Re: Why are Valveking 100s so dang cheap? Something really wrong with em I'm not seei
I've owned both the 5150 and the Valveking, and I'd take the 5150 over the VK. Not because I was a Van Halen fan (I'd bet the VK would be better for that stuff anyway), but because it's got plenty of gain for just about anything.
If 5150s were going for $199, maybe I'd take a rather more tolerant view of them myself... Still can't say I'd LIKE them much, but for two bills, something that gets a certain job in mind done without ever giving you them warm and fuzzy butterflies in your panties is pretty much fine by me, too... However, if the choice were by price, it'd really be between:
a) a 5150 alone
b) a VK 100, plus a full complete decent 1st-world-made bass rig - another nice old Jap bass, a top-knotch Seymour APB pickup upgrade, AND giggable-volume MiA bass amp (estimating a 5150 at $600, or 400* more than the VK100)
OR
c) an ESP Standard Eclipse II used
Well, the choice would, again, come down to b) vs. c). And would, yet again, be based on whether or not the Eclipse II was that quilted black cherry thing (it wasn't, hence I got the bass rig
AND , YES, I've gotten a Japanese bass, American Seymour Duncan active pickup upgrade, and American-made Carvin bass amp for $400, in fact that's my current bass rig right there... well except it's actually $20 more, but w/ 2 japanese basses, one with an active duncan, one with passive p/js, and a carvin probass 150w 1x15, and it cost me sum total $150 + $120 + $150:
*Ibanez RD707 fujigen-made punchy passive p/j w/ a godly neck
*a Washburn matsumoku-made Precision copy w/ improvements all around like a massive cast BadAss bridge copy and a heelless neck mount, and upgraded to boot w/ the early vintage Duncan APB pup w/ 3 boost microtoggles;
* and the '80s Carvin monstrosity.
The Washburn score was pure luck, no conclusive model name visible, missing all visible MIJ stickers (taken apart to clean, all parts are Japan) and only identifiable by old catalogs, plus some idgit soldered the tone pot IN REVERSE when dropping in the active Duncan pup, making the Guitar Center testers think it a tone-dead POS, when in fact they were just ZEROING the tone control.... which was hillarious. And the Ibanez was some n00b employee who missed the significance of the MiJ sticker, the F serial number, and the high model number, and priced it like a similarly styled, same colour same pointiness Gio entry-level RG six string, thinking they were the guitar and bass version of the same all-in-one starter kit package . Manager was like "wait, whaaaat? fujigen, japan? this? and we just sold it to you thinking it's some older-model Gio? daaaaang".
But anyway, back to the "why no love for the 5150" - i do have to honestly admit that I have exactly nothing in mind that I might want to play that'd be more suited to the 5150 (in my humble, twisted, warped perspective of said amp, of course). I see a variety of potentially interesting tones from the VK, pretty standard fare, yes, but it works and that's the point no? ...as to the 5150, even if I got that ESP Eclipse II w/EMGs - right up the alley of most 5150 players no? - I'd still not be interested. I like and kinda want that thing precisely because it doesn't sound like a one-trick icepick, and would certainly NEVER wanna plug it into anything like a 5150, an Orange, or a Rectifier.
I'd use a Windsor before a VK. Sounds better, smoother. Also nicely priced.
Windsor? Never seen em around here... never even heard of it. Too old and mostly forgotten, or too new and not yet widely known?
Nicely priced as compared to the $550 usual price someone here mentioned, or to the $333 new closeout / $199 used & fully functional options that first drew my eye towards this model?
...Cuz I'm liking it for those prices here, and with 550 unallocated bucks for shiny new toys (...well, ok, shiny used toys), I'd probably revert to pestering the several by-now-very-familiar local guys eternally trying to sell their ESP Eclipse Standards to see if one of them finally caves in and goes below that psychological $600 barrier... well either that or go find 50 more bucks somewhere lol.
On a separate note - weiiiiird... I've hit refresh like a gazillion times, literally a couple times before posting each time, and my browser's only now showing these last posts in the thread from like 10 hours ago. Which glitch probably, from other ppl's perspective, makes me look rather damn peculiar for replying to earlier trolls half the thread back, while ignoring interesting and constructive new input. Ooops.
