Bogner Helios Eclipse - The Most Modded Marshall EVER!

[@PerfectCircle91]

I was just sitting here thinking about how bad I want a Bogner Helios Eclipse and here you are dropping a whole video about it. I LOVE THAT TONE GOOD LORD 😂😂😂 Keep it up and rock on 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@IamMusicNerd]

Bogner makes killer amps. Even their Synergy modules sound epic. I love the Ecstasy.

[@geneparmesan8827]

The bogner amps are on another level

[@DavidMorley]

I love the Bogner international range. Killer amps, as is the Atma.

[@mhoff7722]

I love the look and all three channels and all the modes are useable for me 🤘🤘🤘

[@TheStudioRats]

Great to hear!

[@Utube-s8m]

Don’t forget that Goldfinger when you went guitar shopping. You two loved it.

[@TheStudioRats]

Yeah there’s one for sale not too far away as well.

[@nekkon1989]

I LOVED the clean tones.

[@glennmartin4232]

Sounds awesome. It’s a gain monster.

[@johnp1908]

I have the 50 watt bogner Helios (regular version not eclipse) and it’s probably the version most people would prefer because it has a 70s mode in addition to the 80s and a plexi input. The 70s mode is really the highlight of the amp with a higher output humbucker. Kind of a perfect jmp/jcm sound. I think the eclipse has some diode clipping in it which might be leading to that overly modern sound maybe?

[@peevee605]

Luke plays them. Moderate overdrive, cleans when he rolls off the volume and high gain when he adds an overdrive or stack two.

[@hemmelight]

The regular Helios, specifically.

[@rudigerk]

To my Ears it has a bit of that Rockman Sizzle.

[@jake13b]

i would say that has more to do with the load box/ speaker emulation that they are using. it is the same on most amps they try. not that it is bad, but not just a character to the helios.

[@tomford8286]

Paul, you are such a great player and get great tone!! I wish I could play and sound like you!!

[@TheStudioRats]

Cheers Tim, it’s much appreciated. There’s a lot of mistakes you don’t get to see.😀

[@amaiorano67]

I have one and love it it's awsome the cleans are great 👍. And it's simple I found a few settings I like I hardly ever change them . I think I mostly use the hot and 80s but the eclipse is good if u play with the knobs and lower the gain . Anyway it's the first bogner I have ever owned and he builds a great amp . He's German but I am pretty sure they are hand made in California

[@TheStudioRats]

Thanks for sharing!

[@DBroce]

Hail Satin and Hair. A great sound, ready for the capture. I’ll add the noise gate.

[@TheStudioRats]

Looking good Dave!

[@GearSafari]

Beast of an amp 🔥

[@6120orange]

Hard to sit down with a Bogner and get great tones off the bat. The EQ is so active, the interaction between controls gives much wider scope than other amps, except maybe Boogies. Forget the Eclipse modes and this amp nails Lynch & DeMartini 80s tones when dialled in. A hidden gem.

[@mfam1306]

As with most guitar amps, the EQ is literally passive, not active. It is simply a matter of pot values and sweep types. As always, dial in with ears, not eyes.

[@reverb508]

I own the regular Helios and it is insane. The only thing I don't like about it is that you can't switch between the plexi and hot channels. You have to plug your cable into one or the other. Kinda sucks if you want to have a dedicated clean and dirty tone.

[@lostinpa-dadenduro7555]

Putting in a request: if you guys could get your hands on the Bogner Atma head, it’s an extremely interesting design that could make for a great video and captures.

[@chrislestermusic]

I’m running an Atma through a Fryette PS100 and it smokes. Turns it into a real beast.

[@Utube-s8m]

I have one too. It’s a great little amp with lots of options.

[@Funkybassuk]

“More nasty than this man’s shirt” 😂 Oh boy - what a thumbnail. Very cool amp - and very nice clean channel indeed!

[@lostwoods]

Would love to get your thoughts on the regular Helios! Have read a lot about how the Eclipse version doesn't quite have the magic of the regular Helios 50 and 100.

[@davider1877]

sounds awesome! are you planning on doing a tonex capture for this?

