fuzzy tone out of it that pleased me. I let the tubes heat up for a while to justify my claim but I couldn't get a round saturated tone out of the V5. I was using a Gretsch Electromatic Corvette through a Big Muff Pi.

I'll keep this brief but I returned this amp the day after I got it because no matter how many different approaches I took I couldn't get the fuzz saturation I was looking for. Knobs were turned in excess, I really tried. I wanted to love this amp.

So I hope this helps anyone considering buying the V5. Like I said, really great clean tone. It went above and beyond so I was sad to see it go because of that. I'll leave anybody reading with this - just play it before you pull the trigger.

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Talk about bang for the buck,

Posted by StampedeMan from the high desert, AZ. on Oct 4, 2009

Experience w/product: I own it

Reviewer's Background: Hobbyist

Reviewer's Play Style: Hard Rock and dah Blues

Talk about bang for the buck, this little dude delivers in spades. I have had my Bugera V5 for a couple weeks now. What can I say, except I simply love the little thing. It is the perfect at home practice amp, all the valve tones are there. And it is loud enough to shake da shack! And holee molee a headphone jack on a class A tube amp, imagine that! It will keep the neighbors, the wife, or mom and pop off your back. It is dead quiet when turned on(no hums or hissing). I've got a small assortment of pedals and stompboxes, and they all sound and work great thru this amp. So in closing, I have a feeling that Bugera is going to sell boat loads of their V series Amps. And, just wait till the after market mod kit builders get their hands on these little beauties, are you listening, Mercury Magnectics? At this price point, how can you go wrong? I know that I'am really pleased with my Bugera V5.

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Bugera V5 5W 1x8 Tube Guitar Combo Amp

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