EVH 5150 III S

[stef]

At some degree of risk for getting flamed here, I think the tone on the last album sucked ass. HATED IT. We build better stuff on this forum for that. just my opinion.

+1

[dirtycooter]

IMO it was the engineer in the studio. So much better coulda been done I feel. Shameful really.
The techniques used I don't care for.
Like Bob Seger once said "todays music ain't got the same soul".

[jnew]

Yeah man. What timeless lyric that ended up being.

[fivecoyote]

Tx for posting some deets stratabuse. Sounds like he's going for the 5150 I low-mid balls? Far as more gain, who knows. 8 frickin' preamp tubes. At that point it's more like a space heater...but glad you like yours dc!

[dirtycooter]

I think its more supposed to act and be set up like the seperate suhr preamps he used in the sammy years after 0u812.
Suhr has posted this fact he did such and ed was using that around the fuck and balance era and his old marshall and marshall power sections along with a SLO. You guys troll for tone and so does the maestro.
So if you think about it its not as many tubes really as someone using one of them many preamps randall/egnater do. Or probably as many tubes as ed had cookin at once in the studio or live back then. Seemingly also most here cannot seem to settle on a certain arraingement either. Alot of guys bouncing back and forth lookin at one thing but missin the last recipe they brewed. Must be ed narrowed it down to a simple 3 he could live with along with a powersection for it all. So yes and no-its not alot of tubes and glass if you look at it from a different point of view. Its rather a low amount really.


NOT sayin you are crazy for likin 2 pres a phase inverter and a quad of power tubes-you can still do alot with just that.
But you ain't gonna get the deep 6L6 fendery twang intro on runaround or the other much higher gain stuff on one channel-but I can revert back to that old 7 tube sound pretty much way closer than you could goin the other way tryin to squeaze out the other two tones I mentionedall on one channel (not that some would want to) but its just Eds compromise on it all. Done his way. Instead of a box of 24 crayola-its a box of 64 with really what I consider a minimal amount of tubes.

Thinkin of this way a bassman, a plexi and a slo have how many tubes?? I count 12 power tubes-the big expensive ones-and 10-12 pres?? Thats 20+ tubes.

[MrBeasty]

Somebody on HRI got one ... I didn't think I should just steal the pix, so here is a link.

http://www.hugeracksinc.com/forum/viewt ... =1&t=92194

[fivecoyote]

Tx dc, I see your point. Does it have the EL34 chest-thumpin balls? When I played one it didn't....

I read that thread, Beasty, tx for posting. Guys were saying it sounded just like the 2013 tour like that was a god thing, which is cool and all just wasn't my sound. This was interesting about the S:

The 100S is fuller and has more articulation than the normal 100 watt head. More definition when you play....and thick. It hits you in the chest. The guitar still cleans up nicely when you roll the volume back down. It's a little more like the 50 watt but more refined.

It's the 5153 sound just more refined.

[dirtycooter]

Mine has plenty of what I feel is the tight low end resonance thump. Actually have to back it down though quite a bit. Thing has to be at good volume to correctly dial it to stay out of mushy fart land. You can futz around with the bass at low volume but when you dial it on any amp that cab has to be getting massaged and moved. I think the bottom end is the toughest aspect of the brown sound. Its far to easy for alot of people to dial in or have too much. Greenbacks ain't made for that type of new metal bass thing where v30 and higher powered speakers stay stiff on the bottom. You can make a green just flap down there. . It took me a long time to understand that aspect. Evh tone is not really about anything but sounding like a very equally balanced acoustic type tone with richer pronounced mids like a smaller body acoustic. I will say this-Its a different bottom though that some el34 marshalls. Pickups can be very overly bassy when they are hotter. I have plugged into many old marshalls and thought geez that sounds thin on the bottom compared to other amps today.
I am interested to see and play one of these 100S's. But not in a rush though. Interesting to see the resonance knob leak back in on the evh 5153's. When the 100 watter came out I was glad as it was just gonna be one less knob to twiddle in.
One has to remember that Ed used 6ca7's-which are built waaay different than a 34 and much closer in design to a 6L6. Period. I have said this before. 6ca7 is known to be a tighter chestier more powerful tube than the 34-why do metal dudes love the 6L6??? Alot of the same reasons.
The mod 5 clips by Mark and quite a few others here are awesome. So close its scary in my book. But one thing I am after is Vhoholic's clips of alledgedly his 5150 combo. THAT is ALSO some badass tone in my book. And I venture into that territory well enough though its not exactly as vintage vh as the above mentions I like the shit right out of it. Its so raw tight and raging. I wish this guy would spill some more details and maybe demo a vid on that tone. It rips some ass!

