NGD: EVH 5150 III 6L6

Shredder777 said:
I'm pretty sure what I'm hearing has to do with the harmonics of the note being amplified, probably because intonation is off on these guitars. I don't know why using the SD1 hides it. But anyway...

What I've found when going for an articulate lead guitar sound using the red channel, is that the interplay between the mid and presence knob is most important. Adding treble is just a frequency I don't like that much. The articulate and open lead guitar sounds comes from boosting mid and presence, and the ratio of mid and presence. Cant add too much treble or the whole things gets beamy and harsh. Have to add just enough bass so that it is full but doesn't get muddy.

So the eq seems pretty versatile and there are a couple different ways to dial it in:

1) You can either go forward on bass and treble, and scoop the mids and presence.
2) Or you can go forward with the mids and presence, and duck out the bass and treble.

Now that I found the 2) way of dialing it in that sounds more open and articulate, I'm enjoying it more. The blue channel is easy to dial in no matter how I have the presence set. I find my lead guitar sound on the red channel, then dial in a rhytym tone with blue.

I think that ultimately if I gel with this, that is how I will dial it.

1) Lead guitar sound on red w/ SD1
2) Blue rhythm1 sound boosted w/ SD1
3) Blue rhythm2 w/o boost
4) Clean

I need to reintonate all my guitars.

I will need to rig up some kind of master volume, maybe a volume pedal or EQ pedal.
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Just put something like this in the loop….

www.sweetwater.com

JHS Little Black Amp Box Passive Amp Attenuator

Passive Effects-loop Amplifier Attenuator
www.sweetwater.com www.sweetwater.com

BTW, no oscillations here. Others may feel differently but I’d look at swapping some preamp tubes. I’d start with V4-V6 and then, less likely V1.
IMG_0382.jpeg
 
Again:

1) what cab are you using?

B) Have you tried using the amp in a different situation (room, outlet w/o your power conditioner)

1.5) Based on how you talk about sounds aurally, I highly doubt its your intonation.

A) You might have a defect, or a wonky tube.

2 cents) The only tone controls on any 5150 I've ever used that goes past 1/2 is the bass & resonance (Which I match them at about 1 o'clock)


Decent 5150 tone controls: Pre Gain : between 9 and 11 o'clock, bass: 1 o'clock, mids: 9 o'clock, treble: 11 o'clock, post: between 11 o'clock and high noon, resonance: 1 o'clock, presence: 11 o'clock.
 
Shredder777 said:
Here is the problem. You can hear that the notes aren't clear and that they seem to oscillate or waver. The individual notes don't sound good. This is plugged direct to red channel.

Does it with all my guitars. When I put an SD1 in front, it completely masks it or stops it from happening. I'm stumped.

The Ironheart notes are clear and true. Only happens with this new amp.

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Yeah, I definitely hear it. I'm stumped as well. It's not a normal thing for the 5150.

I'd try new preamp tubes. But before you buy anything, take them out of the Laney temporarily and replace the 5150 pre amp tubes, one by one, so you can isolate the bad tube (s). See if it solves the issue. If it does, buy new 12AX7s for the faulty positions.
 
Shredder777 said:
Here is the problem. You can hear that the notes aren't clear and that they seem to oscillate or waver. The individual notes don't sound good. This is plugged direct to red channel.

Does it with all my guitars. When I put an SD1 in front, it completely masks it or stops it from happening. I'm stumped.

The Ironheart notes are clear and true. Only happens with this new amp.

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Mine have never done that.

Get it checked.
 
Shredder777 said:
I need to figure this out.

When tuning two notes to the same note, when they are slightly off, you get what is called "beating". We all know what this is.

With the 5150, i get this beating when playing just one note. each note above 12 does it at different speed and intensity.

I had convinced myself it was an intonation issue, but what if different parts of the distortion circuit are causing some kind of minor pitch shift? Or phasing which is causing parts of the note to oscillate out?

There is something bad going on. Either guitar intonation or the amp has a problem. The sd1 completely hides the issue. But the amp overall sounds veiled and less clear when it’s happening.
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Have you moved the amp and cab into a different location, preferably a different room?

I’ve run into strange anomalies due to room modes clashing with the natural resonance of an amp/cab. It’s also possible if you have something like a radon mitigation system which will produce resonances near corners that you could get interactions and beating as you approach the resonant pitch or harmonics of that pitch.

It’s a reach, but I’d relocate the amp to a different space, preferably with different dimensions, and see if you’re still observing it.
 
Lighten up frances, this place is pretty chill you don't need that thick of a skin to hang here. People bicker and (often strongly) disagree with each other all the time but can still typically get along at the end of the day


Anyway, have you ever considered an ENGL? Something like a Fireball maybe? Might be more up your speed and provide a little more special sauce. And it has not only one but two switchable master volumes
 
I had a JVM410H and it wasn’t terrible, but the gain channels had horrible gain structures. Green wasn’t enough and orange was way too much, even at 9 or 10 o’clock. Red was even more so. And it was significantly noisier even with the gain that low.

I understand you are picky, and maybe the JVM would suit you better, but I find my EVH to sound better and have far fewer issues with noise than the JVM had. Makes a nice alternative to my two Mesa Marks. And I prefer the red channel with the gain around 9 o’clock for rhythms and the blue channel boosted for leads most of the time. I’m only using this stuff for recording, so that isn’t a hard rule, as it changes based on the song.
 
Genghis said:
I had a JVM410H and it wasn’t terrible, but the gain channels had horrible gain structures. Green wasn’t enough and orange was way too much, even at 9 or 10 o’clock. Red was even more so. And it was significantly noisier even with the gain that low.