[@harrybee3093]

I would be very happy if you can capture the German Amp Ampete One.

[@jcugnoni]

Very interesting amp. Except the eclipse mode that seem complete overkill; I think it sound pretty great in your demos. Did not know this amp and it is an nice , simpler alternative to the Ecstasy. It reminds me a bit the Ceriatone Yeti / Chupacabra which offers a wide variety of modded Marshall tones.

[@lostinpa-dadenduro7555]

Were you playing Summer of 69 by Brian Adams at the start? The first chord hit me like that.

[@fredmanteghian5913]

Too much tinny sounding distortion for me. It sounds like an even more obnoxious Egnator Renegade with a bright Egnator Tourmaster 2x12 cab. Somehow I manage to get an OK jazz tone off the clean channel, but honestly it only gets used because it’s one of two amps in ”that” room. Ironically, the other amp in that room is a Bogner Chinese combo from the late 90s I think, that isn’t half bad on clean (total trash on drive though). My best amps are a 97 JTM45 head, 65 Bassman head, and a Friedman Runt. I I just the JTM with its “honest” amp drive and thump and wonderful clean up.

[@MrSpike7590]

They took the website down. There's an email address for service and parts.

[@riccardo8676]

I have this amplifier and unfortunately with this review I don't recognize it. Mine doesn't make "alarm" noises, something is probably wrong, maybe a preamp valve. It should also be paired with a decent speaker. I don't know, but it may be due to their age but I see these guys as suitable for reviewing something more vintage..

[@equalleftrights3130]

Using irs, load boxes and attenuators is not the same thing as straight amp and cab. If you play 20 amps through load boxes and irs, they'll sound very close. I dont understand all these people saying how great irs or the fryette ps100 are. Do these people not have ears or are they getting paid to say so? Sure, great for recording, and to play low volumes with non master volume amps, but if you have a master volume amp, those things make the amp sound different..some good, some very bad. I've tried just about all of them except for the ironman II and none sounded good to me. From Suhr reactive ir to the fryette ps100, I didnt like any of them.

[@mfam1306]

I would guess his LP doesn’t have potted pickups. Thus the squealing. Positioning and speaker/IR, etc. can also be a factor.

[@hollywoodactress]

I love high gain amps but I am not sure on this one. It could be the speakers I am listening back on, it just has way too much gain. Do you know how lukather dials them in ?

[@Utube-s8m]

There’s a rig rundown in Luke’s amps with his tech and he explains.

[@peterschaefer1665]

Eclipse + is meant to be a sol channel. Hense the midrange.

[@chopperdeath]

Why doesn’t Bogner have a website?

[@louderthangod]

This and the Silver Jubilee are two amps I’d love to try with my rig and style. I’m just glad there are still 100 watt tube heads being made for those of us that use lower tunings and need to go loud for our projects.

[@Dave-rk2nl]

I like it!!!!!!!

[@DigitalViperGaming]

Paul, is that Strat an HSS or SSS model?

[@TheStudioRats]

sss

[@DigitalViperGaming]

@@TheStudioRats That guitar definitely has the “mojo.”

[@tomminystrom]

You need YJM pickups with that amp, humbucking but sounds like single coil (or like a single coil), or perhaps less hot Dimarzio HS-3. That Gibson sounded too dark, Fender was better but too noisy.

[@SonicAttack]

I had the Helios 100 for a bit, it had some killer tones in it but the transformer buzzed like hell and the effects loop was dogshit. I miss it, but it was hard to live with.

[@brandoz28]

So….ToneX capture?

[@ThorOdinson333]

Luke plays regular Bogner Helios, not Bogner Helios Eclipse

[@hybridnoisebloom]

That 'eclipse' setting with the nasally tone is the same thing I hear in my Bogner La Grange. It's maddening, horrible sounding, hard to dial out.

[@BenBreard]

I always thought of the XTC as a modded marshall sound. How difficult was the Eclipse from the XTC?

