i was just cruising ebay gassing over stuff that i don't need when i came across a Bugera 333XL head, and i remembered trying one of those in combo form years ago and i loved it. i never bought one because i didn't want to carry a big combo....so basically forgot about that amp for a few years.

i acquired a Peavey 6505 cabinet in a trade a couple weeks ago and i was trying to figure out what to do with it....then i thought "why not put a Bugera head on top of it?". lol.

back to the ebay gas story:

so i was looking at the head for $599 thinking that it was a good deal for what it does, when i noticed a small green number saying "discount". i hovered over it and it said "buy it now for $341 with free shipping". it seems that ebay is giving out some discounts to get people shopping more. so, hmmmmm.....i really couldn't stop myself from pulling the trigger. so the head should be here Tuesday. lol.

in the interest of advancing the superpack, i will be doing a ton of presets based on the 333XL (all channels).

i also acquired a Jetcity 20watt amp combo in another trade, so i will be doing some presets of that amp before i sell it.

oh yeah, and i got a MXR '78 Custom Badass distortion pedal in another trade, so expect to see those presets too.

That is really cool. Hard to beat at that price. I have heard that those heads sound pretty good, but are not quite as durable sometimes. I have often thought about things like that myself. I could just do this or that, or try this or that. Ebay purchases galore.
I would love to hear some of the superpack sounds sent through the clean channel on the amp and through the cab. I spent lots of time tweaking everything I have to work in that aspect. (as that is the way I play) I have yet to ever really run the 11R in a direct input situation.

i have run the eleven rack into the effects return of an amp many times and it works well.

i just got a Bugera 333XL a few minutes ago. i hooked the Epsi to the effects loop and recorded a couple seconds just to see how it sounded. my playing is crud, so ignore the clams.

played clean, then clean coil tap, then low gain crunch, then lead channel full gain.

sounds much different through a real cabinet, but i was interested in what kind of sound i would have through the PA system if i went with this method.

https://soundcloud.com/singtall/333xl-ownhammer

sounds good

first impressions:

when played through peavey 6506 guitar cabient - nice organic distortion reminiscent of the peavey jsx meets a bogner xtc (but not exactly either of those). i would say the distortion is thick and dry. it doesn't have that jcm800 extra highs hitting the distortion, so it's more modern i guess. the clean sound was nice and would be a good platform for taking pedals. the 2 crunch channels are pretty much the same thing with the ability to eq differently and add more gain.

when played through the Epsi direct to console - this really through me for a loop. it took awhile to find an IR that i thought was "ok" with it. it actually sounded more like a processor than the Eleven rack did. very strange indeed. i will have to experiment more before i can come to a conclusion on this application. side note ***you still have to hook up a speaker or load box with using this method, and the Epsi effects the sound you hear from your guitar cabinet, and the master out effects the loop volume.

i'm gonna give it a little more time before i draw any serious conclusions on this amp. it looks kool and offers at least 2 useable tones for me. i would probably use a tube screamer for leads though, i like my lead distortion to be a little more slick and wet feeling.

can you explain the "direct to console" connection? In my mind I see the epsi between head and the cab but how do you get it to the console? but can that even be done without frying it? I thought I heard that you could do this with a di box once but never tried that either. Or are you talking about running it in the fx loop and leaving the master volume turned down?

i use the effects send to go to the Epsi, then out of the Epsi into the console channel input. i leave the amp master volume fairly low so that i can hear my powered speakers over the guitar cabinet.

it was just an experiment to see how it would sound. in real life, i would have to go into some sort of mixer that would allow me to split the effects loop signal into two paths so that i could return the dry signal back to the loop as not to change the tone of my guitar cabinet.

Pretty cool. So many possibilities to try.