Bugera T50 Infinium 50W Cage-Style 2-Channel Tube Amplifier

Edit: Looking into this t50 head, it seems like it may not be as loud as it should be (edited my post above too). Who knows what's going on, but yeah, they certainly cut the curners a bit on this (by all accounts, something like this should be double the price). There was one review I watched where two Australian guys reviewed this and the t5 which you have. IMO, you have the better sounding amp. This t50 has too much fizz on the top end and trying to get rid of it equals mud (the best review was done by a dude wearing a queen shirt). Still would've liked to have seen the difference between class a and class a/b operation. Oh well.

Yeah, don't think a lot of guys here grasp how loud this actually is. A 50w tube head is loud as f#ck (even if that is peak output as a few people were complaining about). I was the same way when I was starting out years ago because I mainly had solid state gear and a 50w SS head would barely push a half stack enough to keep up with a live drummer and the rest of the band. Realistically you would need a 100w SS head to get anything done. As far as your T5 goes, I'm sure you can mod it a little to get a bit cleaner sound out of it. You may be able to bias the tubes slightly hotter (yes, I said hotter so that would give you a bit more headroom - it works backwards from what you would think). Other measures would be maybe get rid of some cathode bypass caps. If the amp has NFB coming off the output tube circling back to one of the preamp cathodes, try lowering the resistance. That makes a big difference without lowering the gain much, if any in my experience (it cancels out distortion). There's probably a few other little odds and ends you could do like that. Not a big fan of swapping 12ax7s for 12at7s or especially 12au7s (those should really get new bias resistors at the very least and don't know why everyone thinks they should just drop in just because they fit LOL). I'm sure that's what everyone will suggest to you; it's the usual go-to for some reason. It may reduce distortion plopping one or more of those tubes in, but it comes at the cost of gain (amp will probably not be as loud). I also suspect that the tubes which came with the amp are cheap chinese tubes, wouldn't hurt to swap them out with name brand ones and just keep the factory ones as spares. I've seen that little head on sale here before too and was kind of intrigued by it, especially since it has reverb. How is the reverb on it, is it usable? I would never have a use for the head in this deal thread at all (way too much power). If I did grab it, I would probably get to work modding it and convert it to a double EL34 single ended amp (would essentially cut the power in half and would possibly sound better in the process too).

Typically that is true but that is often used to measure transistor amplifiers. Tubes are "fixed" so if it is 30w or 50w, it's the same "50w" that Marshalls were putting out in the 70s. It's an apples to apples comparison.

Haha....just to expand on this- even a 15-30w tube amp is too loud for home use

My main amp is an Egnater Rebel 30 MKII and I have to switch it down to 1W to practice with it at home- and even then it's super loud. It's great in bars and small venues, but at home you'll rumble the plaster off the walls.

The laws of physics work the same whether it's tubes or transistors. 50 watts is 50 watts whether it comes from a transistor or tube stage, so long as other measurement conditions are the same (load impedance, frequency range, duration, THD).

The EL34 is a common tube used in Class-AB configuration for 50-watt output guitar amplifiers.

totally missing the point. im not debating the power output. im saying any amp with EL34 is going put out the same power ROUGHLY as any other amp using EL34s assuming they are the same number. The wattage is a meaningless metric. Pro tip, as a professional musician for decades, wattage is almost always meaningless metric since your amp is mic'ed.

This is true for most people. First is the fact that most single 12-Inch cabs have a sensitive rating of about 97-100dB 1W/1M. Most cabs in homes are pushed up against a wall, which adds about 5-6dB. This means with a single watt of power, the cab is capable of producing 102-106dB of output.

Most people listen to music with an average SPL of 75dB for relaxed listening, and 85dB for "spirited/critical" listening. The peak reference level is 105dB with 85dB average volume. In other words, 1 watts into a 12-inch cab can reach peak reference levels, which is "too loud" for most people. To get to a comfortable 85dB average volume with a 12-Inch cab, you need 0.01 watts of power.