[@eguilherme1]

I own both the Eclipse and an Ecstasy 101b, they voiced pretty differently. The Eclipse is more immediate and has more bite. Ecstasy is a more modern voiced amp, smoother & more versatile. Both great amps. The key with Eclipse mode is to keep the voicing on N (neutral) and keep the gain about half way or lower. Gain is more controllable and you don’t gat all the noise they’re getting here.

[@finishin.my.coffee8780]

I've always wanted a Bogner but could never afford one, save for that little mini Ecstasy solid state head. I just can't bring myself to buy one of those, though, because they're so damn ugly. If they looked like this Helios or even the Uberschall, definitely. Instead, it looks like my old Egnater Tweaker lol. This amp sounds great, though.

[@SluggerStark]

I had the regular Eclipse. Stayed 90% of the time in "70's mode" which is like a modded JMP. 80's mode, with the extra gain + diode clipping was just too compressed and mushy for how I play. The Eclipse....6 gain stages....waaay too much. Most of these modern amps with more than 4 gain stages trying to do the whole "boosted tone without a boost" thing are waaaay overgained, too compressed and too filtered. They feel like crap to play. I would take a late 70's JMP with a good boost all day long and get all the aggression and great feel and ounch those amps have.

[@hillsmith]

Too much gain, sure, but my old ears still get a bit of note definition in the high gain modes. That’s a thing. Still, were money no issue I’d buy it for the clean channel! 😎

[@svrepartbeton-1582]

In my ears..335

[@brianlittle9202]

I think its clean tones are nice but its gain is shit. I would take my EVH 5150 with it's EL34s it can do whatever that amp can and has 10xs the gain any day

[@TheStudioRats]

Most people like what they have

[@brianlittle9202]

@@TheStudioRats Well once/ if they can finally afford it. It took me 6 months to pay the $1100 my head costs. Anything with tubes in it cost so much anymore. I don't know what that head costs but I'm sure it's not cheap either

[@Utube-s8m]

@@brianlittle9202after Covid it seemed like amps and guitars went up about $1,000 more.

[@babetopaz]

Overdrive channel is way too much, I've just bought a Marshall Studio JTM 20, I've owned all sorts of Marshalls and clones over the years and this little amp is the best amp I've ever owned, stick a Nobels On the front and, Heaven!

[@srh361]

I honestly loved the overdrive channel

[@danharding9136]

Sorry but Marshall don’t make good amps anymore. Friedman took the best of Marshall and added searing tones at low volumes, effects loop and master volumes

[@brandonboe2286]

​@@danharding9136 Agreed Marshall is using Vietnamese trans and parts in their English amps now. May as well just buy the DSL series at least that is honest. Old English Marshalls yes. Anything past 2005 or so no way.

[@luka7819]

​@@danharding9136Marshall uses poor quality components but it still sounds better than all these copies!

[@realtruenorth]

Sorry bud, had to sell my Marshall DSL because the transformer desoldered itself. I just don't trust their quality at this point. Bought a Fryette Sig X ,,, excellent quality and durability and does plexi, JTM and JCM in spades. Better than any modern Marshall. Also happens to do incredible Fender or Hiwatt type cleans. Major bonus. And red channel does a great Mesa territory type tone.

[@raspillade6027]

Sounds as glorious as it is ugly

[@jake13b]

another video that shows you that the speaker is the most important part of the signal chain. this amp sounds just like every other amp the studio rats demo. is that an OX box? whatever it is it needs to go in the trash. you took an amazing $4000 amp and made it sound like a compressed piece of digital trash absolutely lifeless and sterile.

[@HEZ63]

Too much noise and a thin, scratchy sound. Even a DSL-1 or DSL-20 sounds better to me at a fraction of the price and is more noiseless. Kitschy frontplate, poor harmonics reproduction and highly overpriced too for my taste. But I anyway never have been a Bogner fan. More gain not necessarily means a better tone... Also this is not at all a good (hot-rod) Marshall sound for me, at least not, if you take an Arredondo modded Variac Plexi as the scale.

[@davidfaustino4476]

Yeah no. That's not a lot of gain at all. It's kind of a loose flubby/farty mess.

[@TheStudioRats]

Damn! thats kicking Mr Bogner right in the goolies