[bmf5150]

I like my 5153 with 6ca7, especially the blue channel..little more marshall sounding to me.

[fivecoyote]

dc, you had a original 5150 at some point, right?

[dirtycooter]

I had a combo for years-rythm channel worked good but the lead channel sucked balls-it coulda been great but it was buried in a cloud of shit and noise (mind boggling amounts) in retarded amounts so much it was useless unless you used a gate. And talk about out of control feedback!!!! Holy shit!. That goes for all the 5150 heads, combos, and 5152's I played. All the same way. With a really ear fatiguing top end ice pick slice frequency you just can't get rid of. I do NOT miss that amp and its no where even in the same zip code as the 5153 at all.
I did however play a used combo one time. First one I ever played and it sounded amazing! I figured later I liked it so much I would just order one. That first used one that twisted my titties had to be modded as I never heard another one like it ever. I was dissapointed when I got my brand new one big time-thought it was messed up so I played probably 10 more pv 5150s to get the same conclusion-it sucked. But that was the 90's before metro, friedman, mojave, etc etc. Modded jcm 800's were about as close to vh I had ever heard at that time. I now buy amps on the spot if they sound good enough to me. The 5153 made me buy it on the spot. I knew after the first 60 seconds I was spending money that day.
My combo did however on the rythm channel NAIL that alice in chains sludge factory song tone-anyway I think thats the name of the song on that album. Cantrell said he used a combo for that-indeed he damn well did as it was spot on for that.

[donnyboiler]

I'm yet to be convinced on the 100S. EdHead at HRI knows his stuff though.

I had the 50w twice and I preferred the voicing on my early 5153. The crunch channel is more organic and Marshally and cleans up better. If I want the extra gain I hit it with a boost like I would a Marshall. With gain on full it's barely enough for VHII, let alone VH1.

The 50w blue channel had a very "instant satisfaction', easy playing vibe. Double the gain - i.e. to sound like the 100w on full it needed gain at half. Even then it wasn't as clear or anywhere near as dynamic - more like a slightly browner voiced red channel. I like it but I prefer the original 100w, that's why I sold both my 50s.

What's great about the 50 watt blue is that it's very easy to play, sounds great at low volume, and it gives you a kind of Marshally flavour without the need for a booster or lots of volume. I can see lots of players preferring it to the original voicing for those reasons.

I have the same issue with the 50w red channel. For me it was too fizzy, too gainy and was in danger of getting back to the old 5151 and 5152 voicing which is great for metal but not smooth enough for solos. Again, a very satisfying channel to PLAY though, and a more inviting feel than the original, but ultimately I couldn't use it the way I use the original.

Many amps have come and gone but I'll be hanging on to my original 5153 until the cows come home. I may buy a 100s as well if I can get to play one first. Hopefully it's like the 50w but bigger/more dynamic, in which case, I'll be in.

[MrBeasty]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsDEWkHzrmA[/youtube]

[jnew]

Quite the elaborate looking amp compared to the old 4 hole 1959.

[evhintexas]

Well......
His tastes seem to change faster as he gets older lmao!
But I do wonder what the mod sounds like-or what ever is different. There were some parts of ADKOT I thought were "too modern" or "metal". Not at all the organic brown we want to hear.
I wouldn't get excited or get my dick in a knot until I could sit down with both and compare side by side.
Ony thing I might want different is a tad more hair on the 2nd channel or less compressed on the 3rd. But... I get along fine how it is. Makes me work a little-and thats a good thing really. Still get and find new pockets of textures whippin between channels and usin different pickups. Yet it all sounds congruent across all 3. No drastic unrelatedness like some amps with multichannels. This is one of the few amps out there that does this really well. An old TOL Egnater is one of the only other amps I got that from. Those are pretty sweet heads. Rare though.

This