5150 III 50 watt questions

B

BloodRose

Professional Scapegoat
Any of you gig with one? If so, does it serve you well? Any reliability issues?

What are the negatives and positives to these amps? Much tonal diff from the 100 watter? I know the control layout is shared on the 50. They seem versatile. A dude at GC yest was saying they arent for some reason. Do they sound decent at low volume?

Feel free to share any other thoughts.. Thanks!

I have a bud that wants a great tube amp thats less than 100 watts, versatile, giggable and sound decent at low volume cuz he's an apartment dweller such as myself. He doesnt care for the wooly tone that el 84 amps seem to have. He, like myself, really digs Satchel's live tone and I know he plays 5150 IIIs.
He also wants something reliable cuz he's heard me whining about my amp woes. haha
Thanks for the input!!

One last thing... Anyone tried the new combo?? how is that?
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

I have not "gigged" with mine, but I use it for my amp when practicing with my band. We don't play out too much, and usually gig through the house set-up where we play every couple of months. However, we practice fairly regularly because we enjoy just jamming together and mine seems to work great.

Now I can't say how it will react to the night after night work, but it seems fine to me. I haven't heard much bad about them or the 100 watt versions.

I have the 2x12 cabinet and I love the wheels and the tilt feature.
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

I played this amp recently. I can give you a few impressions. First the clean channel is no slouch. Its actually a good clean channel-no kidding-its simple and so there just the dialing in of your tone but its simple and not overly compressed so you can actually hear what your guitar and pickups sound like. Is it as good as the best Jazz amp?-well no its not. Is it a good clean with the right speakers?-yes it is and certainly good enough for gigging out especially if you added alittle compression and reverb its more then easily adequate-it actually sounds pretty good. I tried it thru a Gretsch White Falcon and yes it did sound very good and I was plunking jazz chords like dominant 9ths and even with the 2x12 greenbacks it sounded good. With diff speakers it would have sounded even better. The middle channel to me is my favorite. Think Marshall DSL pushed hard with alot of gain and you have this tone. It is clear though not all muddy and chuga chuga untill you max the gain out. I like this tone. Its what you try to get thru a Marshall by adding extra gain pedals in front of it. You can back off the gain and still get a pretty good clip out of it. Not quit as pronounced as a el34 tubes but remember when you add the gain pedals infront of your Marshall you smooth out the pronounced clip anyway. This amps clip tone is alittle more smooth but its still there and nice and midrangey. There is basically a scoop dial on the back of the amp to add or delete midrange in the tone anyway. The third channel is the high gain channel that gets you easily to the chuga chuga sound or maybe to a singing solo lead tone when swithed from the middle channel. It has searing gain tone and the harder or louder you push the tubes the more you will be turning down the gain as it pumps it out anyway but its usefull gain and not fizzy gain. Is this amps distortion tone as good as the best Soldano? well no not quite that good but its about a third of the price with 88% of the tone and a clean channel that actually sounds pretty good as well. There is a volume jump between clean and middle channel. Someone said changing a resister can solve this? I dont know. If your a/b between middle and highgain you will never notice anyway. if your playing clean and want a lead why not solo in the third channel anyway and skip the middle channel all together for that song. You can allways dial down the third high gain channel anyway. Other wise adjust the amp to fit the situation and when playing loud I noticed the volume jump was hardly there anymore so I am assuming its mostly there at low volumes. I played a strat and a White Falcon when I demoed the amp. I now want the amp. For the money-to me-its virtually an unbeatable value in that price range.
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

I heard the things were ridiculously durable and road worthy. EVH usually makes sure the things can take a lot of abuse. Never had personal experience myself though. I have heard how loud it can get and DAMN... That's loud. Like unless you're playing arenas this thing will carry you fine all the way up there, and even useful at arenas if you mic it, which you'll probably do with any amp anyway. VERY fun to play around with. It's channel distortion is better than most pedals I've tried, but that's just my preference. If I could use one word for the thing it would be reliable. I hear it's made in mexico, so I guess that's a step up from the korean and chinese factories, though I try not to judge by where it's made. Used to be made in Vietnam apparently.
 
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Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

philthis said:
I played this amp recently. I can give you a few impressions. First the clean channel is no slouch. Its actually a good clean channel-no kidding-its simple and so there just the dialing in of your tone but its simple and not overly compressed so you can actually hear what your guitar and pickups sound like. Is it as good as the best Jazz amp?-well no its not. Is it a good clean with the right speakers?-yes it is and certainly good enough for gigging out especially if you added alittle compression and reverb its more then easily adequate-it actually sounds pretty good. I tried it thru a Gretsch White Falcon and yes it did sound very good and I was plunking jazz chords like dominant 9ths and even with the 2x12 greenbacks it sounded good. With diff speakers it would have sounded even better. The middle channel to me is my favorite. Think Marshall DSL pushed hard with alot of gain and you have this tone. It is clear though not all muddy and chuga chuga untill you max the gain out. I like this tone. Its what you try to get thru a Marshall by adding extra gain pedals in front of it. You can back off the gain and still get a pretty good clip out of it. Not quit as pronounced as a el34 tubes but remember when you add the gain pedals infront of your Marshall you smooth out the pronounced clip anyway. This amps clip tone is alittle more smooth but its still there and nice and midrangey. There is basically a scoop dial on the back of the amp to add or delete midrange in the tone anyway. The third channel is the high gain channel that gets you easily to the chuga chuga sound or maybe to a singing solo lead tone when swithed from the middle channel. It has searing gain tone and the harder or louder you push the tubes the more you will be turning down the gain as it pumps it out anyway but its usefull gain and not fizzy gain. Is this amps distortion tone as good as the best Soldano? well no not quite that good but its about a third of the price with 88% of the tone and a clean channel that actually sounds pretty good as well. There is a volume jump between clean and middle channel. Someone said changing a resister can solve this? I dont know. If your a/b between middle and highgain you will never notice anyway. if your playing clean and want a lead why not solo in the third channel anyway and skip the middle channel all together for that song. You can allways dial down the third high gain channel anyway. Other wise adjust the amp to fit the situation and when playing loud I noticed the volume jump was hardly there anymore so I am assuming its mostly there at low volumes. I played a strat and a White Falcon when I demoed the amp. I now want the amp. For the money-to me-its virtually an unbeatable value in that price range.
Click to expand...

