I’m not sure if many people have noticed, but this weekly series has seen over 40 different amplifier manufacturers featured in my list as I try to determine what tube amplifier I will purchase as my first all-tube amplifier head. In fact, by the time this weekly series is over, I’ll have written about 52 different amplifier manufacturers. There will be no double-ups. So surely as we reach the end of the line the quality will diminish. Heck no! Quite the opposite in fact. The Bogner Atma is living proof.
Well it’s not really a living thing, but the word atma does mean soul. So it’s close enough for my liking.
When you watch the official promotional video for the Bogner Atma, you can easily lose yourself in the soul of the amplifier as you watch the liquid dance in the speaker cone. This is a great promotional video. Not only do you get to hear the amazing diversity of this amplifier, you also get to learn about the amplifier’s creation, design process and its creator. I live for stuff like this. Gearporn.
So cool. I really like the light display this amplifier has going on actually. Very beautiful. Again, if you’ve been watching this weekly series you’d have seen me mention how much I love a good amplifier design. This is now one of my favourites. But an amplifier is about more than pleasing aesthetics. It needs features and it needs sound quality. Sound quality it seems to have covered (if you watched the video you’ll hopefully agree with me there). Features however need to be proven with a list. There’s simply no other way.
- 3 channels
- Clean channel with volume and tone control and a three-position bright switch
- Crunch channel with a gain preset (back panel) and volume control
- Solo channel with volume control
- EZ81 tube rectifier
- 2 x 18 watt EL84 power amp tubes
- 3 x JJ ECC83 pre amp tubes
- 4, 8 and 16 ohm speaker outputs
- Buffered series FX loop
- Power attenuator switch (for 18, 5 and 1 watt operation)
A list with a sub-list. Clearly the features are rich. So it looks good, sounds good and is feature packed. I think I have a new contender in the top 5. If only it weren’t so expensive. I wonder if I can convince my wife that this is like three amplifiers in one. Could work!
Disclaimer: I’ve not played through this head. I have not experienced the sound or tone of this head other than through video. That doesn’t matter. It looks awesome, it’s obviously played by winners and I want one.