Bogner Barcelona 40-watt Tube Head Reviews
Bogner knows that the world needs more than just high-gain amps - the world needs the Barcelona 40-watt tube amp head. The Barcelona gives you a ton of headroom for smooth clean tones. You can crank the gain control to fatten up your tone and add some sweet richness and depth, but overall this amp stays pretty clean. Engage the pull fat mode by pulling the gain control out, and you'll get a rounder and fuller bottom end with a bit of extra gain to boot. Turn down the master volume a bit after engaging the pull fat mode, and you've got a very dynamic clean tone with lots of spank and punch. And with all this headroom and tonal richness, you'll love how your favorite overdrive pedal sounds in front of the Barcelona. Whether you play live or record all day long, you need to check out the Bogner Barcelona 40-watt tube amp head.
Customer Reviews
Customer Added Media
This product doesn't have any review media yet!
Share Your Thoughts
Help other music gear aficionados by sharing your opinions of gear you've purchased.
Questions about the Barcelona?
Or call us at (800) 222-4700
Sweetwater's Sales Engineers are regarded as the most experienced and knowledgeable professionals in the music industry, with extensive music backgrounds and intense training on the latest products and technologies. They are available to offer you personalized product advice any time you need it.
Highest Rated Reviews
Sweet!
Excellent amplifier! I bought this amp as a clean pedal platform. The clean tone is gorgeous and full, and my pedals sound great straight in. The clean tone is very adjustable anywhere from sparkly clean jangle to round and warm. My main amp for the last 6 months and super dependable So far.
Desert Island Amp
If you're looking for warm clean tone this is it. I use strats and 2x12 bogner cabs. I've had Mesa, Fender, Carr, Ampeg....This is my favorite. You have to experiment with tubes. Not an amp for hard rock or distortion. I own 2.
Great no-nonsense amp for pedals
This is THE amp to get if you already have the pedals to carve your tone for and are looking for an excellent 1 channel amp to act as your canvas. Ample headroom that does not compromise tone in any way. The Barcelona pours out 40W of class A power (half power switch acts more like -1/3) and has just a few knobs, but man do they change the tone (I love the 3-way toggle mids, the gain-pull fat switch, etc.)
Bogner makes great gear. This amp is made like a tank, as usual, and because of the simple circuitry tubes make a big difference, so take out your favorite tubes and experiment.
Great clean tone...not enough amplitude for my needs
The sounds that come out of this guy are truly fantastic supper clean, great tone, takes pedalboards really well. It also seems to be really solidly built.
However it is not a particularly loud or powerful amp. I paired it with a Bogner 1X12 and had to crank it to maximum just to play with a drummer and a bassist. If I were to perform with a 2nd guitar, keys, horns, etc there's no way this guy would keep up.
The Bogner literature boasts that this thing has huge headroom, and while head room is relative, I didn't really find this claim to be true. They also say that the 1X12 sounds very 3 dimensional like much larger cabinets, and while they are the best sounding cabs I've ever played through, I found this to also not be true.
Calculating amplitude based on Watts is a tricky thing my Fender Blues Jr. 15 watt amp is almost as loud as this Barcelona...although again not nearly as nice sounding.
At the end of the day I really do need to stress this is an amazing piece of gear. It literary upset me to return it because I was so in love with it's sound. If you're rhythm section isn't too loud or your doing jazz clubs then I can't recommend this unit highly enough. But I ended up returning it & I thought I'd help the Sweetwater community members the same frustrations by managing expectations. There is no magic box & you can't get around the laws of physics. A small box sounds like a small box. If you want a bigger sound for a full band purposes you're gonna need something bigger and more powerful.
Great clean tone...not enough amplitude for my needs
The sounds that come out of this guy are truly fantastic supper clean, great tone, takes pedalboards really well. It also seems to be really solidly built.
However it is not a particularly loud or powerful amp. I paired it with a Bogner 1X12 and had to crank it to maximum just to play with a drummer and a bassist. If I were to perform with a 2nd guitar, keys, horns, etc there's no way this guy would keep up.
The Bogner literature boasts that this thing has huge headroom, and while head room is relative, I didn't really find this claim to be true. They also say that the 1X12 sounds very 3 dimensional like much larger cabinets, and while they are the best sounding cabs I've ever played through, I found this to also not be true.
Calculating amplitude based on Watts is a tricky thing my Fender Blues Jr. 15 watt amp is almost as loud as this Barcelona...although again not nearly as nice sounding.
At the end of the day I really do need to stress this is an amazing piece of gear. It literary upset me to return it because I was so in love with it's sound. If you're rhythm section isn't too loud or your doing jazz clubs then I can't recommend this unit highly enough. But I ended up returning it & I thought I'd help the Sweetwater community members the same frustrations by managing expectations. There is no magic box & you can't get around the laws of physics. A small box sounds like a small box. If you want a bigger sound for a full band purposes you're gonna need something bigger and more powerful.
