Re: What to do...
What exactly are you going for?
I own a TJ, my best friend has a 5153, and I've played tons of 6505s, so I can give you perspective on all three.
The TJ is the tightest of the three, and also the dryest, although still pretty saturated. You won't need a boost with it for either tightness or saturation IMO; however, it is *very* raw and aggressive on the top end and kind of unforgiving to right-hand technique when going straight in, so using a TS-9 just to tame some of that and compress the attack a bit isn't entirely out of the question. It's definitely noisy, so if you do use a "boost", you won't actually want it to boost any; set level to to about unity gain for the best results. The EQ is a lot more flexible than it looks at first, although it's a bit weird in how it works; the treble resistor is really non-standard, which moves the midscoop frequency range much higher than it would be on a normal FMV tonestack. As such, there's two philosophies for dialing it in -- Either start with everything around noon and use channel presence to control the lower-mids vs. bright-upper-mids contour, with the treble knob controlling that metallic "clang" on the top, or keep channel presence really low and the B/M/T knobs up around 3 'o clock or more (think of 3 'o clock as about where "noon" would be on a normal amp with channel presence off, and you won't be far off). In general, if you want the massive Recto-on-steroids sound that Uberschall variants are known for, you'll want to dime both depth and master presence (which makes the power amp behave like a standard Uberschall). It loses heft really fast as you turn those knobs down.
Don't ignore channel 1 on the TJ! Keep channel presence and depth at 0, and it's basically a really nicely voiced take on a 2203. You probably won't want to do a whole lot of channel switching in real time (you'll almost certainly want very different power-amp settings between the two channels), but it's nice to have for recording purposes.
Peavey 5150 -- Cheapest of the three to acquire, and the loosest and most saturated. Definitely a one-trick pony, but one hell of a mean trick. Needs a boost for tightness.
EVH 5150 III -- In between the Peavey and Bogner in terms of tightness and saturation. Closer to the Peavey 5150 in terms of tightness, closer to the TJ in terms of saturation. Much more polite on the top end and upper mids than either the TJ or the 5150. Benefits a bit from a boost IMO, although it's not as critical as with the Peavey. The very good clean and "Marshall-y" channels give it more versatility than either of the two amps in this discussion; its blue channel isn't as amazing of a classic hard rock/heavy metal sound as the TJ's channel 1, but it'll certainly get the job done, and the green channel is one of the best cleans on a high-gain amp out there. If you're into real-time channel switching to get multiple tones in one song, this is the clear choice, since you won't need drastically different power-amp settings between channels.
Overall -- all three are excellent, and all three will have all the gain you need and then some. I love the TJ (hence me owning one), but there's arguments to be made for all three of these.
EDIT: Glam band? Will you need any cleans? If so, 5153; if not, TJ but stay on channel 1. A Splawn Quick Rod or Bogner Helios would both probably be more suited, though.
What exactly are you going for?
I own a TJ, my best friend has a 5153, and I've played tons of 6505s, so I can give you perspective on all three.
The TJ is the tightest of the three, and also the dryest, although still pretty saturated. You won't need a boost with it for either tightness or saturation IMO; however, it is *very* raw and aggressive on the top end and kind of unforgiving to right-hand technique when going straight in, so using a TS-9 just to tame some of that and compress the attack a bit isn't entirely out of the question. It's definitely noisy, so if you do use a "boost", you won't actually want it to boost any; set level to to about unity gain for the best results. The EQ is a lot more flexible than it looks at first, although it's a bit weird in how it works; the treble resistor is really non-standard, which moves the midscoop frequency range much higher than it would be on a normal FMV tonestack. As such, there's two philosophies for dialing it in -- Either start with everything around noon and use channel presence to control the lower-mids vs. bright-upper-mids contour, with the treble knob controlling that metallic "clang" on the top, or keep channel presence really low and the B/M/T knobs up around 3 'o clock or more (think of 3 'o clock as about where "noon" would be on a normal amp with channel presence off, and you won't be far off). In general, if you want the massive Recto-on-steroids sound that Uberschall variants are known for, you'll want to dime both depth and master presence (which makes the power amp behave like a standard Uberschall). It loses heft really fast as you turn those knobs down.
Don't ignore channel 1 on the TJ! Keep channel presence and depth at 0, and it's basically a really nicely voiced take on a 2203. You probably won't want to do a whole lot of channel switching in real time (you'll almost certainly want very different power-amp settings between the two channels), but it's nice to have for recording purposes.
Peavey 5150 -- Cheapest of the three to acquire, and the loosest and most saturated. Definitely a one-trick pony, but one hell of a mean trick. Needs a boost for tightness.
EVH 5150 III -- In between the Peavey and Bogner in terms of tightness and saturation. Closer to the Peavey 5150 in terms of tightness, closer to the TJ in terms of saturation. Much more polite on the top end and upper mids than either the TJ or the 5150. Benefits a bit from a boost IMO, although it's not as critical as with the Peavey. The very good clean and "Marshall-y" channels give it more versatility than either of the two amps in this discussion; its blue channel isn't as amazing of a classic hard rock/heavy metal sound as the TJ's channel 1, but it'll certainly get the job done, and the green channel is one of the best cleans on a high-gain amp out there. If you're into real-time channel switching to get multiple tones in one song, this is the clear choice, since you won't need drastically different power-amp settings between channels.
Overall -- all three are excellent, and all three will have all the gain you need and then some. I love the TJ (hence me owning one), but there's arguments to be made for all three of these.
EDIT: Glam band? Will you need any cleans? If so, 5153; if not, TJ but stay on channel 1. A Splawn Quick Rod or Bogner Helios would both probably be more suited, though.
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