My splawn has a pretty huge jump from clean to gain as well...
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

Are these loud enough for rehearsals and shows with poor sound or just a PA for vocals? I play mostly low tuned death metal and have a 6505+ but I kinda want one of these for space issues when traveling. I think they sound great.
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

An old bandmate of mine has one, and I spent some time with it when he first got it.

Personally, I wasn't a fan of the clean channel. It's perfectly usable, but just doesn't really have a lot of character to it.

It can sound great at low volumes - the Resonance/Depth type control that the 5153 has inherited from the SLO/5150 heritage means that you can add bass thump back into the tone at low volumes.

Can't comment on reliability. I know there were a lot of issues with the original 100W 5153s, but it seems like there have been less (not really any that I've seen) complaints about the 50 watters.
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

I just put one on layaway friday. In guitar center I ran one thru a marshall 4/12 cab and the salesman and I ran several guitars into this amp including strats, Les Pauls, a Les Paul with an emg81 in the bridge, and another mahogany body guitar. It was a great sound and we just adjusted the resonance control on the back to compensate for the 4/12 cab. The strats with single coils got the most headroom out of the clean channel but the Les Pauls with humbuckers broke up the clean channel much earlier as you can imagine but the clean channel sounds good. The blue channel is my favorite. It is warm and its distortion is wonderful and exudes "brown sound" with plenty of gain but still very nice tube clip as well. The red channel has crazy gain and is ment for solo's or chuga chuga. I like the tone of the 50 over the 100 watt evh iii head becouse it sounds warmer to me and that blue channel is glorious and tasty. Its punchy so the notes jump right out of the speakers but not harsh. I really liked the sound of a HSS strat with a maple neck thru this amp. It just sings with all that gain on tap. Les Pauls can really chug and harmonics seem to leap off the neck. Ya I got one. I plan to run it thru 2 2/12 cabs with vintage 30's. I will update the forum when I get it home. I am running it with a strat with HH with a floyde and a gretsch white falcon. guess we'll see how it sounds with that speaker configuration.
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

dreamwarrior said:
Are these loud enough for rehearsals and shows with poor sound or just a PA for vocals? I play mostly low tuned death metal and have a 6505+ but I kinda want one of these for space issues when traveling. I think they sound great.
Click to expand...

Pull two outer power tubes, bump ohms setting one notch down (switch @ 8 for 16 ohm cab, switch @ 4 for 8 ohm cab...no go for 4 ohm cab)...AND FIND OUT :-)

shouldnt expect much volume difference between 6505+ @ halfpower 60w and the 5153 @ 50w. Same diff, really, more of a rounding error than a wattage increase. Ten watts doesnt change jack for big heads.



PS for your own sake, do this (and all other tube amp maintenance) on a powered off amplifier, with plug physically removed from back (safety precaution, so you know you pulled the right plug), and on cold tubes. Flicking the standby switch back and forth on a disconnected amp without power is said to help unload some voltages inside somehow too....wouldnt wanna go down in forum history as the guy whose advice toasted some reader nice n krispy :-) play it safe!!
 
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Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

Adieu said:
Pull two outer power tubes, bump ohms setting one notch down (switch @ 8 for 16 ohm cab, switch @ 4 for 8 ohm cab...no go for 4 ohm cab)...AND FIND OUT :-)

shouldnt expect much volume difference between 6505+ @ halfpower 60w and the 5153 @ 50w. Same diff, really, more of a rounding error than a wattage increase. Ten watts doesnt change jack for big heads.



PS for your own sake, do this (and all other tube amp maintenance) on a powered off amplifier, with plug physically removed from back (safety precaution, so you know you pulled the right plug), and on cold tubes. Flicking the standby switch back and forth on a disconnected amp without power is said to help unload some voltages inside somehow too....wouldnt wanna go down in forum history as the guy whose advice toasted some reader nice n krispy :-) play it safe!!
Click to expand...
A 50 watt head using 6L6s or EL34s will only have 2 power tubes man... You can't do this...
 
Re: 5150 III 50 watt questions

Surgeon said:
A 50 watt head using 6L6s or EL34s will only have 2 power tubes man... You can't do this...
Click to expand...

Nono, hes got a 120watter....and wishes to find out if a 50w (combo i guess?) could cut it for his needs, as a backup/lite version rig

Hence I suggested halfpowering his 6505+ for a ballpark estimate. Also, running that into a speaker config similar to his intended purchase would clarify things further....although, for volume maxxing, a speaker swap would REALLY increase its kick. two C90s / v30s / mix thereof, or even just one (c90 for loudest single, sounds bigger than a lone v30) can kick up as much or more thunder than an underpowered inefficient 412 when halfpowering a 6505+ circuit, i can attest to that myself (tested either & both vs a 412 of g12-65s). Hence, portable bliss in a convenient package might be just a speaker swap away
 
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