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I love this amp so much. Congrats

HNAD!!

The blue channel is so perfect and then you still have the red if you play leads or just want another volume level or eq flavor. Getting ansty to crank mine up again lol been a couple days and in a few hours I'll be in my happy spot


Been debating sending mine back to Kruse for concentric knobs on the shared eq on the green and blue but I'm not sure we use enough cleans to justify it rn lol
 
Congratulations! I love mine and the EL34.

Tried a standard 100w head but was disappointed by the lack of a resonance control (which I love) and midi. It was beautiful and the design with separate presence controls for each channel was very nice. If not for those two things, mainly resonance, I’d have kept it. Went with a JVM410H instead for 100w duty.
 
Did you guys with the EL34 50w do the C137 mod? I left mine stock and didn't love the blue channel that way for what I do. It wasn't awful but didn't really match the rest of the amp.

I still say I liked the 6L6 best, followed by the Stealth.

50w porn (all are sold now)

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I had custom headshells made for mine. Actually white instead of that off-white, ivory color. I still have two of them if anyone is interested.
 

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Parallel 4CM would be routing the input to different preamps. There's no reason it wouldn't work with this amp or any other amp with a loop. The send doesn't have to interrupt anything because when you switch to another preamp there would be nothing coming into the input of the 5150.

Also the "master volume" in that scenario would be the volume control of your processor.
 
It sounds like you want the amp to be able to be used with no cab? The only way to do that is with a load box. Like the vast majority of amps it needs a load of some kind.
 
Its not about playing it at bedroom level, but having to fuck with three different volume knobs that are very touchy. There is no master volume. Have not owned a tube head without it. Its a necessary feature. Its not even letting me use it as a preamp.
Oh, no. I don't really agree that this is a problem. It is three fucking knobs. You're being a fanny.

Set your clean. Set your crunch. Set your lead.

Oh damn, my clean is too loud. Turn it down. Or turn the other two up.

It is very simple.
 
What I want is to use the 5150 preamp into another amp's return

Guitar -> 5150 -> (send) -> (irt return) -> Cabinet

The problem is that running from the send of the 5150 does not break the signal to the power amp. So I can't figure out how to use it just as a preamp. Usually inserting a cable into the send will disconnect it from it's amp, but it's not working that way here. And putting it into standby, turns off the preamp, so I cant have it on standby and use just the preamp. (This has to be a Fender business unit asshole decision to keep it less versatile.)

Only other solution is to insert a dead cable into the return, but the amp probably would still benefit/need a cabinet.

Need a block diagram of this bitch but Fender did not provide in manual.
Dummy plug in the headphones jack.
 
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Dual rectifier - Two selectable master volumes
JVM410H - Two selectable master volumes
Laney IRT - Master volume / Wattage control
Eddies Jose Modded Marshall - Master volume added
Engl - Master volumes


Afaict, only Evh and Mark series amps are lacking master. I didn't think it would be an issue planning to use this as a preamp into another amp.
You're calling the design stupid because it doesn't support your own incredibly uncommon use case. The design does what it's intended to do. If you want to do something special (which is totally fine of course), there are ways or workarounds to accomplish it.
 
:pickle

I didn't even know it had a headphone jack. Never had a tube amp with a headphone jack.
It's not like it's hidden. :idk may I suggest reading the manual? Lol.

It's a recording out with analog cab emulation. Many amps have that. They just named it differently.

But anyway, plugging a cable in it mutes the signal to the speakers so it will do what you need.
 
So!

I've been testing it out and it has some great sounds. But... the main problem with the amp is no MV and touchy volume knobs. No worries, I knew this going in and was planning to use it in 4cm into another amp's return, but putting a cable into the 5150s send doesn't disable the signal to its power section, so it seems that the amp is always ON. Putting it in standby seems to disable the preamp section so that doesn't work.

I have to figure out how to use just the preamp section of the 5150 or it is useless to me. I was planning on running it 4cm 4cm along side another amps preamp, into the other amp's return (that has a MV), but it seems the amp is always on and needs a load. No, I'm not going to run a load on the 5150 so I can use it as a preamp. This sucks, usually inserting something into the send breaks the path to the poweramp..

I had a long review typed up, but until/if I can figure this out, I can't give my final verdict on it.

The short review is that it has some great sounds, but the 3/4 size chassis, the pushbutton channel switching (which accidentally move the adjacent volume knobs) and lack of MV is a MAJOR bummer. The full size head doesn't have resonance or midi and has even more punishing volume, so thats not in consideration.
I want it to work like every other amp I've owned, when you insert into the send, that disconnects the signal from the power amp. So if it doesn't get anything back into the return, the amp gets no signal and doesn't need a load. And usually you can put it in standby which disables the poweramp, but not the preamp.

This is a shitty design.

It’s not shitty design, it’s intentional. It’s for W/D/W rigs so you can run a preamp send to a wet rack while maintaining your core dry tone.

Plug a dummy jack into the Effects Return to disable the poweramp. The poweramp is always outputting something though, even if it’s just an imperceptibly quiet noise floor, so I’d also plug the speaker out into a resistive load or something just to make extra sure you don’t damage anything though. But yeah it’s not “shitty” design, like it was just overlooked or something. It was done for a purpose, just one that doesn’t exactly cater to your specific use case.

I also don’t think a master volume is necessary with these amps, but if you really want one, just add a small volume knob pedal right after the effects send and there you go, master volume.
 
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