I understand you are picky, and maybe the JVM would suit you better, but I find my EVH to sound better and have far fewer issues with noise than the JVM had. Makes a nice alternative to my two Mesa Marks. And I prefer the red channel with the gain around 9 o’clock for rhythms and the blue channel boosted for leads most of the time. I’m only using this stuff for recording, so that isn’t a hard rule, as it changes based on the song.
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I only had the JVM210H and it was awesome, but I found the 5153 to be more suited to my tastes

Actually I traded the 210H for the 5153 + 2x12 cab lol
 
spawnofthesith said:
I only had the JVM210H and it was awesome, but I found the 5153 to be more suited to my tastes

Actually I traded the 210H for the 5153 + 2x12 cab lol
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I think if they balanced the gain and did better with the noise levels I would have kept mine. It was the most flexible amp I have had, but when it comes down to it, every Marshall I have owned I ended up with an EQ in the loop to get the sounds I wanted out of it, and when my friend brought over his Mk IIC+ I remembered why and bought that, followed by a JP2C. I’m just more into Mesa (and EVH for that matter.)
 
Shredder777 said:
Last thoughts on this amp:

  1. The strange noise I'm hearing, I believe is related to interference from the frets. I haven't played most of my guitars in a couple years and the floyds have migrated backwards, lowering the action a little bit. The 5150 has different distortion in those frequencies and makes it more noticeable than the Laney.
  2. The reason I didn't notice this sooner is because I'm playing fairly loud and can't hear the natural string vibration, and it doesn't show up in any models.
  3. The amp does what I need, but doesn't have any "special sauce". It gives a controllable high gain lead sound on red (Paul Gilbert, Vinnie Moore, Andy James, etc), and the blue channel is easy to dial in. It doesn't have many tonal options. The EQ seem to overlap quite a bit so its a process of subtracting in small amounts where there is too much.
  4. It is tighter sounding than the Ironheart, but at the end of the day when I have them dialed in, especially with a boost, they are very similar and I could use either one. The Laney gives more tone sculpting options and can be dialed to be more open and clear and it seems to accept a wider range of guitars. The 5150 gets the edge in compressed power chords.
  5. If the 5150 has "special sauce", it is the ability to remain relatively noise free at high levels of gain! This has not gone unnoticed. It could be because of low gain, low noise tubes they use. idk.
  6. The 5150 has MIDI which is good for a $1300 amp.
  7. I picked it over the JVM410h which is a $1900 amp with MIDI, ostensibly lots of tonal shaping options, but more background noise and not in stock. If it was in stock I would have got the Marshall.
  8. No master volume is a bummer.
  9. I don't care that the resonance and power/stdby are on the back. The resonance pretty much needs to be on full and I haven't found a need to adjust it.
  10. The footswitch is better than the Laney's.
  11. I like the ivory color.
  12. If it turns out to work well in 4cm, and I have a good range of volume control from the MFX, then I may keep it, but not because I love it, because its a cheap amp that does a thing. The volume controls are so sensitive, and the concentric pots are so loose it feels like they could be moved by a strong wind. If I was gigging this, I would put tape on the volumes.
  13. This place has nothing to offer me. People are offended by strong negative opinions about gear they love, and I'm not going to moderate my opinions. If something is basic or has a shitty feature I will call it out.
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No one gives a fuck about your opinions on the amp if that's the only thing you're putting forth. What people have been saying that you either cannot see or refuse to recognize is when you start tossing out assumptions of other members and why they dig something. You have a very condescending, "I know more" way of posting that I'm sure you don't recognize. Mix that with "I'm sure you all like it because...." and then you're actually wrong about your assumption while delivering it with that tone, people are going to respond.

If you can't see that they're responding to your assumption and not your opinion of the amp, that's on you.
 
DrewJD82 said:
No one gives a fuck about your opinions on the amp if that's the only thing you're putting forth. What people have been saying that you either cannot see or refuse to recognize is when you start tossing out assumptions of other members and why they dig something. You have a very condescending, "I know more" way of posting that I'm sure you don't recognize. Mix that with "I'm sure you all like it because...." and then you're actually wrong about your assumption while delivering it with that tone, people are going to respond.

If you can't see that they're responding to your assumption and not your opinion of the amp, that's on you.
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Yeah being a condescending twat in his “opinion piece” that wildly and inaccurately shat on dozens of members certainly didn’t help. And then crying about being bullied and gaslit when called out on his shit… well…


Either sack up and learn to hang here in a non bitch-made manner or else don’t let the door hit ya on the way out @Shredder777

Still would love to chat alternatives to the EVH if ya think you can hang. I legitimately think an ENGl might be a worthwhile thing to look into in your tonal pursuits
 
DrewJD82 said:
No one gives a fuck about your opinions on the amp if that's the only thing you're putting forth. What people have been saying that you either cannot see or refuse to recognize is when you start tossing out assumptions of other members and why they dig something. You have a very condescending, "I know more" way of posting that I'm sure you don't recognize. Mix that with "I'm sure you all like it because...." and then you're actually wrong about your assumption while delivering it with that tone, people are going to respond.

If you can't see that they're responding to your assumption and not your opinion of the amp, that's on you.
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I’d like to add that this community is super solid. Many of the folks here are what I consider friends. I try to treat them as such. We can all fall short at times as we are just human. But we try. Humility, honesty and being open to the fact that gear is a personal journey but one we can share as long as we respect and support each other. It’s something I treasure and look forward to every day. Drop the assumptions and the mood swings… be yourself and tolerate differences of opinion. No one is forcing the 5153 on you, in fact I and others have offered advice (you aren’t interested in) and possible alternatives with other amps. Do you really think we are here to belittle you or fight you?

We aren’t. You can salvage all of this by showing your soft side and enjoying your ride with us. I invite you to think about that and do so if you wish. Although I may be blocked… really? Because I spoke openly? Alright.
 
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