Remember the thread I posted a while back about the Ibanez Premium I got in a trade? I traded it for an EVH LBX II head, lol. It was a cool guitar, but a 5150 has always been one of my dream amps, so as soon as I saw one for sale locally, I had to have it.
It is ABSOLUTELY KILLER. It's LOUD. Even though it's 15W and runs on EL84's, it's noticeably louder than my Krank which is 20W and runs on 5881's.
It also sounds incredible. It doesn't have quite as deep bottom end or as much detail in the high-end as the Krank, but I always thought the Krank had a little bit too much going on there. It's more focused, tighter, and squishier. The attack is not as dry, and overall, it's a juicy very modern-sounding metal amp.
I was a bit dubious at first because, in all honesty, I would've preferred the LBX 1 because it has the red channel. But this was what I found, so I decided to take a chance. The blue channel on this is pretty high-gain, though. It's mean and modern-sounding with as much saturation as you'd want. I guess it also helps that I'm running super hot modern pickups into it, lol. The clean channel is pretty good too!
BTW, it came loaded with JJ's all throughout. I swapped them out for my preferred cocktail (Tung Sol in V1, Sovtek LPS in the PI, and Shuguangs in the rest of the in-between positions), and I got a bit more lively high-end and less lower-mid cloudiness. I dig! Now I'm curious about trying some other EL84's to see if I can get it sounding a bit more big-bottle-like. I'm looking at TAD EL84's, but I'm not sure they'll fit. The Groove Tubes branded JJ's in there are already pretty tight in there.
So overall, I'm really happy. What a killer amp!
It is ABSOLUTELY KILLER. It's LOUD. Even though it's 15W and runs on EL84's, it's noticeably louder than my Krank which is 20W and runs on 5881's.
It also sounds incredible. It doesn't have quite as deep bottom end or as much detail in the high-end as the Krank, but I always thought the Krank had a little bit too much going on there. It's more focused, tighter, and squishier. The attack is not as dry, and overall, it's a juicy very modern-sounding metal amp.
I was a bit dubious at first because, in all honesty, I would've preferred the LBX 1 because it has the red channel. But this was what I found, so I decided to take a chance. The blue channel on this is pretty high-gain, though. It's mean and modern-sounding with as much saturation as you'd want. I guess it also helps that I'm running super hot modern pickups into it, lol. The clean channel is pretty good too!
BTW, it came loaded with JJ's all throughout. I swapped them out for my preferred cocktail (Tung Sol in V1, Sovtek LPS in the PI, and Shuguangs in the rest of the in-between positions), and I got a bit more lively high-end and less lower-mid cloudiness. I dig! Now I'm curious about trying some other EL84's to see if I can get it sounding a bit more big-bottle-like. I'm looking at TAD EL84's, but I'm not sure they'll fit. The Groove Tubes branded JJ's in there are already pretty tight in there.
So overall, I'm really happy. What a killer amp!
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